Douglas Daly Tourist Park

Tuesday 14th July 2009
One of the changes in the environment are the number of bugs and little critters which come to the lights during the night.
In WA there were virtually none whereas here in NT there's plenty of them. Last night was also the first time we noticed the air traffic in and out of Darwin airport.
We had a good night at Mathison rest area but at about 3am a carload of German tourists pulled in and set up their tents disturbing the otherwise quiet night.
Ron got the fire going in the morning and we had baked beans on toast for brekkie. The people opposite our caravan gave us all their vegetables as they were heading towards the WA border where Quarantine collect all fruit and veg.
We got going eventually and after about one hour on the road we arrived in Katherine where we parked just on the edge of the CBD and then walked to the post office and bank before refuelling on our way out. Katherine is a neat little town with lots of shops and other infrastructure. A large part of the population is indigenous and like most towns up here Katherine has special rules governing the sale of alcohol.
Our travel direction changed from East to North as we headed up the Stuart Highway in the general direction of Darwin which is not that far away.
We had our lunch stop at Pine Creek in the park next to the old railway display and then continued on to a small place called Hayes Creek where we left the Stuart highway for the 40km drive to Douglas Daly Tourist Park. There is no town at this location on the Douglas River, just a Tourist Park with Diesel Generator Power and unlimited water supply. The hot springs around this area provide all the water to keep the Douglas River flowing all year round.
After our caravan setup we went for a drive 2km down the river to a location called The Arches (photo 1) where the Douglas River flows through some rocks which form an arch due to the washout beneath. After these rocks the water emerges to a nice swimming hole with a sandy beach. There are fresh water crocs in the area but salties have not been seen for quite some time.
A little bit further up the river at "The Weir" we could see a few Black Bream swimming in the water. Although these waters are famous for Barramundi it is now a little bit too cold for Barra so we tried our luck using lures and bait but coulnd't entice a single Black Bream to take either. We had to admit defeat and eat canned Tuna for dinner.
Alexander managed to get one of my good lures snagged in a tree on the other bank of the river. This meant that I had to cross (picture 2) these [potentially] croc infested waters to retrieve my lure from a tree. You'll be happy to know that the resident fresh water crocs stayed in hiding while I crossed and the salties are probably a lot further downstream (we assume).