Day 32 – Tue, 10 Aug to Darwin

Time to get moving again, packed camp but still managed to fit it a talk with a couple before departing. They were a German couple (30 something) and they approached me to talk about the bike and the ride.

She was impressed with the water carriers on the bottom of my panniers – even took photos Gary tried to say they were patented.lol.. You see they were riding bikes as well. She was on a 400 (dirt) and he was on a Honda Transalp 650. They have been on the road for sometime – 2 and half years doing the Americas, shipped their bikes to NZ (didn’t say how long they were there) now doing a 12 month trip around Australia. They left Sydney, rode to Cape York then across the top on the Savannah Way (all the 4wd stuff including creek crossings).They don’t do big km days but just keep pushing on. I wish them well.

Today was a transit day to Darwin. I headed back to Mataranka and then N. Along the way stopped in at Catta Catta Caves for morning tea and learnt about the limestone caves and outcrops covering the whole northern region – hence the profusion of springs from this underground water network.

By lunch I was in Katherine so I took a 50km round trip detour out to the Katherine Gorge – just did a walk around and did some reading of the information boards. I have previously done the 3 gorges river trip.

Then back on the road again to Adelaide River where I took another detour to the war cemetery where those that were killed in the bombing of Darwin were laid to rest – both the servicemen and the private individuals (for example those working in the post office).

I arrived in Darwin and dropped into the BMW dealership to make sure that all was okay for my bike service in the morning. Well who should be there but my fall down mate, John – talk about great timing. He was just picking up his bike following the completion of the work from his crash. He was staying in Darwin for the night so he picked me up (in a car he had on loan) from my accommodation and we headed for the harbour where we just finished a great Greek seafood meal (far better than the camp meals).