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Even though I slept many hours last night I am still very tired when the train reaches Katherine at eight o'clock. This is the largest town before Darwin. There are about 200'000 people livin in the Northern Territiories of which 100'000 are in Darwin, 28'000 in Alice Springs 1500km south of Darwin, 10'000 in Ketherine and the remaining about 60'000 people are spread over the vast area of this state.
Here at a distance of about 300 km to Darwin there is much more water and therefore it's much greener and a lot of trees. In the wet season there can be so much water that the Katherine river floods and in 1989 the town was submerged by a few meters of water during several days.
The train halts for four hours and they offer tours to pass the time. I decide for the Katherine gorge boat cruise. First a coach takes me from the station, which is way outside of Katherine through the town to the river. With a boat seating about 50 people we enter the gorge until a step hinders the boat to proceed. At this place we exit the boat and take a short (300m) walk around that place to another boat which shall bring us further into the gorge.
How did the second boat arrive there? In the wet season the water is a few meters higher and during this time, they park the boat at all places they need them in the dry season.
This and other stuff was explained to us by the boat driver who acted also as guide. Every one and then he would leave his steerin wheel at the end of the boat walk to the front and comment what we were seeing in a quite ad hoc fashion.
You see one or two waterfalls and a lot of dark line on the rocks which indicate that you would see many more waterfalls in the wet season. No nice pictures here as the batteries of the camera were empty.
The railway station of Darwin is far outside the city but there is a shuttle service to the hotels for just AUD 10 which I even did not have to pay. Ok for me. Check-in, shower and a first walk through the center of Darwin. It's already dark and here as in Alice Springs most places have already closed. After the dinner I go soon back to the hotel as I'm still tired by the long travel.