Nitmiluk National Park, Northern Territory

Darwin (en route to Nitmiluk National Park)

The shadow of a bird of prey moving across the dry grass. A shimmering flight of rainbow bee-eaters seeking refuge in the green canopy of the monsoon forest. White fruit doves, double-barred finches and orange-footed scrubfowl. The careless sea breeze that comes in with the tide each afternoon of the dry season. Travel-weary backpackers. A procession of red-dirt splattered twin cabs driving into town at the end of the working week. Later that night drinkers spill onto the footpath and men prowl the streets, an undercurrent of reckless longing in their gait.

Bats and fire moths flying through the warm, dark sky at Darwin’s deck chair cinema. Our first night in the tropical north and we’re keen to immerse ourselves in Top End culture. The audience is urbane, the film ‘Westwind: Djalu’s Legacy’ tells the story of Djalu, a Yolngu tribal elder, yidaki master and custodian of an ancient dreaming. It’s the premiere and before the film starts, Djalu plays live as the light fades in the western sky.

The ‘tjungun̪utga’ exhibition at the Museum & Art Gallery of Northern Territory; a stunning collection of early Papunya paintings, including those of the Pintupi artists, desert mystics who lived on country without European contact until the 1960s. The exhibition acknowledges the extraordinary collective of men from varying cultural groups who came together in Papunya in the early 1970s and ignited the Western Desert Art movement, painting depictions of their ceremonial lives on whatever ‘canvas’ they could find (building materials etc.).
In the hot, dry savannah country, the driver of our Greyhound bus makes an unscheduled stop. Her mother, who she hasn’t seen for months, is waiting by the side of the road. There’s just time for a few words and a quick hug before we’re on the road again, pressing on in the midday heat towards Katherine.

Nitmiluk National Park: 4 Days out on the Southern Trails

Day 1

Nitmiluk National Park (Katherine Gorge) is an ancient landscape shaped by water and dreaming beings. Its broad valleys, deep gullies and majestic 13-kilometre long gorge system with high red sandstone cliffs that rise vertically from the Katherine River feature in the stories told by medicine men. The gully outside the Nitmiluk Visitor Centre is a-quiver with thousands of little red Flying-foxes. Beyond it is a tableau of smoky skies, slender pink salmon gums, agile wallabies and the whistling of kites.
From Pat’s Lookout, we see crocodile tracks in the sand on the riverbank below. Two wild black water buffalo crash through the nearby dry undergrowth. The air is hot and dry. The sun bearing down, the heat radiating from the rock walls of the gorge. We are carrying 4-day packs and the temperature, hovering around 40 degrees, is enervating.
A flock of red-tailed black cockatoos, golden butterflies, blue-winged kookaburras. Tall speargrass, the feeding ground of the endangered and gorgeous Gouldian Finch. Soft green woodlands, paperbark swamps and kapok trees, their pods bursting open and the kapok billowing out.
At Smitt Rock campsite we summon the energy to eat a late lunch and scramble down to the river for a reviving swim in the cool, deep green water of 5th Gorge. We while away the rest of the hot afternoon reading in the shade and swimming in the waterhole. Well after sunset the river still holds light and flows silver through the gorge.

Day 2

A warm night and very little grace in the day. By 8 am the heat is oppressive. The soft early-morning amber glow becomes a dazzlingly bright light that bleaches the country, all colour stripped from the red rock gorges, the green woodlands and even the sandy termite mounds. Walking across broken land that was once the inland sea, rocks holdingwaves, sand and the flow of the tide. Learning to walk slowly and to rest whenever there is shade.
Bronze-winged pigeons in flight. Rocky outcrops with galleries of Jawoyn cave paintings. The valley still black from fires lit earlier in the dry season. To its aboriginal custodians, this burnt country is beautiful, a landscape that has been tended to and is being cared for. Jawoyn people have occupied these lands since the time of the Puwurr – the Dreaming. ‘It was during this time that the world was made and the rules for proper behaviour were laid down.’
The exhaustion of the day’s walking vanishes as soon as we dive into the cool waters of 8th Gorge. An immense star-studded indigo sky above us every time we wake during the night. A balm for fitful dreamers.

Day 3

A cormorant fishing in the river. The walls of the gorge glow in the first light of day; their reflection a thing of beauty in the river. No breeze at all this morning and no cloud cover. The sun is even more intense, the heat a physical force to contend with. Along the escarpment, up and over rough rocky ridges and across dry creek beds. And then a sandy valley, offering respite to tired feet and bodies. The flatness of the path, the softness of the sand underfoot.
Black and navy blue butterflies flitting through the dry grasslands. Flocks of diamond doves flying up from the understory as we approach. A Euro out in the midday sun. Towering termite mounds and contrasting smaller flowing sculptural forms.
Towards the end of our eight-kilometre day, we have only short stretches of walking in us. Our energy sapped, our bodies sun stressed; for every 10 minutes walking in the searing heat, we spend 10 minutes recovering in the shade. Again the river saves us as we plunge in, exhausted after the tough, slow walk. The slender trunked paperbarks offer shade and a soothing greenness. The gorge is majestic.
This is no country of great silence. The river and the waterholes are a chatter of birds during the day. At night, nocturnal creatures pad around the tent and dingoes howl from out across the floodplains. Cloudy tropical skies build to wild, electrical storms; lightning flashing, thunder rolling across the sky, and, once, a great outpouring of rain.

Day 4

A coolness in the air just before dawn. The first rays of the sun light up the sandstone escarpment. The gorge glows monumental. We are on the trail before 6:00 am and with some cloud cover and a slight breeze, the walking on this last day of four is a pleasure. The country bathed in a soft golden glow, birds on song, the air fragrant. Wetlands splashed white with wildflowers. A flat, meandering track shaded by bloodwood trees, boabs and sand palms. Blue-faced honeyeaters, diamond doves and pretty double-barred finches. We end the day with more lightness in our step than the previous three days, though we are still grateful for a swim at the walk’s end.

We met only two other walkers out on the southern trails; two affable young English travellers who we shared a campsite with at Smitt Rock and saw again in the Jawoyn Valley. They found the country as staggeringly beautiful and the heat as torrid as we did, although not enough to wear hats.
Awaiting us is a languid day by the campground swimming pool before we head off across the river and into the woodlands on the Jatbula Trail. A gentler walk than the southern trails, as it transpires. (Jatbula post)