Monday, Jan 23, 2006 at 21:02
Hi there Willem,
Well we did the usual wet season things:
1. Jim Jim and
Twin falls roads are closed so you have to do this from the air - and the monsoonal trough sitting over the top of us meant we had no great light for photography. Similarly Gunlom road.
2. Ubirr was open when we first got there, but 700mm of moving water at Magela Creek to negotiate to get in there and usual wet seasons restrictions (afternoons only). Magela Creek subsequently went to 1.3m and was classed Impassable and Ubirr was closed. Unfortunately Guluyambi hadn't put their boats in on the Magela yet (too much turbulence) so we couldn't go back out there as we had wished.
3. Yellow water was very high and the bird life was down a lot - there is so much water out there that they become rather scarce
4.
Nourlangie rock was great
Also visited
Litchfield - heaps of water there and lots of 2WDers got stuck in there I'm sure, and
Katherine Gorge - once again, with lots of water.
On the way back the
underpass under the Stuart Highway near
Batchelor? for a magnesium
mine to ship ore to the ADL-DWN rail line was totally flooded out and the foundations of the
bridge were being undermined - 10km/h limit, but I bet there will be much more chaos as the repairs and reconstruction are done - I think some hydrologist or engineer someone is sweating his job as we speak!
So yes - lots of water, and not ideal for photography damn it, but still had fun out there, including
Boggy Hole on the way up.
Ciao for now
Andrew.
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