Off I go again, 6.30am pick up outside Melaleuca to head on the 3 day trip down to Alice Springs.

I booked my trips through Charlie at Backpackers World Travel who gave me 3 options: get a Greyhound Bus straight down to Alice Springs; for an extra $50-70 I could get a bus that stopped at Katherine Gorge and Daly Waters for a little break; or, for another extra $50-60 on top of that, do a 3 day trip with Way Outback stopping at Katherine Gorge, Mataranka Thermal Pools, Daly Waters Pub, Devils Marbles, included most meals and 2 nights camping..... Guess what I booked, haha.

Our tour guide is a wee guy called Pip and including him there was only 6 of us in total. He filled us in on what was happening. He explained that due to all the rainfall and it being wet season, there may be some things we can't do or see, we were going to have to go with the flow.

We headed down to Katherine, we stopped for some lunch then headed to the Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park. The gorge is normally made up of 13 deep sandstone gorges that have been carved out by the Katherine River. In dry season you can paddle, canoe or cruise the river but the recent rainfall meant the gorges were running altogether as one, 2 metres higher than it would normally be.

We stopped at the Nitmiluk centre and booked our river cruise. It was $75 for an hour and a half and took us up the river, where you could get out and do an 800m walk to see aboriginal art. We then got back in and got out at another stop, walked about 500m over rocks and boulders(!!!!) and stopped at the most beautiful swimming hole. It had a massive water fall and turquoise waters.... It was beautiful! This was the only place you could swim in the gorge due to the rainfall and attraction of salt water crocodiles... Our tour guide gave us an underwater camera so we got photos there :)

We then headed to our camp grounds to camp for the night, also in Katherine. The rooms looked like little huts but they were tents(?) and had single beds inside them, electricity, fans and power points.... Could definitely get used to this type of camping!

We had dinner together and it's now 9pm and I can barely keep my eyes open....