Jatbula Trail Day 1

 What do you do when taking a break from a long distance walk but pick the hottest part of the month just before they close the trail and walk 62 kilometres along the Jatbula Trail in the Northern Territory. It's a hard Trail to book but Belinda was able to get a cancellation spot 3 days before the trail closed in the week we were in the NT.

We arrived at Nitmiluk (Katherine) the day before after spending some time in Alice Springs and Uluru.

The beginning of the trail is a short boat ride across the Katherine River. There are only 15 spots a day and the boat leaves at 7am and 9 am. We booked the 7 am spot with 6 others and 4 more were booked on the 9am boat.

The ride across the river

Our thoughts were to get going early as the daytime temperatures were predicted at 37-38C degrees and 20% chance of 1-2 ml of rain.

Many people means a picture at the start

The days are fairly short with the first days walk only about 7 or 8 kilometres. I changed my pack to the Hyperlite to see how it handled the weight of about 19kg with the bulk of the food and a couple of litres in my pack. Belinda's was about 15kg start weight and Isabelle carried about 6kg. The Hyperlite performed poorly with the heavy weight as a direct comparison to the Osprey pack I've been carrying on the National Trail so I think I will be sticking with the Osprey for a while until I get the load down to the 13 or 14 kg maximum.

Got a selfie and a shot at the start of the trail and the temperature was in the mid 20's at 7am and climbed from there.

Northern Rockhole

The first memorable stop was at a place called the Northern Rockhole. We arrived last to see the group of young people already in the water. Belinda and myself got in and we found out that Isabelle doesn't like slimy water or fish nibbling at her toes. Its going to be a hot walk for her we think.

It's a bit of an effort to get out and walk away from the pool and continue on. The heat is on and the is fairly arid and rocky and the heat reflects back at you as you walk.

Hot walking

We arrive last at the campsite from the early starters. It is hot and we have a little shade. March flies abound but we set up the ground sheet and the tent fly to give us some shade and go down to Biddlecombe Cascades and sit in the closest puddle we find. It's amazing the amount of water flow the creek has at the end of the dry season. It's a truly magical spot. We find some shade but that turned out to be a bit of a bad spot as I picked up a couple of leeches . Didn't say that out loud to Isabelle as she didn't need another creepy crawly added to her list. We just called them worms.

The Cascades

The afternoon was spent lying in the shade and then walking down to the Cascades when we were overheated. A helicopter flew overhead in the afternoon. Isabelle joked we should push the red button and ask for a ride. There is a communication point at each campsite and evacuation is via commercial helicopter service at your own expense. Starts about $1300 per person.

Got to get in to stay cool

This how you do it

The sun finally disappeared and we set up the inner of the tent to keep the bugs off us. We took down the fly but at 1am the 20% chance of rain came about and I had to get up and put the fly back on making it hot inside. Same weather again due tomorrow.