It was great to see my sister, Liz, and for the kids to catch up with their Aunty Liz. Although she had to work during the day for the first 3 days we were there, we really enjoyed having the evening meal with her and Michael and I sitting up late talking with her. There was one night her and Michael got into a really good discussion which covered all sorts of topics – I excused myself at 11.00pm to go to bed, and I found out the next day Michael and Liz had kept talking until 2am – they were obviously enjoying the conversation! On the Saturday Liz spent the day with us, doing her own usual chores while we did a big cook up of biscuits and slice, and then taking us cherapin pot fishing in the afternoon at the local river site. Sunday, she came with us in the morning to a Teddy Bears Picnic community event (part of the Katherine festival) and then headed off to Darwin where she had previously booked some committments for Sunday afternoon and Monday ( an accrued day off work). She was happy for us to stay on at her house a bit longer. We did this, as we still needed to attend to a few jobs on the Monday when the shops were open again. We left just after lunch on the Tuesday.
Some of the things we did in Katherine were:
– the kids rode their bikes around the property where Liz lived – they found a spot down near a dry creek bed where they made a ‘fort’.
– we downloaded some new movies from a set one of Liz’s friends had loaned her – so the kids watched some new movies over ‘rest time’.
– we did lots of washing and gave the caravan a good clean out.
– we baked a whole lot of biscuits while we had access to an oven and froze some.
– we cooked a whole lot more dinners to freeze – ended up with about 10 more frozen dinners which will be very handy. I put them in vacuum seal ziplock bags so they don’t take up much room. Carrying the extra camping freezer for this reason has been a good idea.
– we did some schoolwork for an hour or so on a couple of the days.
– we went swimming at the hot springs every afternoon except one – this was a favourite with all of us as it got quite warm by the afternoons and this was a lovely way to refresh. Even though they were ‘hot springs’ they were actually just lukewarm in the section where we swam (and most people swam) and because it was a lovely shaded area, it was just the right temperature – even for Michael (who only swims when the temperature is over 30 degrees).
– Sam, Hannah and I went fishing at a local spot Liz told us about – only caught snags – found out that evening when talking to Liz that we were using the wrong technique. In that area, we needed to use lures and keep the line moving rather than let it sink to the bottom where there were lots of rocks – we still have lots to learn about fishing!
– then Liz took us to another spot to put the cherapin pots in ( cherapin are a bit like prawns) – we caught 2 overnight on the first night, then 4 on the second night. The kids really enjoyed this. I bought some prawns with my next grocery shop and thought we could add the cherapin to the prawns with a stir fry – will do that tonight or tomorrow night.
– we went to a community event on the Sunday in the grounds of the Katherine museum. It was a teddy bear’s picnic. Hannah and Beth took their teddies and had cuddles with the dressed up teddies. They had faces painted and went on a jumping castle and did some craft things. There wasn’t as much to do for the older kids, but we relaxed and had a sausage sizzle lunch there.
All in all, a good week and on Tuesday 21st August, we set off again, just driving 2 hours to stay at Victoria River roadhouse caravan park that night.