Day 16: Katherine

Another rest day today. That doesn’t mean that we sat around doing nothing all day, it just means that we took it easy. And didn’t drive any long distances.

Last night we stayed at the Katherine Farmstay again, and it was very pleasant. Even though we didn’t book ahead, we got a nice shady spot under the trees, and surrounded by people who all have Starlink devices for internet.

I’m feeling a little left behind technologically, but then the $175/month for unlimited, high-speed internet seems a bit rich when I’m just as happy being uncontactable and off the grid.

Plus the $300-$500 to buy the device initially.

We packed up Percy this morning, hooked up Elsie, and briefly became 2 Aussie Nomands by moving camp from the Katherine Farmstay to the Katherine Outback Experience (KOE). A whole 10km or so.

That’s what I call a relaxing day’s driving!

Last night we booked tickets for the KOE show at 9.30am today, but we have also have tickets tonight for a concert here featuring Tom Curtain, Luke O’Shea, Laura Frank, and Chris Matthews.

Tom Curtain is the guy who owns and operates the KOE. Second from the left.

So we packed up Percy and arrived over at the KOE just after 9.00 for the 9.30 show.

We’ve noticed a bit of an unpleasant smell in Percy’s bathroom area over the last few days. It’s not entirely unusual, but it has been hot here.

Remember the other day I mentioned that MBW needed some retail therapy, well we found a K-Hub in Katherine and browsed around, and she found a nice pair of slacks on special?

What she really wanted was some shorts, but they don’t stock shorts at the moment – they only keep winter stock. Which absolutely makes sense, right? I mean, sitting here doing the blog at 4.00pm on Friday afternoon, my watch tells me that it is currently 33 degrees but feels like 34, because it is about 95% humidity after all.

So you can understand the logic of not selling shorts in KMart, but focussing instead on warm, thick, bulky jackets because we are moving into winter.

Apparently.

So back to the unpleasant smell. It has been hot here and the toilet light has come on, so we need to empty it. There is only one dump point in town (right across the road from the K-Hub as it happens …) but we didn’t have time to swing by before heading to the KOE, so we did it after the show.

I know that you are probably beside yourselves wanting to know about the unpleasant smell, but you are going to have to hang on a bit longer.

I think that they call that “delayed gratification”.

The KOE show was fabulous. Poor old Tom had a bit of an issue this morning before the show. Nothing as bad as the “unpleasant smell” problem that we were having, but a problem anyway.

It seems that the Ghan (that’s a fancy train that goes between Darwin and Adelaide) was running late, and the KOE is like a cruise ship’s “shore excursion”, with the option (I assume) to disembark the Ghan, get on a bus and be transported to the KOE, and then back again.

Except that the Ghan was running about 30 minutes late.

So Tom started the show anyway, and the Ghan people just missed out on the first bit of the show. And what a great show it was too – horses, dogs, goats, donkeys, a Brahman bull, and a mule.

Here is a fun fact: a mule is an equine hybrid created by crossbreeding a make donkey with a female horse. You can tell that it is a mule because it has a horse’s tail, which is quite different to a donkey’s tail.

This blog might be a lot of things, but I like to think that it has some educational value.

So anyway, Tom demonstrated horse training, dog training, goat herding, horse riding, whip cracking, and he even sang a few songs.

Did I mention that – in addition to running an award-winning tourist attraction – he is also an accomplished singer and musician, having won 2 “Golden Guitars”? That’s pretty impressive.

The show was actually really good, well worth the money and a great opportunity to get the outback experience here in Katherine. Well worth it, and I would highly recommend that you consider it if you happen to find yourself in Katherine.

Tom is also a really down to earth guy and – I assume – he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like us mere mortals. After the show he happily stood around and answered all of our banal questions that simply demonstrate how ignorant us city-slickers really are.

They also have a whole litter of puppies that they brought out after the show … awww, so cute.

MBW even mentioned that she wants a puppy for her 60th birthday, so maybe I’ll have to rethink that double-barrelled shotgun.

By the time that the show was finished and we all had a cuddle of the puppies, they had mown the area where the caravans can stay the night, and so we put Percy into place, unhooked Elsie, and had an early lunch.

And then we set about addressing the toilet issue.

Do you want the good news, or the bad news?

I’ll give you the bad news first. The toilet issue wasn’t an issue. It was an unmitigated disaster. It was a crisis. It was horrible.

Truly disgusting.

I’m reminded of the story of the guy who fell into a septic tank and couldn’t get out, so he swam on undeterred. (If you don’t get that joke, let me know and I’ll explain it).

Which has absolutely no relevance for the crisis that we were having, except to give you an idea of the scale of the disaster.

I actually wondered if calling 000 might be the correct thing to do in this emergency, but MBW didn’t think so. She thought that the Police were probably thinking of other types of emergency, and she was sure that they wouldn’t want to deal with this one.

The good news? The good news is that I am going to spare you all of the disgusting details of the disaster because … well, because as much as I believe that a problem shared is a problem halved, it really isn’t halved in this particular case.

So I’m not going to tell you any more, but I’ll leave it to your fertile imaginations to consider the possibilities.

So anyway, the crisis was addressed, the canister was loaded into the back of Elsie – VERY CAREFULLY – and we made a trip into town and make a deposit at the Katherine dump point.

And you know what they say – “when you are up to your elbows in cr*p, take the opportunity to also do your grocery shopping …”

And so we did. Into Woolworths to buy a few essentials, then back home to Percy for a bit of a rest. MBW to her book, and me to have my afternoon nap.

It was only a short nap because it was just too hot inside Percy to sleep. We are off the grid, remember? So no power for running the air-conditioner. I just got up and decided to do the blog instead.

I mean I’m hot, and grumpy, and I have all manner of things under my fingernails, but I have to say that I feel better for getting all of that off my chest 🙂

They are starting a warm-up for tonight’s concert which starts in the next hour or so, so I might go and make myself beautiful and get dolled up in my boots and spurs so that I can blend in tonight.

They are selling pizzas tonight, so we are going to indulge. Don’t let MBW ever tell you that I never take her out anywhere! Today I took her to the dump point, AND a concert.

That’s about all for today. I’m pleased to report that they have two types of music here in Katherine – Country AND Western. With any luck we will hear some of each tonight..

But first, I might just go and wash my hands one more time …

Hooroo (that’s Aussie for Ciao)

#Retirement2024

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