Katherine - 23 July 2009

I am in Katherine. At the Springvale Homestead Tourist Park or some such. Near the Katherine River, and 5 metres from a small billabong that, I am assuming, is not inhabited by snapping handbags (saltwater crocs) just yet. Actually they tend to call salties estuarine crocs these days to try and ram home to people that they can live in freshwater as well. Currently this part of the Katherine river is thought to be free of crocs, but it will not be too long until they move up here. Salties are moving further up rivers and into more and more billabongs due to an expanding population. Hunting has ceased as of 30 or 40 years ago, and aboriginal predation of eggs has also declined with less people living off the bush. Hence the population is large. Probably larger than it has ever been. The males are very territorial, and will defend as much territory as they can manage from smaller, younger males. Hence the crocs being found upstream are mostly younger males.

The Aggressor is so named by the locals for harassing boats on the billabong. This is him seconds after munching an egret on the bank for breakfast. Hence the rough surface on the water. Red Lily Billabong, Kakadu National Park.

For the last few days I have been moving further up the Daly river system. At the Mango Farm where I stayed for two nights, near the Daly River townsite (calling it a town site is a fair stretch, but they do) you are about 50 km by river from the coast. The next region of the Daly, accessed by a different road (there is no nice drives up along river systems in the Territory) is the Douglas Daly. This is where the Douglas and the Daly rivers meet. You may hear this area mentioned when pollies discuss northern Australian agriculture, and all this northern food bowl talk. Well now I know why they talk about the Douglas Daly. Apart from being one of the few areas in the territory with cleared land, the soil seems reasonable, the rainfall is said to be a reliable 1200mm, and even now that it is mid dry season there is still a reasonable amount of H2O rushing down the Daly. The cleared land has had non-native pastures planted on it (mostly buffell grass) for cattle. There are a variety of field crops grown, although not much, and mostly during the wet. They grow a tropical legume called cavalcade as hay, hence many paddocks are littered with huge haystacks. The hay gets compressed into small pellets and used as feed for cows on their way to Indonesian.

Cavalcade haystacks near the Douglas River.

Most of the cattle up here are Brahman. They handle the heat and ticks and walking to water quite well, but don't taste that fantastic as a big lump of steak. So almost all the cattle up here get shipped to Indonesia, where they are fattened up a bit more in feedlots. They get butchered and then taken home by our nearest neighbours to go into noodles, and stir fries etc, where tender tasty meat is somewhat less important. The other major landuse is African Mahogany. A hardwood I think, prized for it's timber, which is used for furniture. There are two companies I know of that are in action up here. One of them is everybody's favourite M.I.S. company, Great Southern. All the plantations I saw were less than 2 feet high. I imagine it will be another 20 years before they are ready to harvest. I came across almost all of this information by dropping in at the Douglas -Daly Research Farm, where the farm manager gave me an hour long tour.

African Mahogany seedlings in a Cavalcade hay paddock. The trees are the green fuzz along the small planting mounds.

The third and final region of the Daly is the Katherine-Daly (although not often called this). It is the region around the Katherine, Edith, and Florence rivers, which form the Daly. I have yet to explore here, but I believe the agriculture is mostly mango's and peanuts. The Katherine gorge, and Edith falls are the main tourist highlights and I will spend the next few days checking them out.

Verily by beauty it is that we come at wisdom

(I am expecting to suddenly become very wise after all this travelling to gorges, waterfalls, billabongs, rock art and rivers)

PS. Do those of you who are UWA-ites know where this is inscribed?