Cutta Cutta caves & Nitmiluk Gorge

This morning we did a tour of Cutta Cutta caves. Apparently Cutta means stars and the aborigines thought that the sparkling limestone cave formations inside sparkled like stars so they named the cave Cutta Cutta meaning lots of stars. Unlike the Jenolan or Donna cave at Chillagoe, this cave does not have much in the way of artificial lighting only the small lights along the elevated walk-way to light the way. To see most the formations properly requires the guide to light them with her torch. The tours take about an hour from the time you pay until you walk back to your car and they run at 9, 10, 11am and 1, 2, and 3 pm. We did the 10am tour which gave us time to drive back to Nitmiluk Gorge for the cruise we had booked at 1pm. The gorge tours were very booked up despite the fact that there are lots of them; you can choose from 2, 4, or 8 hour cruises, each adding more to the tour. The two hour covers two gorges, the four hour covers three and the eight hour covers five of the thirteen gorges with time allowed for swimming in the two longer tours. Nitmiluk, pronounced Nit-me-look, used to be known as Katherine Gorge but was renamed to Nitmiluk which means Cicada Place. The name was given by Nabilil, important figure of the Creation Time. As he travelled through the country he came to the Gorge where he heard the song of the Cicada, “Nit, Nit, Nit!” Since 1989, under European law under the Land Rights Act, Nitmiluk has been recognised as belonging to Jawoyn, its traditional Aboriginal owners. Jawoyn manage this park according to Jawoyn Law in association with the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the NT. The gorge is magnificent and although Fin and I did this cruise BC (before children), in fact 23 years ago, we wanted to do it again because we remembered that it was such a natural wonder that you have to experience. Actually, we tried to book one of the new (since April 07) catered cruises where you view the gorge whilst enjoying a candlelight meal on board but we only found out about them when we got here yesterday and they were all booked up. Drat! It would have been a good anniversary dinner despite being a day early. Half way, we had to get out and walk about two kilometres to the next gorge since the boats can’t get through between but we also saw some aboriginal rock paintings which were pretty amazing. Neither of us remembers seeing them last time we did this cruise so maybe they have become visible since then through changes caused by the major flooding that happens up here. I have included a photo of a palette we saw up a tree near here on our walk this evening; it would be up about 7 or 8 metres! Mind you we are staying in what is known as Low Level here so I guess the flooding is worse around here. I can’t imagine being here in the wet season; it would be very scary and difficult.
We went for a walk after we did shopping on the way home then booked a few things for WA and confirmed our Bungle Bungle tour. There is a single lane bridge that crosses over the Katherine River just before you get to our caravan park and the view from it is very pretty as the water rushes over a small weir and around some rocks and trees so I wanted to go and have a look at it on foot and take some photos. We walked across the park opposite where we are staying and over to the river then up onto the bridge which thankfully had a pedestrian section then kept going to a path we had seen in passing with signs indicating it was a designated walking path with something of interest. When we got there, the signs were all faded and unreadable but we continued on the path hoping to see something of interest. The path seemed to go up and away from the river and I was getting concerned that we were going on a wild goose chase but Fin assured me we would get back to the river eventually. Well, we did but it was to the Katherine Hot Springs pools. I so wished I had my togs on then since we were hot from our walk but had to be content to just look. We did see some interesting spiders and some rifle or trigger fish looking for a bug they could shoot down when we went further around to the river bank. It was getting dark by this stage so we had to head back to our unit while we could still see the path.

Photos now added. We have Vodafone in Kununurra!