Australasia > Australia > Northern Territories > Gregory National Park > Canoeing and kayaking > Articles > Snowy's River

"It’s all right," repeats Snowy, as he forges across the lagoon toward me to effect the umpteenth rescue of the day.

In the corner of the small pool I make my sixth frantic attempt to mount the slippery underside of my upturned canoe, and try once more to drag my flailing legs from under the dusky waters of the Flora River.

"She’s only a freshy," he reassures.

For a moment, I draw breath and stop thrashing.

"Quite a nice size too," smiles Snowy calmly, "about six or seven foot."

I eye the shallows, two metres away, where the croc lies in wait. Instinctively, my legs resume their futile kicking. I grip the canoe hard.

"She won’t hurt you," responds Snowy.

"Now, grab that tree root," he continues, "and let the canoe go."

I grasp the kayak harder.

"Let it go," resumes Snowy patiently.

I look at our canoe guide’s face. It has 'trust me' written all over it.

Reluctantly, I relax my hold on the canoe. Then I let it go. Caught in the current, the canoe quickly sneaks off downstream and Snowy hitches a ride on it.

So there I am, up the creek without a paddle, or indeed a kayak, with a large crocodile for company.

Today is the third of a five-day adventure through some of the Northern Territory's most untouched rivers and National Parks, travelling in canoes, on foot and by four-wheel drive.

We are a small group - Warren and Ingrid, a fit Queensland couple in their fifties, gawky Japanese scientist Toru and me - led by two maverick but highly-accredited NT tour guides, Martin "Snowy" Wohling, for the canoeing, and Mike Keighley, for the four-wheel driving that follows. The tour we are on is deliberately structured to be intimate, unhurried and responsive to our needs and wants.

We began our trip two days earlier on the lower reaches of the Katherine River, some 60 kilometres south-west of the much-visited Gorge. This is the real Katherine River, flowing smooth, wide and serene and nearly devoid of any sign of humanity.

It is May, the start of the Territory’s Dry season. By 10am, the sun is already high in the sky. But we are cooled by a light wind. Paperbark trees fringe the river. The air is full of small, soothing sounds - the ripple of the water, the breeze in the trees, the cheep-cheep of minuscule birds.

Within fifteen minutes of setting off I have lost my watch. It drops over the side of the canoe as I try to store it away in a waterproof container. As it sinks into the deep green water, I have a momentary pang of loss.

But then I shrug. Already, as we drift along with the river’s gentle flow, I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Losing my watch just emphasises my sense of calm, my feeling that over the next few days we will be journeying to a slower, more natural tempo.

During these early hours on the Katherine, we practise our kayaking technique, including everything from correct paddling style to how to duck forward to avoid overhanging branches. We have a good teacher -- Snowy once represented Australia at canoe polo -- but some of us are just a little too taken with the scenery to pay close attention. By the end of two days on the Katherine and one on the Flora, I have paid for that by capsizing on six occasions, each time as a result of inept canoeing.

Our guide not only knows his canoeing but is also an expert on this region’s rivers, spending around three weeks a month on them. On the Katherine he seems to carry a mental map of all the upcoming rapids, sunken trees and sandbanks, a knowledge that allows we debutants to relax on the river.

Snowy also encourages us to use our one-person kayaks to discover our own space and pace. At times we break away to experience the surroundings in solitude, at others we stay close by choice, and occasionally we gather together for tricky sections of river, in case any of us require rescuing.

On our first night, we make camp on a fine sand beach beside the river. As the dying sun filters through the surrounding melaleuca and bloodwood trees Snowy creates a gourmet dinner on the fire. Then, out comes the Scotch and we settle in to listen to his tales of the river while the moon looms above.

Later, tucked up in our tents, we are lulled by the feint glug and gurgle of the Katherine River. Despite carrying the typical city dweller’s bag of phobias about Outback beasties, I am sound asleep in minutes.

The following morning, soon after setting off, we indulge in a monastic group silence, better to take in the river’s wildlife.

In the few hours that the silence lasts, we are rewarded with the sight of several crocodiles (both potentially dangerous estuarine and harmless freshwater), some lofty grey brolgas, a swarm of black cockatoos and many tiny Gouldian finches. A large colony of red flying foxes also disturbs the peace -- hundreds of flimsy sacks of browny-black flesh dangling upside down in the trees, screeching their little heads off.

Even when our self-imposed silence is over, we paddle almost wordlessly, dipping our plastic cups into the clean river when we get thirsty and drinking it straight. We are so far here from man’s pollutants that we will come to no harm.

There is the occasional drama when someone forgets to duck for a tree and ends up capsizing, but overall, the essence of this second day is one of quiet enjoyment of the beautiful Katherine River.

Evidence of the 1998 floods might be everywhere -- with the trunks of large trees and other debris strewn in the uppermost branches of the tall riverside paperbarks -- but the Katherine seems a very different beast now to the one which raged with such catastrophic effects then.

At the end of the second day we hoist the canoes out of the Katherine, hitch them onto Snowy’s trailer and head off for the Flora River, an even more remote and untouched body of water.

Canoeing on the Katherine we haven’t seen another person for two days and Snowy assures us that running into anybody else on the Flora is highly improbable.

"There’s only been a handful of people down this section in the last ten years," he reveals, "it’s as unexplored a river as you are likely to find in Australia."

With the recent creation of the Flora River National Park, located 122 kilometres south west of Katherine and encompassing 25 kms of the Flora River, that situation is likely to change. But for the moment it is the sort of special place, which even a dutiful travel journalist dare not say too much about, in case of spoiling it.

In parts the Flora is deep, still and silvery emerald in color, its banks a dense jumble of extravagant Livistona palms, River Pandanus and Melaleucas. In others, high levels of calcium carbonate in the water have prompted the formation of Tufa dams (build-ups of limestone), small waterfalls and multi-level cascades which block the river intermittently.

It is these blockages in the Flora which, to we in our canoes, prove to be the most physically demanding and yet most exhilarating sections of the river. When we reach them, we either have to carry our canoes around the obstacles, attempt to surf their white waters, or navigate the narrow and intricate channels which run alongside the dams.

Gliding slowly through the channels is especially memorable, with tree roots, palms and freshwater mangroves twisted into knots all around, finely woven spider’s webs (seemingly unbroken in years) suspended overhead and the atmosphere reverberating with the sounds of birds and insects.

In the sometimes-translucent streams beneath us, we can see bream, catfish and grunters as well as pig-nosed turtles, thought, until recently, only to exist in Papua New Guinea. In deeper, murkier pools, such as that where I overturn and become marooned with a seven foot freshy, dwell crocodiles awaiting their next meal.

But thankfully, stranded though I am within chomping distance of a razor-toothed monster, I am not that tasty home delivery.

As Snowy drifts away down the channel with my canoe, he calls out to me.

"Now let go of the tree root," he instructs, "and let yourself go. Feet first remember."

This time I do not hesitate. I launch myself off with a shove, hug my arms into my torso and float away, face-up, with the current, muttering an inaudible 'see you later' to the croc, as I go.

A little downstream, Snowy is waiting for me with my paddle and my now-upright kayak. Minutes later I am back, paddling along, as if nothing had happened.

"I promised you I’d get you close to some wildlife," jokes Snowy, as we pack away the canoes for the final time, at the end of the day. By now my terror has been totally diffused, to be replaced by a sense of humility and wonder.

But our journey through this undiscovered region is far from over. The following day we are soon into the Gregory National Park, with another inspiring and highly knowledgeable Northern Territory guide, Mike Keighley.

The park spreads out for 13,000 square kilometres from the main Victoria Highway and as we travel though it, toward the Western Australian border, we are struck by the rugged vastness all around us, with a succession of massive red sandstone escarpments rising sharply from dusty savannah plains.

Early on we climb high to a hill-top lookout to take it all in. Here we sit among ancient orange boulders, watching as a shimmering convoy of road trains crawls towards us from the horizon. It takes over forty minutes for the three mega-trucks to reach the valley below us.

The following dawn we get even higher above the baked terrain on a scenic flight, out of the ragged township of Timber Creek. Our pilot, Dan, a young clean-cut Melburnian, promises us a spectacular trip and he is as good as his word.

The hour-long flight takes in both sections of the Gregory National Park and passes over luxuriant river valleys, yawning gorges, rocky ravines and a chain of magnificent flattop sandstone mesas. Seen from the air in the lemony light of dawn, the Gregory has an almost mystical quality about it.

We spend our final day delving into the western (Bullita) section of the National Park. Mike has a love of rough tracks and we follow a number of them during the day, emerging at the end of one at a natural pool, formed by a tufa dam, in the midst of a gently-flowing creek. Here we cool off from a broiling afternoon, eating lunch whilst standing waist-deep in the transparent waters of the lagoon.

Later, we hike into Limestone Gorge, through a corroded landscape of dolomite blocks, bizarre limestone tower karsts, twisted Screw Palms and scorched yellow grasses.

That evening, we find our ultimate secluded camping spot close to the crumbling Bullita homestead. We set up under of a large boab tree -- an icon of this part of Northern Australian - its spindly expressive branches curling over our tents from a chunky grey trunk. As darkness descends, standing there looking over us, the tree takes on an almost human demeanour, especially when it is lit by a rising full moon.

Tonight we are at the end of one of life’s great adventures -- one that has tested and enthralled us -- and we are quiet and lost in thought about the days gone by. But with the moon gleaming fat and round above us we cannot resist one final excursion from the camp.

Following close behind Mike, we make our way down to the nearby East Baines River and shine our spotlights across the water. There, on the opposite bank and in the river shallows are at least a dozen pairs of hungry eyes, glowing in the dark. But it’s all right, they’re only freshies.

Daniel Scott is a freelance travel writer who travelled to the Northern Territory at his own expense. His journey through the National Parks was sponsored by the Northern Territory Tourist Commission and the Katherine Region Tourist Association.

GETTING THERE:

This trip was custom-made by Katherine-based tour operators Gecko Canoeing and Far Out Adventures. Katherine is approximately 330 kilometres or three hours drive south of Darwin.

Gecko Canoeing run 1 to multi-day canoeing adventures on the rivers of the Northern Territory. Brochured daily price is $140.00 per person per day, everything including kayaks, waterproof containers, food and tents is included.

Contact Martin and Jenny Wohling at Gecko Canoeing on (08) 8972 2224 or by email on gecko@topend.com.au. Or visit their website: www.geckocanoeing.com.au

Far Out Adventures offer intimate, custom-made tours of the Northern Territory, from Kakadu and Katherine Gorge to some of its more remote regions. Travel is in luxury four-wheel drive vehicles, by air, by canoe or on foot and is fully catered. A choice of accommodation is available.

Contact Mike and Linda Keighley at Far Out Adventures on (08) 89722552 or by email: mike@farout.com.au. Or visit their website: www.farout.com.au

Both Gecko Canoeing and Far Out Adventures have advanced ecotourism accreditation and are Savannah Guide accredited operators and roving interpreters.

For further information on the Northern Territory’s National Parks phone the NORTHERN TERRITORY HOLIDAY CENTRE on 1800 621 336 or the KATHERINE REGION TOURIST ASSOCIATION ON (08) 8972 2650.

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