Well the started out well with the breakfast cruise in Katherine Gorge.  We were served a full cooked breakfast plus all the other usual stuff.  The boat had no fixed seats and was set out with tables and chairs so you could watch the canyon going by.

Did not do the heli trip as they had no other bookings for the day and two is the minimum unless I wanted to pay double.

So it was off towards Bathelor.  At the roadhouse at Pine Creek I had a nice long chat with a german couple Helmut and Bea.  They are riding  a pair of fully rebuilt Honda Africa Twins that are over twenty years old.  They started a round the world trip in Germany 11 months ago and have crossed Russia, Mongolia, Siberia, had to miss China due to cost of a guide at 10 thousand euro, Cambodia, Loas, Indonesia, East Timor and after three weeks they finally got their bikes out of customs to start the Australia leg.  All this was with no outside support.  The bikes look to have been very well prepared and you get the impression that alot of planning and work went into the prep.  The world needs more people like these two.

After that,  I took the advertised scenic route.  Not scenic at all, just more cattle station country and the only two points of interest, a couple of waterfalls were still closed.  It was also the roughest tar road I have ever been on. 

After that got to Batchelor and headed out towards the national park to find the caravan park.  Had a choice of two,  first one looked Ok and the second one looked not so good so turn around and go back to the first one.

At this point, the Vstrom and me had our first serious falling out.  Not exactly sure what happened but I think it stalled as I did the u-turn but the next thing the Vstrom is on the deck in the middle of one side of the road and I got tossed over it and ended up on the other side of the road. It was at this point I discovered I can pick it up if I have to and the safety gear I wear was worth every cent I paid for it.  Only damage to the bike was a badly gouged hand guard but still perfectly functional and the right pannier now matches the left one.  Only damage to me was a bruise on my left knee from hitting the road but thats it.  All the other padding etc did its job and not skin missing at all.  Bit shaken but will be fine once I get going again in the morning, these things happen.  Kenneth and Wuffy are still not too happy with me at the moment but they should be fine by the morning.

Now to the good bit after that,  booked into this little caravan park. Was shown a huge patch of grass with shade all day and was told to camp wherever I wanted.  When i asked about amentities, I was shown the bathroom, yes I did say bathroom in the camp kitchen for my use as I am the only camper.   Not bad for $10 at night.  They both came down later in the day to check how I was going after the accident, which was nice.  So I staying here for the next three days while I go the Litchfield which is 20 km away and the Darwin is only 100 km away.   No worth moving and the owners have offered to look some of my gear if I want to leave it behind.

Then its is probably south as most of Kakadu is still closed so its probably not worth the km to go there, as I have been there before.