Victoria River & Timber Creek

At just under 200 Km southwest of Katherine, Victoria River Roadhouse was our next stop. The pleasant caravan park right on the banks of the river is peaceful and good value at $20 per night for a powered site. For at least 20 Km or so as you approach Victoria River the landscape becomes much more dramatic with the road weaving through rugged red hills under a brilliant blue sky. The hills appear to get higher as you get closer to the river. There is a lot of roadwork going on in this part of the country including a new high-level bridge over the river, but we were told that even this massive new structure would still go underwater in a big wet. We undertook two walks while there, the first at Joe Creek, and the second a free ranger guided walk through the riparian zone along the river. The Joe Creek walk has you scrambling up to the base of the escarpment and then walking along the base of the towering red cliffs amongst the Livistonia Palms, it is quite hard going for the first part. The return section of this 1.7 Km track is via a dry creek bed back to the carpark. The ranger guided walk was most informative as we learned about the animals and birds that inhabit the fragile zone along the river’s edge. We also learnt how important the tall (up to 2 metres) spear grass is and it’s vulnerability to destruction by feral animals like Buffalo and Pigs. This walk was well worth doing and the rangers were friendly, helpful and enthusiastic.

Ninety kilometres west of Victoria River is the small town of Timber Creek where we stayed overnight so that we could take the river cruise. The river here is quite wide and very attractive as passes through the rugged countryside and on the 2½ hour cruise you travel downstream for over 40 Km. The shallow draft boat takes about 38 passengers but with it’s two 200 HP 4 stroke Honda outboards it really gets moving and makes for a thrilling ride. You do make plenty of stops as Geoff the skipper brings the front of the boat right up onto the banks to get a real close look at the numerous crocs sunning themselves. A stop is also made near the territory of a pair of sea eagles who come down to the bank to accept a small handout. It seemed unusual to see these large majestic birds feeding on the bank while totally ignoring us and the dozens of Black and Whistling Kites constantly hassling them for a scrap or two. At the furthest point of the cruise Geoff brings the boat to a stop in the middle of the river and serves a selection nibbles and fruit while we consumed our bottle of chilled

chardonnay as the sun set over the mountains. On the swift return journey Geoff again stopped the boat in the middle of the river where we all enjoyed the spectacle of the sun setting over a long straight reach of the river.

In 1855 Augustus Gregory set up camp on the riverbank near a couple of large Boab trees. He had his men cut planks of timber from a nearby creek (hence the name of the town) to repair his boat, the Tom Tough that lay at anchor on the Victoria River. We visited this site and the inscriptions in the tree made by Gregory and his men are still clearly visible. Our second night in the area was spent in the Gregory National Park at Big Horse Creek campground. This campground is only about 10 Km out of Timber Creek and it’s unusual name comes from it’s popularity with fishers. It seems around here if you catch a large Barra it is called a “Big Horse” so we can assume that quite a few large ones are caught in this tidal creek. Another thing to do is to walk across the large high-level steel and concrete Bradshaw Bridge that crosses the Victoria River. This bridge is securely locked at its northern end as it is only there as an access into the army’s Bradshaw training ground. It is probably the largest bridge crossing the Victoria River and yet is very seldom used. Another thing we did was to drive up to the lookout at the top of the escarpment to take in the view of the town and later, the sunset

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