Our next stop in the NT was at the Manbulloo Homestead a working cattle station along the Katherine River and situated about 10 kms from the town of Katherine.
It’s a bitumen road 🛣 from the highway to the homestead. Unfortunately our GPS system seemed to be getting quite confused and tried to guide us into private properties. I am guessing others have had the same problem as some of the gates have a sign indicating that the caravan park is further down the road.
The people and pets we met at reception were very friendly and we were invited to go for a wander and pick a site that would suit us.
The trees in the park are huge and give an excellent amount of shade if that’s what you are looking for. The sites are level which as we know is a great start. Some sites are reasonably well grassed and shady you are encouraged to wash your car and caravan or give the area a sprinkle 💦 of water.
👉$36 per night 2A – powered site (discount is if you stay 7 nights)🔌
👉Potable water 🚰
👉 and limited TV reception📱
👉Amenity blocks – one of which is a new unisex ensuite design 🚿♿️
👉Laundry 👕👚
👉2 Camp kitchens with BBQ’s 🍽
👉Fire pit ♨️
👉2 Dump points 🚽🚽
👉Pet friendly 🐶
👉There are lots of beautiful birds in the park as well as horses and cattle in the paddocks.🐂🐎🦜
👉Make sure you read the interesting history of Manbulloo Homestead at the information boards near reception.
👉Great walk to the Katherine River from the caravan park – swimming in the river is for crocs only 🐊😁🐊
👉Fishing but don’t stand to close to the edge 🎣🐟🐊😏
👉We also enjoyed driving to the low level Katherine River crossing. It is well worth a look and walk as you will notice that it obviously has some awesome floods coming through at times. Again swimming is for crocs 🐊only and fishing at your own risk.
👉Then we went off to the town of Katherine to do some shopping. We couldn’t believe how busy it was. The butcher🥩 , the supermarket 🛒 and the liquor 🍾store. The butcher said they are always busy. The lovely lady in the supermarket check-out said they have been very busy of late. There were a lot of locals and travllers shopping.
👉The liquor 🍾store was another very popular and busy place. Alcohol restrictions do apply in different areas of the NT and photo ID must always be presented. We already knew this but had never before entered a liquor store to show our ID to two policemen 👨✈️👨✈️…..mind you everyone who walked through the door had to provide ID.
👉Next we went into the Visitors Information Centre – again another very busy place, where we picked up maps and other information for our further travels.
👉TIP: There is a great RV parking area adjacent to the centre if you don’t want to unhook. Walking distance to Woolworths, Brumby Bakery, Amcal Pharmacy, Target Country and other stores.🛒
👉The next day we ventured out to Katherine Hot Springs. The water is crystal clear 💦 and looked very inviting, but again it was also very busy.
👉Last year we took a drive to Nitmiluk National Park where Katherine Gorge is located. The Nitmiluk National Park Visitor Centre has all the information that you require to go off and explore. There are 13 natural gorges which are carved through sandstone by the Katherine River. The walking trails 🚶♀️🚶♂️are well marked and lead to various waterfalls and lookouts.
👉And I can’t finish this post without mentioning the Katherine Outback Experience which we went to last year. This is an awesome show with Tom Curtain multiple golden guitar winner and his wife Annabel who share their love of life on the land. We loved watching the horse-breaking and working dog demonstrations not to mention the humorous bush tales. Loved it.
Safe travels everyone.
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Happy Aussie Caravanning Lifestyle
Dixie and Graeme