Lunch today has yielded a new steak sandwich review dished up at the Katherine Country Club. After lunch we headed to Springvale Homestead – one of the oldest in tact buildings in the Northern Territory. Built and lived in by Alfred Giles. Initially I thought he was the famous explorer who undertook expeditions in central Australia. No that was Ernest Giles. Still Alfred was an important part of the early cattle industry in Australia, traversing the country several times south to north droving cattle and sheep, before settling at Springvale Homestead to work on the cattle station. He also did some of his own exploring.

The homestead is closed on weekends so we could not enter the building. There’s some information plaques on the outside that we could check out. During the week it’s a cafe and you can go inside.

It’s hard to imagine that during the 1998 Katherine floods the homestead was flooded to it’s ceiling. Quite unbelievable considering how low the river lies now, deep in the river valley below. In the photo you can just make out Sharni standing about halfway between the river and the homestead, with the tinned roof of the homestead visible in the background to the right of Sharni behind some trees.

There’s a big lone boab tree near the homestead. Not sure of it’s origins. Hard to pass a boab without taking a photo though. I checked for edible nuts, there were none to be found.

The weather is really heating up – 37 degrees today. The warm weather supposedly excites the barra into a feeding frenzy. Will have to put that to the test during the week some time I reckon. Also we’ve had too many fish free blog posts. Not a good trend.