Having only one full day in Darwin meant that we had to prebook a tour and it had to pick us up where we were staying, so we could maximize our time in the area. I’m sure you’re wondering why we even bothered GOING to Darwin when we had such a short time there, but the answer is easy… we had to lay over there ANYWAY on our way to Bali, so why not stop and see the area, right?

Insane. I know. But that’s sort of how my family rolls, especially when it comes to vacations.

Plus, once we realized that there were a plethora of HUGE national parks there, we knew we had to stop in.

All things considered, we ended up booking a tour through Viator to go check out Katherine Gorge.

Personally, I’d never booked through Viator before, and I was a bit apprehensive about it because the way their program works is this… They list a ton of different tours at different prices and different dates so you have a TON of choices when it comes to what, where, and when you want to do something. However, what they don’t tell you is the name of the local operator. I felt kind of strange about that because I like to be able to read reviews and check everything out before booking… but I decided to give it a whirl since I had a coupon.

SO. GLAD. WE. DID.

Once you book with Viator they *do* give you all the local operator info, and we were able to get in touch with our tour guide and get specific changes made about where and when we were getting picked up, meals, etc. The exact tour I booked for us was, “Katherine Day Tour from Darwin including Katherine Gorge Cruise” and it ended up being operated by AAT Kings.

We were scooped up in a *very* nice air conditioned bus within 5 minutes of our stated pickup time and started the long drive down to Katherine. We stopped on the way for coffee and breakfast, and even though mom, Matt and I had eaten, the smell of the freshly baked scones and homemade clotted cream and jam was irresistible.

After the quick stop, we continued on to the War Memorial, which was a beautiful tribute to the fallen soldiers, and was a great introduction to a historic event for those of us who really hadn’t thought of the impact of the war on the country.

We then headed on to Edith Falls, where we stopped to check out the Falls. My brother and I hopped in the water, and he actually gave it a shot to swim all the way out to the Falls themselves! Unfortunately he didn’t bring his glasses and got turned around a few times… but I paddled around closer to shore and enjoyed the clear (and cold!!) water with a few other tour-mates. After the swim, we grabbed lunch and continued our journey towards Katherine…

After the long travels throughout the day, we finally arrived!

We debarked the bus and boarded our boat with our local guide, who was THE MOST AMAZING part of our entire day.

The Katherine Gorge boat tour was actually a series of gorges and different boats that we got to traverse, while also enjoying short walks between the gorges while getting to view the scenery and aborignal artwork that remains in the area to this day.

Our tour guide spent just the right amount of time telling us about the history of the area, the current geologic state of the falls, and everything else inbetween, while also managing to give us simply some quiet time to enjoy the experience.

What I found most intriguing about our guide was that his family is one of the historic landowners in the Katherine area, having JUST been re-awarded their ownership after the European settlers had come in almost a century ago and claimed it as their own. He explained the entire process to all of us… about how his elders have spend the past several YEARS proving to the white Australian government that their people have lived on this land for generations and generations. Not only have they provided historic paper-style documentation, but they have also taken representatives on land tours, showing them historic and ritualistic sites of their people, explaining in depth how they’ve been used and for how long. It gave me such split feelings, because on one hand some people were saying things like, “Wow that’s so wonderful that the government is giving them the change to reclaim their land” but then to me, I pushed farther to consider the fact that these aboriginal peoples, whose land was essentially STOLEN from them, have to now prove to the descendents of the thieves that this land was originally the property of their ancestors and should still belong to their people.

Regardless of how I felt about the fact that these people had to reclaim their homeland, I was incredibly grateful to our guide for sharing his history and his present with us. It’s not something I think I would have ever had any perspective on if it hadn’t been for him, and I’m just so thankful to have had the opportunity to hear it directly from someone who was personally impacted.

The gorge cruise and tour lasted about 2.5 hours in total, and once it concluded we hopped back on the bus and headed towards home. We actually stopped at the same place we had had breakfast, for dinner (we ordered our meals in advance on the bus, which was AWESOME), quickly ate and then continued back to our dropoff locations.

Once we got home…. that’s another story. We had so much to do still to figure out everything for Thailand… but that’s a story for another day.

All that said though, I’d HIGHLY recommend checking out Viator for wherever you’re going to see if they have tours. I definitely had a great experience and I’ll for sure be considering their tours for elsewhere during the trip and for future trips too!