Katherine River, Northern Territory.

Please check your 'spam box', I think many of my comments I've made on your blogs have gone there....I check my spam everyday before I answer my comments, seems a few are going in there still.  

Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia is a sweet town in the outback.  The town is next to the Katherine River 320km South of Darwin at the top of Australia.  The town is known as when the outback meets the tropics.

The first people to live there were of course the Aboriginals, and more history is here.

There are still Aboriginals there, some live near the town.  Each time we have stayed in Katherine I've seen the Native people sitting on a small bank with a cooked chicken they bought from the shop, the chicken sitting in the sun and that's for hours, then they eat it without ill effect.  

In the winters when we have been there it can be hot weather and cooler nights.  The town is kept clean, and the river area also. 

In one area of the Katherine River is sand and shady trees but the people don't swim because you just might happen to see a crocodile, also you have to look where you are treading due to same on land.

Tea grown in Australia!

 Malanda, Queensland, Australia is up in the Tablelands inland from Cairns, and much cooler weather wise. It's a beautiful drive up that way.  We came across a Tea plantation called Nerada Tea so we stopped and had a look around, most enjoyable and we bought some tea which I always drank until I decided to have a change.

Interesting - the plantation is not irrigated relying on water from the sky.  These days the plantation is the largest in Australia.

On the Nerada Tea plantation, plants are grown predominantly to make black tea. It takes about 8 years from planting for the Camellia sinensis to reach its full harvest potential. Only the tender new growth (two leaves and a bud) are harvested to make tea. Due to Australia's strict quarantine laws the tea bush has no natural pests in Australia and hence no pesticides are used in cultivation.

The history of Nerada Tea is here, and I believe that these days the tea room is permanently closed. When we visited it wasn't.

One paddock of tea and an old shed below.

The tea leaves

The tea rooms are no more. The map with the read around Malanda the tea plantation is somewhere within that area

Remembrance Day, Australia.

 Remembrance Day (sometimes known informally as Poppy Day) is a Memorial Day observed in Commonwealth of Nations member states since the end of the First World War to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. Following a tradition inaugurated by King George V in 1919, the day is also marked by war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries.

Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November in most countries to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month", in accordance with the armistice signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning. ("At the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 am.) The First World War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919.

Tommy Fleming singing Green Fields of France.

Written by Eric Bogle, also called No Man's Land.

"No Man's Land" (also known as "The Green Fields of France" or "Willie McBride") is a song written in 1976 by Scottish Australian folk singer-songwriter Eric Bogle, reflecting on the grave of a young man who died in World War I. Its chorus refers to two famous pieces of military music, "The Last Post" and "The Flowers of the Forest". Its melody, its refrain ("did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly"), and elements of its subject matter (a young man cut down in his prime) are similar to those of "Streets of Laredo".
It's a song that was written about the military cemeteries in Flanders and Northern France.
Wikipedia.

Peace graphic I made

Closer look at Uluru/Ayers Rock

More on Uluru/Ayers Rock.

The Anangu people own Uluru/Ayers Rock and the land is leased to the Australian Government Parks Australia and the Anangu people work together as partners, jointly managing the national park using a mix of modern science and traditional knowledge.

Uluru has been sacred to Anangu for tens of thousands of years, and climbing Uluru was not generally permitted under Anangu law and Culture.

Visitors began climbing Uluru in the late 1930's and to keep people safe, the first section of the climb, chain was installed in 1964.

The climb was closed in 2017 due to the spiritual significance of the site and the danger of climbing.  There is a $10,000 Fine if you are found climbing Uluru.

It is estimated that 37 people have died on Uluru since Western tourists began climbing the site in the middle of last century via a track so steep in parts that some scared visitors descend backward or on all fours.  Some slipped on wet rock and feel to their deaths.

I took some close-up photos of part of the rock plus some climbers going up and coming down.  You can see some are on all fours.  So the photos of the climbers were taken in 2016.

Ayers Rock/Uluru, Australia

Uluru or Ayers Rock is a sacred site and it is seen as resting place for ancient spirits, giving it religious stature for the Aboriginals.

Uluru stand 318 meters above the surrounding desert and measures eight kilometers around. The monolith also extends at least 2.5 kilometers down into the ground.

About 550 million years ago these hardened sandstone layers were uplifted to form mountains, which then gradually eroded and washed away into number of large sediment rich alluvial fans, one of which formed the bases of Uluru/Ayers Rock.

To put this fact into perspective, the first mammals and the dinosaurs inhabited the Earth around 300-200 million years ago. So a fun fact for children is that Uluru/Ayers Rock is about twice as ancient as the dinosaurs!

The location of Uluru is in the southern part of the Northern Territory, Central Australia.  Uluru lies 335 km south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs; or 450 km by road. Information off the internet.

It's a long drive but there is accommodation near by at Yalata a small village.

We have been to The Rock twice as it's so far away, these photos were taken from our last visit and are of the sunsetting over The Rock.  There is a viewing area, people take their champagne, wine, or their dinner and stand or sit, take photos, videos watching the sunset changing colours on the landscape. 
It's an amazing place.