ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON DAY 29: LAKE ARGYLE TO KATHERINE, NITMILUK NATIONAL PARK

The first inhabitants of the Katherine area tens of thousands of years ago were Indigenous Australians, including the Jawoyn people and Wardaman people. It has always been an important meeting place for these people and remains a place of convergence today.

Nitmiluk National Park is 244 km southeast of Darwin, and 23 km northeast of Katherine, around a series of gorges on the Katherine River and Edith Falls. Previously named Katherine Gorge National Park, its northern edge borders Kakadu National Park. The gorges and the surrounding landscape have great ceremonial significance to the local Jawoyn people, who are custodians of Nitmiluk National Park. In the Jawoyn language, Nitmiluk means "place of the cicada dreaming".

Nitmiluk Gorge, a deep gorge carved through ancient sandstone by the Katherine River, is the central attraction of the park. Nitmiluk Gorge is made up of thirteen gorges, with rapids and falls, and follow the Katherine River, which begins in Kakadu. During the Dry, roughly from April to October, the Nitmiluk Gorge waters are placid in most spots and ideal for swimming and canoeing. There are freshwater crocodiles in most parts of the river, as they nest along the banks, but they are harmless to humans. Saltwater crocodiles regularly enter the river during the wet season, when the water levels are very high, and are subsequently removed and returned to the lower levels at the onset of the dry season. Swimming in the wet season is prohibited.

Historically, the land occupied by the Jawoyn, about 9,800 km2, were in the Katherine (Nitmiluk) Gorge area in the Northern Territory. The Jawoyn call this area Nitmiluk, a name derived from the word nitmi (which refers to the cicada song that Nabilil the crocodile is said to have heard when he set up camp at the entrance to the gorge) and the word luk, which means "place". “Nitmiluk” specifically includes a 12 kilometre stretch, consisting of a spectacular chain of chasms and ravines. 

A widespread belief among Aboriginal people is that each language emerged during the formative time of creation when a totem figure moved through the landscape crafting it and, simultaneously, endowing each topological feature with its proper word. The language changed at certain transit points which are physical boundary markers between national people and languages. In Jawoyn thinking, the landscape of the Katherine Gorge was created in the primordial time (burr) by Nabilil (Crocodile), who named all of the area's distinctive features in the Jawoyn language. He came from the sea, furnished with his firestick (meya) and moved through what became Dagoman and Nangiomeri lands before reaching the gorge.

The Burr Dreamtime also contains other key figures such as Boolong (the Rainbow Serpent) and Barraya (the kookaburra).

The Jatbula Trail is a 62 kilometres one-way walking trail which starts at Nitmiluk Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park and finishes at Edith Falls (Aboriginal Jawoyn language: Leliyn). The trail follows the route travelled by thousands of generations of Jawoyn people between Katherine Gorge and Leliyn. It is named for Peter Jatbula, who was instrumental in securing land rights for his people and walked this route with his family. Members of Peter Jatbula's family still live in the area today and continue to help look after country.

The word "Country" speaks to the custodial relationship and responsibility that Australia's indigenous people have towards the landscape around them. It is a rich heritage in which culture, nature and land are all linked.

The 1955 file JEDDA shows real Jawoyn people playing themselves in their traditional ways with traditional laws, weapons and tools at Nitimluk Gorge. No acting experience was necessary, so Jedda looks like living archeological history, alive in the 20th and 21st centuries. As does Nitmiluk Gorge.

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