Katherine

We had a very short trip today of only 106km so we arrived before lunch. Packing up was a bit like being in a sauna as it was very humid and hot - especially for Dennis and Tops who were in the sun! We have noticed it's much hotter and more humid than the last time we travelled North - maybe because we were later in the year or the season is different. However the evenings are just beautiful and balmy and comfortable for sleeping.

  

                  

We are out at Manbulloo Homestead park which is about 12kms out of town but it's nice and quiet and we are once again set up by our selves away from others. We have water and an ablution block right near us and I've already washed our sheets and towels. This place is a working cattle farm with 300 Brahman cattle and we are within walking distance to the Katherine river - but of course with crocs, we won't be swimming!! Such a shame but we read in the news where a croc attacked a man in his tent at Daly River so they are a real threat! We don't fancy being croc dinner!

There are lovely shady trees but with our solar generation we need to be out in the sun a bit.  Actually Darryl (with his monitor for everything - so much so that he can barely have time to drive!) is finding his battery monitor keeps telling him he has some generating problems, so he might seek out an auto electrician tomorrow. He and Dennis were delighted when the chap from Katherine yesterday could share in their talks about volts, amps, red arc batteries, watts etc as Tops and I aren't that interested!  Darryl says we will be when our fridges aren't working 😉. 

        Whilst touring around guess what we saw again?? Yes that Ghan heading to Darwin! 

        

We had lunch in Katherine then visited the Information centre to plan our time here. We then came back to grab our swimming togs and went back to the springs in town. Wow! What a surprise we had as we didn't even know Katherine had hot springs. They began in a little pool and and flowed over rocks and between trees about 400 metres into a series of pools - we could stand up and the bottom was sandy and we loved it!! We started at the top pool and floated the length of the creek and it was terrific - especially in the bottom pool where bubbles were created as it bubbled over the rocks. That was Dennis's favourite spot as the spa like bubbles made his pockets float out!  We'll be back there again that's for sure!! 

Here are the boys in their natural spa:

       

And a couple of water babies in the hot springs:

         

     It's such a beautiful way to end the day with a refreshing dip! 

We spent most of the day at the Gorge - we took a picnic lunch there then caught the 2pm cruise which was lovely. The scenery was beautiful and if anyone is interested Darryl and Dennis will have plenty of photos to share!! 

           

   

 We were surprised to see thousands of bats - both black and brown ones - smelly noisy things!!

       

    

Darryl left our car at an auto electrician  and they made some minor adjustments that should help with his power generation. ( just rectifying what initially was done wrongly) 

We are now enjoying a beautiful evening with a sunset just visible through the trees. 

           

 

Hope everyone is good. Tomorrow is another happy day for us xxxxxxxxx

Mataranka

Our evening at the Daly Waters pub was excellent with live music by Lou Bradley and her husband. We didn't expect to have this quality entertainment out here in the bush. It kept us happily  entertained for a couple of hours. The pub was quite busy and it's not really the busy season yet so we imagine it's a very popular place come June / July. We are gradually ticking off the iconic outback pubs in this great country.      

We went on a heritage walk in the morning (and got lost as the tracks were overgrown) But we did see lots of wallabies and birds and the Stuart tree. Makes you appreciate how clever and tough these explorers were battling through undergrowth, not knowing what's around the corner. 

              

Daly Waters is the site of the first international airport as early planes couldn't carry enough to fuel to fly too far. This was also a WW2 airstrip - like so many along the highway from Darwin. Murray Bray and Malcolm McDonald both spent time working on making these airstrips during the war. It would have been hot dusty tiring work.

          The historic hanger at Daly Waters.

Yesterday our travelling was only 165km so we arrived at Mataranka before lunch. We decided that the campgrounds in the Elsey National Park sounded like our style so we came out here and loved the spot so set up. We are near the Roper River and have only a short walk to some rapids and little waterfall on a stream feeding into the river.  Not far from us is a sandy beach and rocks - but we are in crocodile territory now - mainly freshwater but after the wet season there are sometimes saltys. So we won't be swimming in the Roper river that's for sure! 🐊.

 

          

 The sites here are shady, there are birds and last night we could hear wild donkeys and cattle, wallabies, curlews, bats and we saw a couple of cane toads (yuck!). It's about 16km out of town so yesterday we drove to the Mataranka Homestead where the hot springs are. I'd heard so much about these springs from Mum and they were as lovely as I'd imagined. The palms around the springs are so beautiful - it's quite a little paradise. 

           

    

We thought the campgrounds there weren't as good as here so made the right choice. We can have fires here - and wood is supplied too so we - well rather Dennis - cooked a lovely BBQ over the fire and tonight we are having a camp oven roast.

               Chef Dennis! 

We decided to stay here 2 nights so thismorning were able to relax and we chatted to a chap from Katherine who comes here often so we learned a lot. We drove to Bitter Springs and had a swim there - it's not tiled like the at Homestead but just natural - so clear and lovely temperature. Silly us didn't read the sign properly so we floated to the next landing and exited - then had to negotiate a very long, rocky stone path with our bare feet back to our belongings!! Had we floated a little further, we would have been able to exit on the right side of the creek and only have a short walk back to our things. Our poor feet were very sore - we've gotten very soft!!  

        Bitter Springs - featuring Dennis the water baby! You can see the water is quite deep & clear.

Tomorrow we head off to Katherine - where we'll be a couple of days to see the sights there. We'll be thinking of the travellers heading overseas on Wednesday and hope their experiences are safe and meet all expectations. 

So till our next blog, the happy travellers say goodbye xxxxxxx. 

ps we don't have service here so will publish this tomorrow 😄

We're on the road again!!

It was lovely to see our van sitting proudly with 2 wheels and to be able to put our things in and set up again. The whole process restored our faith in human nature as everyone was kind and helpful and the business's involved were very efficient. And of course our long suffering travelling companions never grumbled and listened to our endless monologues about wheels and bearings! Thanks Dennis and Tops xxx. The only weak link was Toll Express - a guaranteed priority overnight delivery (which cost $1100!) that took 6 days -  with no apology or explanation that we are aware of. That's a pretty poor business model! Dennis's wheel bearings were fine so why we ended up with two faulty lots we'll probably never know. 

We shared our last night in Alice Springs with Greg and Jenny McNeil which was nice - we dined at the local tavern again. Jenny and Greg are on their way to visit Cheslea at Kununurra.

Yesterdays trip was uneventful but we were very glad to get past the accident scene at Aileron. We called in there to thank the chaps who found the wheel. 

Aileron has a huge statue of an aboriginal man on the hill and mother and child on the flat.

              

        

 It's different to have unlimited speed limits on the road with 130kph when you have to slow down! However, we've not witnessed any stupid behaviour and actually the road has been rather quiet with not as many transports as we'd imagined. We did read that rail hauls a huge percentage of freight up here.  We know we are in NT as there are anthills everywhere- travellers seem to love to dress them with a Tshirt which looks funny. Most remarkable though is the absence of wild life. Since Mambray Creek, we've seen not a kangaroo or emu - not even as road kill! The only road kill we saw yesterday were a couple of cattle. Today we did see one goanna about to cross the road - if he wasn't careful he'd be roadkill!! The   country however,  looks very healthy and green - probably much better than around home where it still can't seem to rain! 

We found the road side stops great with covered picnic tables, clean toilets, rubbish bins and water. Darryl paid $195c/litre at Barrow Creek for fuel,  but Dennis (with much better fuel economy than us!) found a cheaper price at Wyecliffe Well where it was $109c/litre!  But it was a vey eye opening experience witnessing many locals purchasing supplies!

Devils Marbles are on the way and we pulled off for a look - they are unusual boulders! Of most interest however was the Python in the information shelter.

            

    

We didn't know what to expect at Tennant Creek and had toyed with the idea of staying two nights and looking around but a quick look was all we needed!  Actually I found the town really depressing - dirty with rubbish everywhere, drab and ugly with everything barred - not a place I'd like to be stuck for a week! 

We're now set up at Daly Waters which is really one of these iconic outback pubs plus a bit of a park set off the main highway about 160km south of Mataranka. It's quite warm (37) and a drink will be very welcome later in the pub. 

          Here we are at Daly Waters

   The pub.

    We aren't going sightseeing in this helicopter!!

Along the way today we could see we had left the central Australian scenery and we are now in more dense and lush tropical vegetation. I think we are at about the same latitude as Cairns now. 

We've had a quick look around and now think we'll pop into the pool. Hope everyone is well and think of us soon enjoying the hot springs at Mataranka! xxxxxx

More sightseeing in Alice ....

Well of all the places to be stuck, Alice Springs is a pretty good place to be as we still haven't run out of things to see and do. But we are anxiously waiting to hear that the van is repaired and we can get going!!   

This is an aboriginal lady collecting wichedy grubs - don't fancy them for dinner! 

There were a couple of markets to visit Sunday morning but they fell very short of our Murrabit market! They had an open morning at the old telegraph station which attracted a huge crowd and there were activities and things to see plus the boys were interested to see the morse code experts at work. 

We looked everywhere in town for picnic tables for our lunch but ended up back here at the park under the shade of the annex! We then thought we'd fill in an hour at the Desert Park! Well, we were there a full three hours and could have been longer as it was excellent! Darryl was in bird heaven in the aiveries and we could have sat there all day photographing the varied and beautiful birds. (Don't think Dennis was quite as enthused). 

        

 The whole park is very well organised and we saw the dingos and learnt about them - we loved the nocturnal house which was huge and enjoyed seeing everything there - especially the bilbies - they were much larger than I'd imagined. 

         This is a bustard - eating a mouse!! We'd seen these up at Cape York.

The birds of prey show was good though we were a little disappointed they didn't feature an eagle. We found out the eagle isn't quite trained well enough yet. We had actually witnessed our own real life birds of prey show here at the park when a black kite attacked a young parrot - and eventually he got him despite the parents trying to fight off the kite. I guess that's nature! 

      This is for you Spencer! 

       

That evening we dined out at the local Tavern and enjoyed a roast meal and chat to a couple from Canberra. There was also a live reptile show and Dennis and Darryl learned about the dangers of Australian snakes and the methods of emergency care. We also saw a wild dingo lurking around - obviously hoping to find some food scraps. We often hear them howling at night.

Yesterday we did a fairly large grocery shop in preparation of our eventual moving on. Fortunately we have exclusive use of a full sized fridge right by the Greenwood camp so we can store our things easily. Yesterday afternoon we captured on camera the Ghan coming in from Adelaide which was quite a spectacle as it was pulling so many carriages - I reckon over 30. We went to the station and saw it there as well. 

          

      The Ghan at the station.

     A very handsome couple 😏

     

    

Now it's Tuesday (happy birthday Greg) and we all enjoyed the free walk about the town which showed some of the historical places and told us of the stories of Alice Springs. It was really worth doing. 

Then we popped around to see our van and we've more bad news!! Our part - dispatched from Brisbane Friday by Priority Toll, was lost and finally found today languishing unwanted somewhere in Adelaide!! So now it has to come from there and no one is able to tell us when that will happen! Then Craig, the repairer chap, checked the other bearing and that was showing signs of wear too so that would have collapsed as well!!  That's made Dennis nervous as his van was built when ours was and if there is faulty batch, his could be too! So he's having his bearings checked and replaced Thursday just to be sure. The result of all this is it looks like we're here longer than we'd hoped! It's a long weekend coming up too and Craig is going away!! We are debating whether to head to Uluru Friday and us stay in a cabin there. It is all rather testing our patience but we have to keep positive as lots worse can happen!! 

So for now, we are once again enjoying the beautiful balmy evenings here in Alice! Love to you all,

xxxxxxxxxx

Our extended stay in Alice.

We can honestly say that everyone involved since our little accident has come to the party and we are extremely grateful for that. Lifestyle (the van manufacturer) have been excellent and got onto the suspension manufacturer to make up a new left hand side trailing arm and stub axle assembly and they did that on Friday - normally it takes up to 4 weeks! They haven't had a problem like this before so are keen to make amends! The Lifestyle chap has been liasing with the trailer repairer here in Alice springs and he'll fit the part as soon as it arrives. We hope that's Monday as it's been dispatched already (from Brisbane). So everyone is fast tracking the process to get us on the road asap. 

       Anyway, after displaying his wonderful driving skills, Darryl now thinks he can drive a Kenworth!! This is from when the boys visited the truck museum here in town yesterday. 

         

Then RACV have been excellent too and we are booked into this cabin for as long as necessary. So the only thing we've lost is some time - plus maybe some confidence but we'll recover that quickly. The more we talk to people who know about these sort of things, the more we realise how lucky we were that it didn't tip the van over - and it's just one of those random things that should never happen - but it did - through the fault of no one. 

This morning we visited the Alice Springs botanical gardens which was most memorable for the lovely cappuccino we shouted ourselves there. We really loved this emu - wonder if Ticky could make one like this for us? It was made out of bits and pieces but very effective. I'd love one in my garden. 

         

From here we travelled to the East McDonnell Ranges - they aren't quite as touristy as the western side but still we saw some beautiful spots. 

     

This is the Emily Gap - dry but very pretty with lovely trees and we saw some beautiful zebra finches drinking from a little water soak. We read the aboriginal story of this gap and saw the rock art on the walls.

    

We walked around Corroborree Rock which was really quite a spectacular outcrop and we could imagine this being the place of ancient ceremonies. 

      

Lastly we visited Trephina Gorge which was beautiful and also had a lovely campground we've pencilled in for future trips. The trees are amazing as they grow so strongly from out of the rocks or on the river bed. We've read here that rivers in these areas are upside down rivers as even though they are dry, the water is only a few metres underground. 

       

It would be amazing to see these rivers in flood - but then the area would be inaccessible!  We returned to our park after this lovely relaxing day and Darryl Dennis and I braved the chilly pool to have a refreshing dip. We've enjoyed a mixed grill BBQ and look forward to another day exploring this lovely town and area.

Our next blog will hopefully be from on the road again. Thank you everyone for your messages of care and concern - lets hope we don't experience any more excitement like that! 

Love to you all,

xxxxxxxxx

Bugger bugger bugger 😖 Disaster strikes the happy travellers.

We happily set off this morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Ghan coming into Alice Springs but we just missed it - we thought that was bad luck!! However, that was nothing compared to what happened later -  instead of stopping for morning tea at 10.30, this is how we ended up! 

       

          

We were just commenting on how boring it is traveling on this bitumen road when disaster struck!! Darryl thought an anchor had been thrown out and we looked up to see a tyre bouncing past - our tyre!!  

   

           

            

       

What's happened is the bearing collapsed and the wheel fell off. Just one of those things we've been told - the actual tyre is still ok which I find hard to believe. It wasn't a good feeling though I can tell you. 

Darryl thought he had covered everything with his monitors but there's no monitor for wheels falling off or catastrophic bearing failure! I was his only monitor shrieking 'oh Darryl!' 

         

However, at times like this you have to count your blessings:

1. No one was hurt - how lucky we were that there was no traffic and the tyre didn't hit us or anyone

2. The car / trailer didn't roll over

3. It happened by this place Aileron - just a roadhouse and pub but they do have an emergency phone

4. A lot of people came to help - a chap from the roadhouse found the tyre on his 4wheel motor bike 

     ( it was found on other side of road about 400 metres away) 

5. A local farmer working down the road came to help, an Army chap stopped to help, a fire and   

    rescue chap stopped and several travellers asked if we needed help - or a cold drink!

6. We are in total care RACV

7. We aren't that far from Alice Springs (120km)

8. We have great traveling companions who calm us down

9. We've got all our food, clothes etc accessible

10. We don't have time issues.

So now the four of us are sitting huddled under the shade of Dennis's camper waiting for the tow truck. We've booked into the park again though this time we'll be in a cabin! We've emptied out the fridge and grabbed some clothes and toiletries. Hopefully we won't be held up for too many days!

Well, the recovery was far worse than the accident for Tops & I!  It took over an hour of careful jacking, blocking with bits of wood and inch by inch winching to get it stable on the truck. The chap was quiet but very methodical - he's probably done this before. I was sure it would tip over and squash Dennis and Darryl.

        

So our boring traveling day didn't turn out quite like we expected!  I suspect that we get back to Alice Springs there will be a drink or two to be had!  I'm feeling like a nervous wreck. Hope everyone had a better day than us xxxxxx. 

PS hope you had a good day Lachlan - we'll remember your 11th birthday that's for sure! 

Gorges & water holes

Today was a touring day and we enjoyed some more of the many more delightful scenic sights of this inland centre. It's actually hard to believe we are in the red centre as everything we've seen looks very lush and healthy. Our first stop was Glen Helen which is 130odd km from Alice so quite a trip. The road  out was undulating and scenic: (with a few wrecked cars along the way!) 

    

    

 We actually were a little underwhelmed here as the place was a bit untidy and we never saw any bird life and couldn't get a good view of the gorge.

     

You may notice some swimmers here but that wasn't us!!

We then travelled to Ormiston Gorge and this was fantastic! The camping area looked good too and we spoke to some happy campers who were delighted to have flush toilets and free gas BBQs available. Had it been a little warmer we may have been tempted to swim here ( but it was chilly for us!!) We were happy to watch the children enjoying themselves.

     

     

We spent quite a bit of time here then had our picnic lunch in the picnic area. It's quite amazing to see these oasis out here - what a wonderful respite from the heat these spots must be.

Our next stop was at the Ellery creek big hole - this was also a beautiful spot and a bus load of young American girls were braving the water (judging by the squeals it was cold!!)'

      

We arrived back in town, grabbed a few groceries and now the boys are pumping up their tyres for bitumen travel - and spoiling the tranquility!! 

Tomorrow we head north up the Stuart Highway to Tennant Creek. We feel refreshed, clean and ready for the next part of our adventure. 

Today was James's 3rd birthday and we believe he got a new bike!! He sounded very happy 😀😀. We also hope Lachlan has a lovely birthday tomorrow 😘😘.

I think we start to hit warmer weather tomorrow - it's been lovely weather here. 

Love to you all xxxxxxxx

   

A town like Alice.

How lovely it was to not pack up and travel after a week on the road.  Tops & I were excited to have access to two brand new washing machines which didn't need de-frogging - but we were too early and the power hadn't been switched on in the area were in! That was easily remedied though. We all just pottered around this morning - cleaning out the car, tidying things up and the boys fiddled with electrical issues then we popped into the town centre and had a look around.

           

    This is our camp - away from everyone and even tho we've not got the nice lawn, we are private       

   and very happy. The staff are extremely obliging here at G'Day Mate - we'd recommend it to anyone.

           

 

Today we did some sightseeing and visited the Telegraph Station which is set up really nicely with so much information. We can't believe that messages were sent via morse code - always accurately and so quickly, with the messages being relayed at each repeater station. We thought the original message could be quite different from the one finally at its destination but the operators prided themselves in being very accurate. 

         

We shouted ourselves a lovely coffee there as the picnic grounds were some distance from the car. Then we headed out to Standley Chasm. It's very spectacular and we were there to capture the sun overhead. The track there is being upgraded but one poor lady from a bus tour tripped and fell quite heavily so we trod carefully after that. We think she'll have a sore head for a bit. 

         We met this lovely couple in the chasm! 

We found a picnic table and enjoyed our lunch (of cruskits again) under the shady trees. We have enjoyed being fly and mosquito free here and don't have to be swatting all the time. We're very lucky with the weather too as the days have been in mid 20's and nights just very pleasant sleeping conditions. We haven't needed winter sheets, nightclothes, hotwater bottles or bedsocks yet! But we are prepared! 

             

Simpsons Gap is also lovely and there were many picnic areas there for the energetic bike riders and walkers. The trees are beautiful with the white trunks and green foliage against the rocks and sandy river beds. 

At ANZAC hill there is a fantastic view of Alice Springs and surrounds:

    

All lawns, gardens and ovals are lovely and green so their water supply can't be too restricted. We googled the population as it doesn't seem to be a big city and at last census it was 22,000. 

We went to see the Ghan Station but it was locked as the train won't be through till Thursday morning. We'd like to see it go past but not sure if we'll be around. 

All this sightseeing wore us old folks out so we are back at camp resting up before drink o'clock!! Tomorrow we've got more sightseeing on the agenda then think we'll head northwards and do Uluru and Kings canyon on return trip. 

We trust everyone is well - we can't believe it's only 8 days ago we left home as it seems we've been away for ages. Our cars and vans have stood up to the gruelling tracks we've traversed with only minor issues easily attended to by Dennis and Darryl. 

Till our next blog, love from the 'glampers' xxxxx