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 😄