Katherine & Bitter Springs

This time in Katherine we stayed at a new camp called ‘Buffalo Hill’ which was really just a cleared paddock with a nice amenity block. It suited us perfectly - especially as we could have our camp fire for warmth and cooking. 

We made use of our time in Katherine - Dennis’s brakes were fixed and 3 of us had haircuts plus we restocked our cupboards and fridges! We also went to the Outback Experience which was great! Tom Curtain’s management of horses and dogs is amazing - it’s not an orchestrated perfect show, but has real experiences showing how they can break a wild brumby to be able to ride it - albeit with a bucking off initially. He was also able to control 13 dogs in an arena just by voice commands - even though some of them were a little exuberant and needed constant reminders of what they were supposed to be doing. I guess getting the dogs to round up 3 goats and have them jump on the horses backs was a fitting conclusion to the show.

This show travels around in the wet season and we believe Swan Hill is one of the venues. Before we left, we popped out to the gorge at Katherine as we were staying near by - we noticed the bats were still there in their hundreds, and the centre has some very impressive displays. 

From Katherine we travelled just down the road to Bitter Springs. 

If you’ve never floated down the springs here with a noodle, then put it on your bucket list! There could be nothing more relaxing and beautiful than drifting amongst the palms, pandanas and gums in beautiful warm clear water. A noodle really makes it better so we’re really glad we lashed out $3 and purchased them - even though we probably will just be carrying them around from now on as we can’t see much swimming on the horizon from here on. We enjoyed it so much, we decided to stay another night and enjoy another afternoon floating down the springs. This park is lovely too - even though it’s big, the sites are huge with lots of trees so we feel we’re out bush. We’ve caught up on washing again, ready for the next leg southwards.

Our decision has been made and we’re going to head into South Australia which means a few days of many kms down the Stuart Highway! Seeing we’ve visited the places along this road, we won’t be sightseeing, just getting to our next destination Andamooka  - which is 2,200kms away from here. I doubt there’ll be a blog for a while. We’re hoping everyone is keeping well - we continually reflect on how fortunate we are to be enjoying good health and to have the opportunity to travel in comfort as we do. We are very lucky. 😊😊❌❌