Mataranka to Katherine

DAY 23 – MATARANKA - KATHERINE                                               Monday, 25^th July

Well, having said that about the winter clothes, my hubby woke me at 2am to get some blankets because big, tough David who never gets cold, found a sheet and cotton blanket insufficient.  But as my dear friend, Fran, has already pointed out, no-one is feeling sorry for our chilly mornings when we are having 29 degree days with sun and swims!!

Off to a botanic walk around Mataranka this morning and then to Bitter Springs for the most beautiful thermal springs and lovely caravan park – wish we had stayed there.  The kids were just carried down the stream on the current in water temperature of around 34 degrees, in glistening, crystal clear water.  Just like out of a movie!  Just amazing to find these springs in the middle of nowhere.  They have “barra feeding” every afternoon at 1pm so we went along.  Unfortunately, the water turned cold over the last few days and the Barramundi hate it.  That, combined with the fact that they are too well fed, meant that we could not even convince them to eat Bridget!!  All the kids got a turn at holding the fishing line and having the Barramundi eat the fish, or SNAP the fish off the end.  Except Tessie – they were full by then.

After that, straight into Katherine where we did a bit of shopping (yes, civilisation again) and went back for happy hour at the bistro at the caravan park.  A fantastic bush poet was there and it was a great experience for the kids to hear and see him.  Of course, I could not quite believe that after all the kilometres I have traversed over the last three weeks, up mountainsides, down gorges, out to rocky outcrops, I remained injury free.  Yet I arrive at Katherine, have one glass of chardy at the bistro, and end up tripping over and trashing both legs and my hand.  Blood and guts and gore everywhere in front of 60 people.  I don’t think I have done that since schooldays!!  L  Anyway, my beautiful husband and children cared for me lovingly.  I had people squeezing my hand, people putting Bepanthen on my wounds, people massaging my head and arms.  It was great!  Really, Mums should fall over more often – I can’t remember the last time I had this kind of attention! 

Tess having breakfast with a friend

Botanic garden, Mataranka

Bitter Springs - not bitter at all - so sweet!

Bitter Springs

Surfing Bitter Springs!

Am loving the fact that, as I sit here at 9pm, all the windows in the van are open and I am still in my shorts!!  This Queensland girl is loving this.  Sorry to all the Victorians freezing down there!!

Daly Waters to Mataranka

Daly Waters Heritage Hanger

My beautiful husband's beard. Off now because of complaints from wife.

Anneas Gunn's grave, Elsey Cemetery, Mataranka

DAY 22 – DALY WATERS – MATARANKA                                                  Sunday, 24^th July

This morning was a beautiful morning, and the first morning for Sarah to put on the shorts and t-shirt!!  And what a great feeling.  We went off first to inspect the aerodrome at Daly Waters which has the oldest hanger in the Northern Territory and was actually the airport for international flights at one stage, as well as an enormously important base during WWII.  In fact, my grandfather, who was the first civilian into Darwin after the bombings in 1943 to organise provisions for the Australian and American forces, flew into Daly Waters on his way from Brisbane to Darwin.  He flew there in one day which was pretty amazing for 1943.  (Thanks Aunty Marg for the info!)  I could hardly believe how this tiny place in the middle of nowhere, and so far from Darwin, could have been so important during the war.

After that we travelled further up the Stuart Highway to the Elsey Station cemetery and memorial.  One of my very favourite books is Jeannie Gunn’s We of the Never-Never.  Actually being up here and seeing the land, makes me appreciate even more what an amazingly gutsy woman she must have been.  It was very special to go to the grave of “the Muluka” and to the graves of others in the story whose remains have been re-interred there.

We then reached Mataranka by about 12:30pm.  I was not going to miss out on another powered site!  It is quite a nice secluded camp site right next to the thermal springs so after setting up (at which I may say we are getting quicker and quicker – especially with Beth and Ben’s incredible help!) we headed down for a dip in the springs.  34 degrees is just the way things ought to be!!  Of course probably too hot for my hubby.   I have never quite seen springs bubble up the way Rainbow Springs bubbles up here.  It is just like they have a spa bubble machine going at the bottom of the water.  Quite amazing.  We went for a walk to the Waterhouse River which runs into the Roper River and saw plenty of turtles and two freshwater crocodiles sunning themselves.  The kids were keen to hop into the river to say hello – Mummy much less so!  The kids just loved our first opportunity to get into the water and wandered around in their bathers for the rest of the day.  Tess and Bridgie in particular just loved discovering all the wildlife in the park here, including peacocks and wallabies which just sit all around the park, not tame enough for you to go right up to them, but tame enough to come and sit among the caravans, even tiny babies just out of the pouch. 

Just lovely to be able to put away all the warm clothes and blankets.  Won’t need them now for quite a while!! Yay!!

Wycliffe Well - Daly Waters

The Devil playing with her marbles!!

DAY 21 – WYCLIFFE WELL – DALY WATERS                                                           Saturday, 23^rd July

Man!  My hubby is a taskmaster!  I thought holidays meant sleep-ins.  Clearly I am on the wrong holiday!  Up at 6am this morning to pack up so that we could get to the Devil’s Marbles (about 100kms south of Tennant Creek) for sunrise.  Absolutely spectacular.  The kids loved running through the rocks and discovering different angles for Mummy’s photos.  I had no idea they were so extensive.  I thought it was just a few rocks clumped together but it is spread over a number of acres.  So we had a great discussion led by our “frustrated-geologist-Daddy” about sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks, because all the boulders are granite.  Am sure some of this will infiltrate the kids’ brains and magically come out in Year 9!

We were very glad that we did not stay at Tennant Creek for the night.  Although we did go and visit the Christ the King Catholic Church which was moved here from Pine Creek in 1936.  It was brought on three trucks, unfortunately during the wet season.  The first made it through, the second upturned in a creek near Daly Waters and the third waited in Pine Creek for the dry season to commence.  It was known as the “longest church in Australia” because its front door was in Tennant Creek, its back door in Pine Creek and its side wall scattered over Daly Waters!!  We prayed for all of you there.  Except for the Gordons.  Another unsuccessful geocache.

Of course we dawdled a little too long in Tennant Creek so did not make it to Daly Waters in time to get a powered site.  This little city chick was not happy.  Hubby did manage to sneak a hose to some vacant tap somewhere but no electricity which meant no microwave, no kettle, no toaster, and no lights!!  But we did go and listen to some music in the pub for a while, while the kids did their journals (plied with promises of a softdrink).  The Daly Waters pub is a sight to behold, with ladies underwear displayed all around, notes of all currencies stapled around the bar and a sign saying that it was the shortest lived and most remote McDonald’s outlet in Australia – lasted only for a day.  (I think it was for some charity event).  After putting the kids to bed we went back to listen to “Chilli” the comedian who was very funny.  And also very moving.  He sang and explained about Paul Kelly’s song “From Little Things, Big Things Grow” about Vincent Lingari and the Vestey’s.  It somehow meant a whole lot more when you are sitting out there in the middle of very large Northern Territory cattle stations and on Aboriginal land.  He also sung “I am Australian” which he said “was a song about every single one of us”.  It was beautiful.

Glen Helen Gorge to Wycliffe Well

DAY 20 – GLEN HELEN GORGE TO WYCLIFFE WELL                                            Friday, 22^nd July

Let me paint you a picture…  I am sitting here with my Jameson’s Run Cab Sav and some blue cheese, as the sun is quietly setting, watching the husband and children kick the football on the grass beside me.  Of course, we are in some weird town called Wycliffe Well which believes that aliens visit them from time to time and the park is full of statues of the Incredible Hulk, Elvis and other assorted weirdos!!  You are right … I need to fill up the glass! 

We were up early this morning and driving out of Glen Helen Gorge by 8am.  A long day in the car – 8 hours including stops to get to Wycliffe Well, driving back through Alice, passing through Aileron with the giant Aborigine and his wife and child, then on to Ti-Tree, Barrow Creek to Wycliffe Well.  All children need a really good shower and wash of the hair tonight!!  Things were grim at Glen Helen.  Hubby wants us up early to see sunrise at the Devil’s Marbles about 100 kms away.  Good luck with your project, I say!!!  J

Glen Helen Gorge (Ormiston Gorge & Redbank Gorge)

DAY 19 – GLEN HELEN GORGE (ORMISTON GORGE & RED BANK GORGE)              Thursday, 21^st July

Ormiston Gorge

Our babies at Ormiston Gorge

Sarah, the artiste!

Glen Helen Gorge

A relaxing morning with pancakes in bed for Mum (cooked by Chef David)!  We then went to Ormiston Gorge, where David worked in 1982.  He said it was very interesting to see the effect of tourism on the Gorge.  Many more made roads and walking tracks.  The walk down to Ormiston Gorge was just beautiful.  Magnificent River Red Gums everywhere and a beautiful sandy, rocky river bed.  The photos just don’t do it justice.  The beautiful gums against the red rock were just stunning. 

Out to Redbank Gorge for lunch!  This was a more difficult walk over the boulders in the river bed down to the waterhole at the end and the gorge itself.   Redbank Gorge is a very narrow gorge and David can remember being here in summer and swimming all the way down to the end and back again.  The kids have been amazing with their ability to keep walking each day for long periods of time.  The promise of a chocolate frog every now and then helps too!!

We came back for some “R and R” at the “resort” and to do some schoolwork.  Before dinner, we strolled down to Glen Helen Gorge itself.  With the setting sun on the red rock, it was absolutely spectacular.  A pair of Heron were sitting on the water as well as a flock of wild ducks, which stunned us.  We haven’t seen many water birds in Central Australia. 

Entertainment tonight in the bar was from Peter Skipson who played the guitar, singing some of his own compositions as well as some Eric Bogle and other assorted.  He is a photographer in his spare time and his photographs of Central Australia are nothing short of stunning.  Hard to explain but there is something special about listening to “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and a song about Bogabilla (being a Queensland girl) as you sit quite literally in the middle of Australia.

Alice Springs to Glen Helen Gorge

DAY 18 – ALICE SPRINGS TO GLEN HELEN GORGE                              Wednesday, 20^th July

We were able to have everyone fed and dressed and the entire van packed up including annexe and tent by 8:40 this morning which I think is a new record for packing up everything!!  Off to the Royal Flying Doctor Service Base in Alice Springs first, with the kids all laughing at Mum during the movie of the premature babies being flown through the outback!! What an amazing job they do!!  They do not get any government assistance for capital investment.  Each plane costs $6m and need to be replaced every 10 -15 years.  They currently have 40 planes and 940 staff.  They do such an amazing job with the help of many volunteers.  The kids were really interested in the pedal radio which revolutionised emergency calls as well as simple communication, especially for women isolated on remote stations in the 1930s.

From there we experienced a few disappointing “geocaching moments” – the Gordons will know what we mean – along the road to Glen Helen which did slow us down a bit.  My hubby just loves getting his family all scratched up on spinifex in the name of Geocaching!!!  We did stop at the Ochre Pits where the Aborigines collected and then traded different coloured ochre, some of which are used in women’s ceremonies and some in men’s ceremonies. 

My beautiful husband really wanted to come out to Glen Helen Gorge because this is also where he worked “all those years ago” with the Northern Territory Conservation Commission.  Well, you would think that he would know his wife a little better…  Glen Helen Resort – in the words of The Princess Bride “I do not think it means what you think it means”!!  Hardly a resort!!  Pretty basic.  No bread or milk.  VERY average amenities.  Bridget decided that she could do some Aboriginal drumming with a stick on a rock and put out a ring of stones saying “money”.  We didn’t really think that this was a great place for successful busking, but you have to admire her persistence! Despite it all, it was stunning going to the clothes line at 9pm and seeing the gorge rising up before us, with the beautiful star-filled sky behind it!