Mt Isa to Katherine

25 & 26 May - Mt Isa

Looking at the old style GPS - Mt Isa Lookout

This was a stop primarily to restock food and drink and have the car serviced.  We stayed at the Sunset Van Park for three nights spending the days shopping for bits and pieces, a supermarket shuffle and cleaning both the car and van.  The trip to date, and particularly to Lark Quarry and Lawn Hill, caked the car and van in red dirt.  It took a couple of days work to clean both inside and out enough so that when we brushed up against any surface a red streak didn’t appear on us. 

We had a lovely dinner at a local restaurant on the first night, preceded by the mandatory visit to the Mt Isa lookout to watch the sun set through the lead laden smoke blowing over the city.  We dropped the car off for its 20,000 klm service and walked into and around the town centre until the service was competed.  A visit to the local library was interesting and allowed us to print off some documents for signing and postage.  The local Coffee Club enjoyed our company for both morning tea and lunch.

Mt Isa skyline

27 May – Mt Isa to Camooweal

Roadside stop on the way to Camooweal

One of a number of wide loads we encountered

The drive to Camooweal was pleasant enough with the landscape quite flat with few trees.  Large sub-stations on the back of huge semitrailers passed us coming the other way.  We had to get completely off the road to let them pass.

View from our billabong camp near Camooweal

Arriving at Camooweal, just 14 klm from the Northern Territory border, we turned off the main road and found a pretty spot on the banks of Lake Francis – a billabong a couple of kilometres out of town.  We set up camp and spent the afternoon watching wild horses drink from the water’s edge near us, pelican fish in the shallows and a myriad of other birds feeding and drinking. 

Sunset in front of our camp

That night the pelicans spread out across the tail of the billabong and hit their wings on the surface making a loud and unexpected strange noise in the still of the night.  The flapping chases the fish into the shallows where the pelicans then easily feed on the stranded fish.  Fortunately we were told of this beforehand so we understood what was going on.

The bush camp is very popular with caravans, 5^th wheelers, camper-trailers and tents with them all lining the shores of the billabong.  A second billabong is located a kilometre further on and is just as pretty but less busy.  Sunrises and sunsets are just beautiful in this area and we had some lovely ones while here for two nights.  With little light pollution, the stars were just so bright and clear all night. 

28 May - Day 2 Camooweal

Portrait of Owen Alloway

Today we went into Camooweal “town” and started off by having a morning coffee at the local supermarket, come Post Office, come bank, come government agent for heaps of state government departments, come gossip centre.  While sitting on the little veranda having our coffee an 87 year old local sat down beside us, introduced himself as Owen Alloway.  After an hour of chatting to him we knew his whole life story, all about the wonderful local health system available to him, all about the “his soul-mate and love of his life” and interestingly his life as a drover in the area.  After saying goodbye to Owen we drove a kilometre out of town to visit the Drovers Museum which we have seen advertised everywhere for the last several 100 klm.  The ads depict a silhouetted bush scene against a red and orange sunset with two drovers and their horses.  We found out that Owen is the main character in the ad and a famous drover in the region.  His portrait hangs in the museum with many others painted by a female artist who visited the town for many years to paint.  We had just spent an hour with this remarkable man.

The Drovers Museum is just wonderful.  Set up by volunteers in a large shed about a kilometre south of the town.  All visitors receive a guided tour of the shed and its extensive memorabilia.  The guides are elderly, retired statesmen from the region’s droving industry who volunteer their time and explain in detail their earlier droving life. 

Drovers Camp Museum with guide, Darryl

After about hour and many funny and interesting stories later we were then free to wander throughout the shed to look at things in more detail.  All they ask for is a gold coin donation – we gave more than that via raffle tickets and souvenirs as we felt it was really well worth visiting.

May Steele - 1952

One particular story that reflects the courage of the people out here was of May Steele (1906 – 1995).  She started droving, not as a cook but on horseback, at the age of 25 with her husband, Alex.  She raised two children on the droving trail where in 1946 the cattle rushed (stampede at night) and her husband, the Boss Drover was badly injured.  She rode through the night to get help for him.  Alex was taken to hospital and his injuries made him a paraplegic for the rest of his life.  Meanwhile May went back to the cattle and was told by the Manager that the drive was off.  May disagreed and took over as Boss Drover herself and with just four aboriginal drovers and her two young children delivered the 2000 head of cattle to the Manager at Alice Springs four months later.  She did this for the next 30 years with her children and husband, who rode on a pony at the rear of the herd.  The tough old drover who told the story had so much admiration for the family and their story. Returning back to camp we cooked up roast vegies on the campfire (see Facebook for photos) and planned the next part of our trip

29 May – from Camooweal, Qld, into the Northern Territory and to Banka Banka station.

We decided to travel from Camooweal to the Threeways and on to Banka Banka Station (campground) non-stop. The weather was kind giving us a slight tailwind and, from having travelled the road before, I knew there was little to see with only basic unkempt bush camps located near to the road. 

Crossing from Camooweal to Threeways

In all we travelled 530 klm today without a hitch (except the one for the caravan) and all the while drinking in the vastness and isolation of this part of Australia.  The iPod is filled with music and the ABC’s Conversation Hour with Richard Fydler (or Dick Fiddler as I call him) and it got a real workout.  Fuel prices are at $2 a litre at the Barkly Roadhouse half way across and those in the know avoid this guy’s roadhouse by using gerry cans to make the distance – just as we did.

Northern Territory border

 

We stopped at the iconic “Welcome to the Northern Territory “sign 14 klm west of Camooweal for the traditional photo at 8.15 am, then morning tea in the middle of nowhere followed by lunch west of the middle of nowhere.  Our lunch stop was at an all-but-empty rest area where we pulled in towards the back creating our own private area.  Within 15 minutes a car and van pulled in and stopped 10 metres away with the wife getting out and throwing up in the grass.

Our "quiet" lunch stop in the middle of nowhere

This was followed by a semitrailer filled with piping and machinery, a cement mixer, a tip truck towing an old council caravan, a 4wd ute towing a big trailer and another 4wd  all of which parked on the other side of us.  All the blokes got out to fix a flat tyre on the truck which needed several swear words uttered through toothless mouths and over bulging beer bellies.  I don’t recall what we had for lunch but I know what the lady had and it certainly became very crowded for such a desolate place.

Banka Banka Station from the lookout

We arrived at our destination, Banka Banka Station, around 4.00 pm, set up camp, ran into a couple, Carl and Anna, we have seen on several other occasions and we all went and watched the sunset from the Station lookout followed by a couple of beers around the campfire put on by the owners.  Bed was very welcome that night.

Banka Banka Station lookout at sunset

30 May – Daly Waters

While Julie deliberated and I umm’ed-and-ahh’ed, we finally decided to risk camping the night at the Daly Waters Pub.  The Daly Waters Pub is an iconic Northern Territory (NT) bush pub which has hundreds of shirts, caps, bras, foreign currency notes, thongs, rego plates and comments adorning the walls. 

"Chilli's" souvenir shop - Daly Waters Pub

Daly Waters Pub parking sign

The beer garden serves the famous “Beef and Barra” dinner (or just a very large piece of barramundi for the non-meat eaters) from 6:30 pm with sittings every 30 minutes.  It’s first in best dressed for the meal time and we got the treasured 6:30 pm slot given we had arrived and ordered just after midday.

Daly Waters Pub Bar

Each night there is entertainment by local “artists”.  Tonight we had three different ones with Dave Chillcott ("Chilli") being the headline act.  With a mixture of jokes, music and bush poems we were entertained all night.  At around 9.30 pm we headed back to our van with a belly full of food, a head full of jokes that I will never recall, two CD’s by Chilli and a lifetime of great memories.  We sat with Bill and Helen, a Vietnam war veteran and his wife from Grafton who were parked beside us and with whom we spent the afternoon in the shade between our vans.

Next morning everyone packs up (at least 40 caravans) and heads off, while in the distance can be heard the next herd of travelers rumbling along the highway towards the Daly Waters Pub.

31 May – Day 1 Elsey National Park near Mataranka

Just south of Mataranka is this beautiful National Park edging on to the Roper River with its Mataranka Falls.  We arrived around lunchtime and had our pick of the sites.  A sprawling campground with lots of sites well-spaced and mostly drive-through we chose one in the back corner where we could tuck ourselves away and have some space. 

Elsey NP camp - Mataranka

Each day the sprinklers come on in the afternoon wetting the sun-baked grass between the sites.  With temperatures around 34 degrees and the sun beating down, the sprinklers provided some nice relief.  They turn off at 3 pm after which we drag our chairs out from under the awning and onto the wet grass under the shade trees.  Here we spend the afternoon relaxing, reading and doing crosswords until the heat of the day goes.

1 June – Day 2 Elsey National Park and Mataranka Falls. 

Roper River

This morning was spent on the 10klm return walk to Mataranka Falls. The track closely follows the banks of the Roper River to the 1 metre high tufa waterfalls. 

White Ant mound

10 klm walk for this glimpse of Mataranka Falls.

The walk was hot and dry with a little place of paradise at the far end where we had morning tea beside the babbling water flowing between the different river levels. 

Morning tea spot

The camp caretakers said it was fine to swim in the river, while the new National Park sign at the start of the walk says the river is closed for swimming due to the possibility of saltwater (salty) crocodiles.  We decided we were better readers than listeners and didn't have a swim.  We later heard that the area was just opened as the river has been given the all-clear after the wet season as the Rangers haven't seen a salty for over a month. Plus, for the last two weeks they have allowed German backpackers in the river and they have all come back safely, so the all clear has now been given for Aussie's to swim.  

Carl and Anna

As we headed home after the walk we again ran into our fellow travelers, Carl and Anna, who were setting up camp for a few nights.  It's interesting how we keep running into them.  Sometimes we catch up to them and, as it was this time, they caught up with us.

Mataranka is basically a main street town with everything located on the main highway.  We fueled up and drove to Bitter Springs, a 33 degree spring yielding 300 litres per second of crystal clear warm waters that flow though paper bark trees and on into the Roper River.

Bitter Springs

“We of the Never Never” is an autobiographical book written by Jeanne Gunn of her one year of experiences at Elsey Station near Mataranka while married to Aeneas Gunn in the very early 1900s.  Aeneas died one year after Jeanne arrived at Elsey whereupon she returned to Melbourne and wrote her book.  The Elsey Cemetery contains the graves and memorials of the local people who inspired the main characters in the book.  We visited the cemetery and and the original homestead site.  Now we will have to read the book!

One of the things we do to minimise caravan weight and the risk of breakages is to transfer sauces and things into plastic squeeze bottles.  Several of these are kept in the fridge.  One morning Julie made weetbix with a squirt of maple syrup.  Sitting back with a coffee we tucked into weetbix and salt - it wasn't maple syrup but oyster sauce.  For those of you thinking about following suit, oyster sauce is great in stir fries but just awful on weetbix.

2 June – Mataranka to Katherine

Botanical Walk

Botanical Walk

We've now been on the road for 6 weeks.  Today we travelled to Katherine to stay in a van park as the washing is building up and the food is getting low.  With only a 1.5 hours drive to Katherine we had time to do some of the short walks near our Elsey NP camp.  We did the very pretty botanical walk, visited the ruins of a WWII Aboriginal Army Camp as well as the historic Mataranka Station sheep/cattle/horse dip.  While we were out Carl and Anna came looking for us and left us some native lemons from a tree near their van.

Sheep dip

3 June - Day 1 Katherine

After getting a good site at the Shady Lane Tourist Park we extended our planned stay from two to four nights.  We are planning to leave Friday as this weekend is a long weekend in the Northern Territory and Saturday has rain forecast.  We plan to get to Edith Falls early to see if we can get a good site to wait out the long weekend and forecast showers.

4 June  - Day 2 Katherine and Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge

Today we did the half day three gorge boat trip that took us up the first three gorges (sections) of the Katherine River where we walked between each section to the next shallow draft boat. It was a great trip with interesting commentary and a swim in the Lily Ponds plunge pool beneath a 60 metre high waterfall.  The weather was beautiful and the gorge just gorgeous.   Following are some photos of the trip:

5 June - Day 3 Katherine and Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge

Today was walk day through Nitmiluk Gorge NP to lookouts overlooking the river we travelled  yesterday.  The weather remains sunny and hot with the walking track temperatures up to 36 degrees.  The walking tracks are well signposted and have small water tanks placed along them with fresh drinking water to replenish thirsty water bottles.  

Baruwei Walk - Katherine Gorge

Windolf Walk - Katherine Gorge

Windolf Walk - Katherine Gorge & Pat's Lookout

We started walking at 8.30am and were back to the car just before noon.  The lookouts were worth the effort each giving us spectacular views down the gorge.

6 June - Day 4 Katherine

Shopping day today.   Note to self - never shop on a Thursday pension day. It took 45 minutes to get through the checkout.  The lady in front had Women's Weekly in her trolley and took it out, read the whole thing and put it back on the shelf!

Last night was State of Origin so I moved the TV outside under the awning and got all set up to watch the game under the stars.  Surrounded by NSW number plates, at half time I packed everything up and moved inside.  What a shame about the game.  Anyway that's enough of that topic.

We are getting ready to move on tomorrow after four nights here.  Our target is Edith (Leilyn) Falls for three nights before going to Litchfield NP.

We hope you all enjoy this latest posting.  We are both well and still loving the lifestyle.  Car and van continue to perform well with no problems.

Bye for now


Jeff and Julie