Katherine and Edith

We're not really caravan park sorts of people. Have I mentioned that before?
But we needed to restock supplies in Katherine and do some washing and Katherine was the logical place to do this.
But after reading all the reviews of all the caravan parks in Katherine and noting the prices and really, really wanting to stay out at Edith Falls....this is what we did.
After unsuccessfully trying to ring the campground at Leliyn (Edith Falls) and after finding out from the tourist information place in Katherine that it is first-in-best-dressed at Edith Falls.
And also knowing that caravan sited are limited we drove out to there about 60 odd kms, got a spot, got set up, had lunch and then drove back into Katherine to do laundry and go shopping. Mad, eh?
But when we got back, the sign near the highway at the turn off said "caravan sites full"! So we were glad that we had done that crazy thing.
And when we got back we had time for a refreshing dip in the refreshingly fresh water pool. Delicious!

Originally I had just sketched in a one night stop here, but it is worth 2 nights.
There is a kiosk and the ladies that run it also take the fees for the campground. They are lovely and made a mean barra burger too!

On our way to The Top.

At Mataranka we entered the top end, I don't know if that is official, but it felt like it to me. The country changes, the vegetation is different, you enter the part that has a wet season and there is a high concentration of Places To See.
Mataranka is the spot that has hot springs. It has 4 different caravan parks and a National Park.
We opted to stay in the Jalmurark campground in Elsey National Park. It's a drive to the thermal pools but it has a river.
It turned out to be a great little campsite. The sites are well spaced. Each has a fireplace and most have a table and a well-watered grassy area. It looked like we were looking out on a back yard!

We canoed on the Roper River down to Mataranka Falls which are small cascades. I baulked at getting the canoe over the small cascades and exploring futher.
Instead we paddled back to the campsite where there are pontoons floating in the river allowing for a nice-enough cool off.
Then we canoed up-stream and cam to a delightful rocky spot with some more cascades. We chickened out at shooting the rapids back down! haha.

The next day was my birthday. And I was thoroughly spoiled with pancake breakfast. Coffee and scones for morning tea in Mataranka township and barra and salad for lunch. We were in time to witness the barramundi feeding at the Mataranka resort, which was an added bonus. Then we spent the afternoon floating down the warm current in Bitter springs. It was lovely.
As we had a decent lunch we decided to just have snacks and treats for dinner. so we bought what we could at the little shop in town, plus we had some homemade hummus and some Jamie Oliver pesto. Finished off with passionfruit and mango cheesecake form the Stockyard Gallery where we had morning tea.

The day after that I suggested riding our bikes to Mataranka Homestead and Springs to burn up some calories. It's about 15 kms maybe, took us about an hour along the road. We were disappointed to find that you couldn't easily put a canoe in the river there as there was a locked gate otherwise we might have gone back later on.
Instead we rode along to Stevie's hole - a nice deep hole where the water in cooler than at the thermal pool and it has a nice little sandy spot, beach almost.

As we hadn't taken lunch we bought something at the resort cafe, in fact we shared a barra burger (#2 for the trip) and chips and watched a bit of the movie We Of The NeverNever which they show every lunchtime. The movie was based on a book that was written about life on Elsey Station by Jeannie Gunn. The replica homestead that they built for the movie is nearby.

Then it was time for another thermal pool dip. Mataranks hot springs is lined with stone and concrete but is still nice. It also wasn't too busy, just a dozen people there although the overheard conversations were "interesting"!

There is a foot track that runs from the resort near the river all the way back to our campsite. So we set off along it and got as far as the first picnic area where we cooled off in the river, then the track was too rocky to bike ride on so we headed to the road stopping off at the other picnic areas along the way and having another dip at the pretty rocky spot that we had canoed to on day 1.

G said it was OK from there back to the campsite, along the foot track, but I still had to do a fair bit of hopping-off-and-pushing!

So that was a lovely few days that we spent at Mataranka.
I think we are really into this travelling life now.
G is relaxed and happy.
We are loving our little caravan.
And have got packing up and setting up down to a fine art - at least it is a lot less stressful and we have managed to not damage anything for a while!

In which we enter new territory.

On the last day of July we entered new territory - the Northern Territory. Neither of us have been here before but we passed up the photo op at the border. But we did gain half an hour. (Now being on Central Australian time)
It was a long straight road to our next stop, Barkly Homestead. Pretty much just a servo, with cafe and the caravan park behind. We did consider a free roadside camp about 50 kms before there, but as we have a longer drive the next day decided to go for the relative civilisation of Barkly Homestead.
It is a very popular stop with sooooo many caravans checking into the powered sites. We are self contained and with our solar power don't really need a powered site so we set up near the fence under a tree filled with squawking corellas, looking out over the scrubby bush - we could have been in the middle of nowhere - oh, wait....
The good thing about the roadhouse was that they had rather excellent cakes - I had to opportunity to try out my caramel slice survey again!
Also for people who are tenting there is a nicely watered grassy area, which was occupied by a guy travelling by bicycle - strange, but true. Honestly this country is pretty hard to travel by car - but by bicycle? Crikey!

The next morning it was noticeable that we were nearly the last to leave! Most people left around 8am or earlier, but we are on holiday!
Hey, what's the rush people?!

The Tablelands Highway stretches north from Barkly Homestead and is a single lane road. Sealed, mind you. This means that you have to move over whenever anything else comes the other way. Luckily it is a fairly quiet road. There are maybe half a dozen travellers that we crossed paths with.
We stopped at the Brunette Downs rest area for a leg-stretch and G stretched his legs rather more! Brunette Downs station was founded by Harry Redford apparently, he of Captain Starlight fame. (See Longreach entry)
There is some bleak old country out there. We drove for mile after mile over the Barkly Tablelands, great cattle-grazing country but one of the most sparsely-populated areas in Australia. Not surprising! Sometimes we saw not a tree! Sometimes there was low scrubby bush, and sometimes some trees.

It's only 338 kms from Barkly Homestead to Cape Crawford, but it took us 5 hours. We don't travel very fast.

We bypassed the Heartbreak Hotel, which is the only thing at Cape Crawford for the pocket-sized bush camping area at Little River 10kms away. The lagoon has got some water in and a few waterbirds and is a pleasant enough spot.
We put the canoe and paddled around. It was cooler on the water.

We stayed there 2 nights as we wanted to go to Caranbirrini Conservation area which has special sandstone formations, like the lost cities further north, or a mini Bungle Bungles.
We elected to do the longer 5 km walk, having been cooped up in the car for the last 3 days and no exercise whatsoever. There was a nice breeze blowing which made it more pleasant. There is a pretty water-lily- filled lagoon there as well with a bird hide, a conveniently shady place for lunch.

On the way back we stopped at the Heartbreak Hotel for a cooling ale - the bar area was closed, so we sat on the wide verandah, but it also means that we have no idea why the place is famous!
Anyway we had a nice chat to a lovely Irish Lass from County Galway who is doing the working-backpacking-thing. All these places are staffed by young backpackers. When you walk onto on of these roadhouses you don't know what accent you are going to hear - pommy, Canadian, German....
I give them all full marks for managing to stay in these places for 3 months - I hope it is worth it for them.

G and his birds.

G has been doing a bit of birdwatching, bird-stalking and bird-snapping.

Friendly smile from a Carnarvon Gorge local. Wedge tail eagle not that happy I was around but smiled when he recognised I was friendly.

At Lara Wetlands Camping Area.

Whistling Kite taken over a wedge tailed eagle's nest.

Royal Spoonbill

One bird you never mess with...the 'punk' white faced heron. Lara Station south of Barcaldine. It watches us roasting veges in the camp oven at sunset. Zoom in to see earrings, studs and tatts.

 At Lily Lagoon, near Longreach

Spoonbills and

Dotterell

Driving around Bladensburg National Park South of Winton.

budgie feeding time

budgie feeding time

but I want more. Old trees are important for bird habitat. Bough Shed waterhole

White Necked Heron, Bough Shed Waterhole

spinifex pigeon at Bough Shed Waterhole

Around Lake Corella and Clem Walton Dam near Cloncurry.

Rainbow bee eaters...at the wrong angle to show their magnificent colour. Two of four

Cockatiel pokes its head out

Peaceful dove goes about its business

A rarely seen Cloncurry ringneck parrot

At Camooweal Waterhole

brolgas

brolga flying

And at Boodjamulla National Park an amazing Western Bowerbird bower, decorated with broken glass, bones and toilet paper! Sure to attract the girls.

possible grey falcon

pretty red-winged parrot

Channel Billed cuckoos are residents as are barking owls that really do sound like dogs.

A French Tale

Our attention was first drawn to the young couple as we returned from a drive to Adel’s Grove to our campsite in the National Park camping area at Lawn Hill (or Boojamulla). They had parked in the ‘day use’ area of the Gorge recreation section and the rear door of the 4WD they had was open onto the road. The girl of the pair was seated further into the road adjacent to the door so that I slowed and veered off the road a bit to avoid the obstacle. I looked as we passed and got a friendly grin from the lad of the pair. There were plenty of other shady spots so it seemed a bit strange to set up right there. Tess and I later in the day walked to Indarri falls (see the photos in a previous post) for an afternoon swim, the best time to be at the falls as most people restrict their activities to the morning. The young couple turned up after us and were less than friendly in not returning a hello when we offered one but she plonked all her stuff down on a canoe landing platform so we had to step over it to get past. Didn’t faze her and she made no move to shift it whenever we went past. Jokingly, Tess and I agreed they must be French bringing to the fore all our unconscious biases.
Next morning we saw each of them using the facilities/amenities of the campground but returning to the car park reasoning they had avoided the steep $5.60 per person fee demanded by the National Park. That meant they were ‘tight’ Frenchies!
That morning Tess and I walked the 'edge of the gorge' path via great lookouts and this brings you to a point looking down on the beautiful Indarri Falls. We arrived just in time to see the ‘Frenchies’ paddling in a canoe to reach the falls with a pink ball that they were throwing ahead and retrieving and taking photos. As they mucked around I saw something ‘tossed’ and an attempt to retrieve it that looked desperate and it became clear they had lost something valuable. Tess and I muttered several possibilities about non-waterproof and waterproof cameras or wallets and then suggested they were lucky there were no video cameras around otherwise they were likely to end up in bigger trouble by capsizing. Right on cue the lad attempts to exit the canoe and tips it up so a substantial amount of water enters but no capsize. See! No video camera otherwise…
They start peering into the water and it is deep enough to make seeing the bottom difficult but I gauge they have missed the spot it went in. The vantage point we had made it easy to pinpoint some features that allow an ‘X’ to mark the spot in my mind.

I went down and found they had lost a waterproof ‘GoPro’ type camera of a grey colour with black bordering. Others were going to lend them goggles upon return to the campsite so they could return to find it. I suggested to the lad he was looking in the wrong place but he was firm in his conviction that where he was looking was correct. I asked “Have you found it? His answer of “no” made me say “Well it is time to look somewhere where you don’t think it is if it is not where you think it is”. I offered assistance and he said “Well you can look where you want but I think it is here”. I dived in and started searching where I figured it was and on the third dive I found it. I surfaced without showing the camera and asked what colour it was again. The girl showed me a wrist camera or watch that reputedly had the same colour and I raised the camera above the water saying “What? Like this?” They were elated and the lad offered I should have a drink with them later but as I passed the camera back to them and with quite an audience by now I asked “Where did you camp last night?” The lad was honest and said the carpark. I asked if they had used the facilities and again he replied honestly so I said that they had offended the spirits of the Waanyi and they must pay for the use of the camp. Just to make sure I repeated it and he nodded sheepishly.
Bet they didn’t pay...and they were French!

By G.

A detour to Lawn Hill

We took a 3 day detour to Lawn Hill Gorge or Boodjamulla National Park.
Rather than drag our caravan over 500 kms of gravel road (OK the first bit is sealed highway) we decided it would be quicker and easier to leave our caravan in Camooweal (at the o-so-accommodating Camooweal Roadhouse) and travel light. Just taking our little 2-man tent - we'd booked into the pocket-sized national park campground.
It was obvious that we weren't the only ones doing that!

It is a pretty special place.
After 5 hours of driving across the drought-dry Barkly Tableland it is a real oasis.
A spring-fed river which has cut a gorge through red sandstone ranges.
Its banks are lined with palm trees, pandanus and other such greenery.
The water is an amazing green colour, sometimes jade green, sometimes almost florescent.

We had a creek-side site, although we couldn't actually see the creek as there was a fair bit of vegetation between us and the water.
We took our own canoe, although you can hire canoes there ($50 for 2 hours).

We canoed a couple of times.
Did a bit of walking.
Swam - a lot! One day 3 times (and I had a shower, I don't think I've ever been so wet!)

favorite swimming spot Indarri Falls

G got up a couple of mornings to witness the sunrise and another day went out lat to watch the sun set.

We ventured to Adel's Grove, 10 kms away to get ice. There are camping grounds there - but not as nice as ours! And costs a lot more. However there is a bar and restaurant there so we also had lunch and drinkies while we were there.