Day twelve: Day in Mataranka Springs.

 

This morning I awoke at about 7:30am and tried to creep out of the kombi.  I lit up the stove to make myself a morning coffee when the next door neighbour came around and asked me if I’d like some breakfast.  Apparently she is missing her kids and she felt the need to mother someone.  “Mother away!” I told her and ordered two bits of toast with honey.  Louisa heard that she was missing out on something and got up to order herself two bits of toast as well.

We’d both had a crack ‘em during the middle of the night in our 1 ½ x 3m house so it was a fairly quiet morning but only had to wait till 10am to get into our cabin we’d booked, then we were both happy.

The cabin was a great idea and we went about taking most things out of Sunny and making the studio apartment look like some kind of bomb had hit it.  But the space! Oh the space.  It was like we were in a mansion of some sorts.  It had its own bathroom, shower and kitchen and there was even a T.V.  We had a bit of a laze about, made some lunch and headed down to the Matarnaka Springs for a dip.

 

The Mataranka Springs reminded me of that scene from ‘Cocoon’ where all the old folk are swimming in a pool that is supposed to make them younger.  I even heard a few of them asking others if the Springs would keep them full of life.  The Mataranka Springs were cooler than the Bitter Springs we’d been to the day before and more like an actual pool.  It was encased in concrete and had more of a sandy bottom that you could walk around on.  It also had more tourists than the Bitter Springs and more grey nomads.  There was child at the Springs that I thought looked like how Jude Tsai would’ve looked like as a kid and I made Louisa take a photo.  Such a cute kid.

 

We got back to camp and decided to go for a walk to town.  We ran in to two bird watchers and had a look at some gorgeous rainbow coloured honey eaters.  Little birds that have a tendancy to glide everywhere and not flap their wings.  There were hundreds of them flying around as the sun was setting.

 

After that we decided that we would cook Barramundi for dinner on the bbq at the cabin.  The only problem was that all the stores shut at 2pm and none of them sold Barramundi anyway.  Louisa had pre-made some chips out of a couple of potatoes and had them resting in the fridge George Coloumbaris style as she had seen on Master Chef.  I got around to making some Tuna paties Brooke Marshall style which is basically using anything that was in the canned goods and seasoning section.

Dinner turned out rather well and I have to thank Louisa for most of that.  I had some kind of quiet spell and couldn’t be bothered doing anything so she made it all while I sat on the bed and watched Funniest Home Videos.

 

 

Day thirteen:  Mataranka Springs to Katherine.  Start time 10am.  Arrival time 11am.  Odometer: 86801

 

This was the quickest and least painful drive so far.  One hour of power and we were in Katherine, had booked our site for two nights at the Nitmiluk National Park (through the Irish girl at the counter) and organized two tickets for the sunset dinner cruise down the Katherine Gorge.

We were so pleased with ourselves that we took the afternoon off and sunbaked and swam in the pool for the couple of hours we had before the cruise.

 

We went down to the reception area to have a beer while we waited for our cruise and who should pop in but some people we had met around the bbq in Tennant Creek, Jenny and Charlie.  We ended up chatting with them for most of the tour and having dinner with them at the end.

 

The Katherine Gorge is a beautiful place and I highly recommend it to anyone who is in the NT.  The tour we did started at 4:30pm with a cruise up the first gorge, followed by a short walk and a cruise up the second gorge which is supposed to be the most spectacular.  Our tour guide Mark (from Spain) was a great talker and had everyone intruiged for the whole 2 hours.  After we had done our site seeing we were directed to a boat that had been set up for dinner and I watched as the sun set as I was digging into my barramundi and xxxxgold.

 

The walk back from the cruise was very funny.  They dropped us off at the pier and about six of us started walking back to the lower car park and the campsite.  The smart people of the world had parked in the higher carpark and only had a 50m walk.  The six of us had about a five hundred metre walk in the pitch black unsure of the direction we were heading.  None of us had bothered to bring a torch so we all scared ourselves stupid with any noise but luckily the camera had enough light in it to at least light up the road in front of our feet.

 

Greatest song today: Unfinished Symphony, Massive Attack

Best bit:  Seeing a shooting star on the walk home and making a wish.

Saddest bit: Not being allowed back for seconds on the cruise.

Scariest bit:  Seeing a two metre black headed python on the road (we only found out its name after we took a photo of it and showed it around).  Apparently it’s not poisonous so we COULD’VE got out of the car and patted it.

Best slogan on a grey nomads van: ‘Adventure before dementure’.

 

 

 

Day fourteen:  Spend the day in Nitmulik National Park.

 

Today I had agreed to go on a 12km walk with Louisa.  What came over me I do not know but the Butterfly Gorge walk promised butterflies and a 33m deep swimming hole at the end so I consented and we took off about 9:30am after packing our togs and some lunch.

 

After a very steep first hill followed by an hour of some other hefty hills and some rough torrain we had missed our turn off to the Butterfly walk and had arrived back at the start of our walk.  Happy times.  I thought that would be it for the day and we could head back to the pool but Louisa had other ideas.  I wasn’t that happy about trecking my legs back up the first hill again after just completing 3.5kms but for some reason I did.  As consolation Louisa suggested we do the shorter walk that would end up only being about 10km instead of the 12kms.  I whole-heartedly agreed and we set off down a track (after the first big hill) that promised a rock pool for swimming and a beautiful view of the first gorge.  The going was tough.  The track was a mix between sand and loose gravel and by this stage it was starting to get a bit hot.  The walk guides had said the temperature of the walks was 10 degrees hotter than the actual temperature so going by yesterdays forecast of 32 degrees I guessed the walking track was getting close to 40 degrees.

 

My heart sank as we looked at the rock pool which had shriveled up into nothing more than a puddle and I wondered why we had even bothered.  We headed up to the lookout and ate our very warm sandwiches in the sun.  I gave us a very generous 7mins on that look-out to soak everything in and eat lunch.  It was getting hotter and hotter and I couldn’t think of anything but the pool.

We trudged on back to the campsite, had a quick swim and then I had a half hour nap before we went to meet Jenny and Charlie for dinner at their campsite.

 

 

 

Funniest bit:  Watching Lou walk (and when I say walk, I mean trip) in front of me with what we now call her ‘lazy left foot’.

Saddest bit: The walk.

Cutest bit:  Watching about a dozen oldies dance the quick-step at Jenny and Charlies campsite, and then exclaiming that they’d had too many wines and were too old to be dancing.

Horror story: The smell of two massive wild pigs that were dead and very stiff on the side of the road – the smell went for about 1km either way. Stinky.  Lou was dry wretching. I was laughing.

Best creek name: Skull creek minor (and yes I’m waiting for Skull creek major)

 

 

 

Day fifteen:  Nitmiluk National Park, Katherine to Timber Creek.  Start time: 8:40am  Arrival time: 3:20pm Odometer: 87194

 

We set off from the campsite at 8:40am but didn’t leave the town of Katherine till about 11:30am.  It took about half an hour to drive into town and then we went to Woolworths to stock up on some supplies and a block of ice.  We decided to give Sunny a car wash as she’d done such a top job so far and she came out sparkling.  We had our photo taken with the car by a German tourist who was very impressed with the ‘classic car’.

 

After the carwash and photo shoot we took off towards Broome.  Yay!!!  I’m so excited about getting to Broome, and am particularly excited about going scuba diving with the 14m whale sharks and sunbaking on a beach.  I love the country side but am a beach girl from way back.

 

We stopped at Victoria River Roadhouse that is just inside Gregory National Park and had a pie and xxxxgold for lunch, served by an Irish girl.

 

We then headed off towards Big Horse Creek Campground that Jenny had told us was a real party campground, was free and had a bar, but you had to get there early because all the sites went fairly quickly. 

We finally arrived at Big Horse about 3:20pm.  It is situated 10km past Timber Creek.  It wasn’t a party site by any means but it was fairly busy.  (No bar)

 

At the risk of going a bit feral we’ve decided to stay in some free or very cheap campgrounds and rest areas from now on as we’ve probably already spent about $250 in campsites.  Big Horse campground cost us both $3.30 for the night, I shouted Lou.

 

We went for a walk down to the Big Horse Creek that connects with Vic River to see if we could test out our $10 junior fishing rod that we’d bought from Kmart.  As neither of us knew how to fish, the junior rod seemed like a smart choice at a bargain price with instructions on how to fish on the back.

 

Sharon from next door came around to introduce herself and tell us that 5pm was the time to fish.  It also happened to be the time that the crocs came around.  She happily gave us some more tips and was kind enough to let us borrow a lure of hers as she thought any bait may attract the crocs.

 

We wandered down to the river and met up with Adam and The Yettie (appropriately named – I could hardly see his face from all the hair) who looked at our fishing rod and laughed.  The Yettie cut off Sharons lure and tied a bigger, prawn like lure to the end of the rod.

 

It was very peaceful pretending to fish like that as the sun went down.

 

 

Greatest song today: Leave me alone, Natalie Imbruglia.

Funniest bit: Me getting very exited that I’d snagged a big fish when in reality my hook was just caught on a rock.

Saddest bit: My attempt at making pepper sauce as a gourmet topping for dinner.  It ended up quite floury with way too many peppercorns.

 

 

Day sixteen: Big Horse Creek campground to Kununnara.  Start time: 8:40am  Arrival time: 9:45am (WA time) 11:45am (NT time)    Odometer: 87416

 

I woke up to watch the sunrise, have a coffee and a read of my book.  There was some amazing bird action this morning, but I wish I’d known what kind of birds they were.  There were three different types flying around, a couple of eagles and one beautiful owl gliding through the morning sky.

 

I had some nutella on bread for breakfast and Lou woke up and made herself a banana sandwich.  We are about to cross the border into Western Australia today and cannot take any fruit or veg with us so we piled up a half a bag of oranges, two potatoes and two onions and left them at Sharons door with a note thanking her for her lure.

 

We headed towards the border at a leisurely pace as Louisa played Dido (yawn).  We hit the fruit inspection point about two hours into the trip and regretfully handed over our honey that we hadn’t even opened.  After that it was a short (and Dido free) half an hour until we made it into Kununarra.

 

We were both a bit slow today and decided the best thing to do would be to go to the Pumphouse café that had free wireless internet and not talk to each other for a couple of hours.  We arrived and had a coffee, shortly followed by lunch of two ceaser salads (mine had chicken, the first time I’ve had chicken in 2 weeks Veenus) and some beers.  I had a fun time downloading some photos onto the blog – it’s amazing how quickly you forget some things.

 

After lunch we headed back to a campground that we had seen had unpowered sites by the river and booked one nights accommodation.  Feral will have to wait – this place had showers.

 

We secured a spot right next to the river so we could attempt fishing again and quickly drove back into town to get ourselves some fish for dinner and some booze as our stocks were dangerously low.

 

After this I went a bit mental.

I think I am in danger of relaxing too much.

I suggested that we wait in Kununarra till the weekend so we could see the V8’s in action in Hidden Valley with the Presets playing on Sunday night.  What couldn’t be better than watching loud cars all weekend in 30 degree heat, drinking beer and then listening to dance music at the end?

Unfortunately I have itchy feet and cannot even fathom the thought of sitting still for another 2 days whilst waiting for hotted up cars.

I took myself off fishing to try and soothe the beast within and to ask myself some big life questions;

 

What the hell was I doing in Kununarra?

How old was I again?

Did I still have a tab at the pub?

Why was I catching so much seaweed?

 

Luckily a lovely man Cliff interrupted my deep thoughts and started chatting to me, informing me that there was fish in the river, there was just a hell of a lot of water in between them. It made me feel a bit better. He then told me that he and his wife had been travelling Australia for 6 ½ years!  They had decided to do it for 2 but had had such a great time that they didn’t want to stop.  They drive back to their sons house every year for Christmas but just park in the driveway and stay in the van.  Classic.

 

After that Lou and I decided to head to bocce and happy hour (not so happy – you bring your own beer, they supply nibbles) so we wandered down about 4:30pm and sat down with about 20 others that were all 50+ and just chatted.  It was lovely.  We heard so many stories about lives, retirement, what sort of vans they all have, families and life in general. (I know it may seem as though I’m being sarcastic here but I really had a great time).

 

After that Lou and I walked back to our site where I prepared a beautifully seasoned Barramundi fillet with garlic prawns while Lou made a fresh garden salad. Yummo.

(The Barramundi fillet was $2.50 at the shops – cheap)

 

Then just before bed time I cracked em with doing the dishes and went to bed while Lou cleaned up.

 

 

Greatest song today: Verdi, La Traviata – Placido Domingo

(Louisa’s rendition of this opera classic and then thanking her imaginary audience at the end was outstanding).

Funniest bit:  Louisa having to brake so suddenly and come to a complete stop as a massive bull started to bolt across the road.  She has some very bad luck with driving and animals.

Best bit: Lou agreeing to hightail it to Broome.  I can’t do any more country towns.

Best creek name:  Dick creek (juvenile, I know)

 

 

Day seventeen: Kununarra to Marys Pool rest area.  108km past Halls Creek.  Start time: 8:30pm  Arrival time: 4:45pm  Odometer:  87921

 

I woke up for a glorious sunrise along the river.  It was magnificent.  It was also 5:15am.  I guess we were a bit jet-lagged with the time difference from NT.  I was still waking up with the sunrise, it’s just that now it’s a hell of a lot earlier.

 

After Lou woke up, we packed up and got on the road.  The only problem was that when we tried to check out it was too early.  7:30am and the office didn’t open till 8am – I took this time to check the oil (a little low) and the tyre pressure (fine) and went for a quick stroll with Lou. It was also the first time that I had tried to lock my petrol cap, which I thought I did.

 

We took off to do a 30min walk to see some mini bungle bungles as Sunny was not going to be able to 4xwheel drive it into the real ones.  It was a painless walk and we finally took off to Halls Creek about 8:30am.

 

Lou had wanted to only travel 200kms today but we were having so much fun we just kept driving.  In the end we made it about 500kms but with a cost - Lou cracked em quickly just when we got into Halls Creek, but had come good by the time we got to the rest area.

 

We rolled in to Marys Pool rest area and started our routine of unpacking the kombi and saying hello to anyone that walked by.  Our routine must have been a bit out though because as I went to shut the passengers side door, I realized too late that Louisa’s hand was in it.  I felt so bad.  The poor thing took herself off to the back of the kombi and moaned quietly.  I kept setting up as there was nothing else I could do apart from apologize profusely.

 

 

Best bit: Seeing the first kombi on the road.

Best bit #2: Having Barra and prawns again for dinner.

Best quote:  Lou annoyed at the broken window saying it was ‘the vein of her life’

Stupidest bit:  Realizing my petrol cap had fallen off after I’d ‘locked’ it and having to drive around town to find another one.

Best creek name:  Weaner creek (just like dick creek only smaller)

Worst aboriginal name for a rock: Head-lice dreaming.

 

 

Day eighteen:  Marys Pool rest area to Lake Ellendale rest area  Start time: 8:30am  Arrival time: 1:20pm  Odometer: 88206

 

I woke up at 5:30am with a fresh brain and did some morning mathematics to work out how much money I’d have to give Colin for petrol – it even included some long division that I haven’t done since primary school.  (Lovely Colin had offered to drive Sunny home as it wouldn’t fit on the train and Lou and I are flying home from Perth).

 

I agreed with Lou when she woke up to do a shorter drive today and to stop in Fitzroy Crossing to have lunch and to have a look around at the town.  We arrived there about 10am and went to look for the oldest pub in WA – The Crossing Inn.  It wasn’t open till 12 however, so we went and did a bit of grocery shopping and topped up our ice supply.

 

The pub was fairly average and we paid $12 to have a sandwich bar type lunch.  I tried an Emu Export with my lunch and have to say that it reminded me of the first time my dad ever let me try beer, very bitter.  I loved it.

 

After lunch we head off for our next rest area that was 150kms from town but we were lured in to the Lake Ellendale rest area by the sight of the beautiful lake.  Our neighbour gave us the history of the lake – it was manmade when they dug a big hole to use the dirt for making the roads and now was a popular cow drinking watering hole.

 

Our neighbour also invited us for drinks at their caravan at 4:15pm – which apparently was strictly a one hour thing.  We waddled over with a bottle of wine and had such a good chat to everyone there that we didn’t get back to the kombi till 6pm and couldn’t be bothered making dinner.  We had a cup-a-soup each, a game of chess, and I am ashamed to say were both asleep by 6:30pm.

 

Funniest bit:  Being recognized from the Mole - name and all.

Scariest bit:  The scary cow who nearly charged Lou and I when we went for a pee in the bushes.

Song of the day:  Sunny, artist unkown.

 

Day nineteen (my favourite):  Lake Ellendale to Broome!  Start time: 6:30am  Arrival time: 9:30am  Odometer:

 

I was ultra surprised when Lou woke up at 6am and immediately packed up the car.  I’d wanted to get an early start to Broome and had been so excited that I woke up at 5am and had been reading, but was even more excited when we took off at 6:30am.

 

Lou did the first hour of driving and I think the combination of her getting up early and not having a morning coffee made her slightly crazy.  I’ve never seen so many Jim Carrey like impersonations in such a short amount of time.

 

We arrived in Broome and went to the local markets where we ran into a girl Lou used to work with at YSAS.  She was lovely enough to invite us to stay at her house when our time at the apartment was over. Yay!  This meant that all our time in Broome (the holiday from our holiday) was going to be spent with room.

After we had spoken to Emma we made some phone calls as we finally had some reception after 3 days without.  Id just finished telling my dad how good the car had been but after I’d hung up from him the car didn’t start.  I rang my RACV total care (don’t get me started on how much I love total care – I could be doing ads for it I love it so much) and half an hour later a technician had given me a jump start.

 

We arrived at the Rendevous Sanctuary about 2pm and checked into a one bedroom apartment for some space.  It was so nice to be in a room again and just laze about.  We watched some t.v, had some wine and had a party – for the first time on the trip I think I went to bed after midnight and didn’t get up the next day till after 8am.  Good to see I can still stay up late, I was starting to worry with all the early nights.

 

As we are five days ahead of schedule we have decided to have some relaxing time in Broome and chill out with the beach and the sun.

 

Best bit: Broome

Sunniest bit: Broome

Best beach: Broome

30 degrees: Broome