Devils Marbles - Daly Waters - Mataranka

6Our first leg of our northern journey was to stop at Devils Marbles again.  I wanted to see her at sunset and sunrise when she is at her most spectacular.  They have a small camp ground behind the  Marbles where we as a family can stay for just $8.00 a night.  Our drive up was not uninteresting.  We made a few scheduled stops along the way plus one not so scheduled stop.  Our first was at the Aileron with the big Aboriginal sculputors that dominate the skyline.  They are very special.  So was the roadhouse, pub, service station.  It had some amazing art work on its walls.  Mostly art inspired by Albert Namatjira.  The paints were really good and I later found out that some of the works are done by his sons and grandsons.  Wow!  Our next stop was to fuel up at Ti Tree another roadhouse, pub along the way.  That's pretty much all you get in the vast spaces around the Northern Territory.  Grog and fuel stops...lol.  We drove out of Ti Tree just after 1pm and we were promptly pulled over....oh ooohhh!  Nigel was in trouble.

Oops, how many drinks did you say you had with lunch.........

Controlled burn offs with not a soul around.

We did a quick stop at Wycliffe Wells to see the emu babies and were amazed to find 9 of them.  6 more had hatched the day we left.  Dad, Mum and babies all well.  Arrived and set up at Devils then spent the rest of the time really enjoying the rest of the night and morning.  The sunset was great.  We even had a couple of hippies playing a bongos and sitar and entertaining us on the Marbles.  We had drinks with a lovely couple and their two kids, Lyndal, Mark, Kane and Song.  Chat about trip tips and general stuff.  Its great how you can sit down with people and do this.

Tea at the Marbles

Sunset

The next morning the sunrise was just as pretty and again one of our hippies serenaded us while we watched it come up.  It made it quite special.  We even got to see a dingo again.  They roamed the camp site often through the previous night and the morning.  Off to Daly Waters Today...500km+ tip.  Lets see if we can cope with that.

Sunrise

Yummy ice cream!

Ahhhh the sore bum.  But yes we all did cope with it.  Several stops, a chat on the phone, ice cream to cool down. What more could you want.  We arrived at the quirky Daly Waters Pub, home of the famous Barra & Beef Night.  So famous I only just found out about it in Alice.  Nah Nigel had read about it much earlier and wanted this place to be one of our stops.

I'll have one beer, a vodka and lemonade and a lemon lime and bitters!

Chilly

We found a spot on the dirt then made our way up to the pub for our beef and barra.  Yum yum.  It was an amazing meal and we had great singing also.  Luke O'Shea the singer was brilliant and we sat there watching the performance asking ourselves.  'Is that the bloke that just pulled up in the caravan park just after us'.  Well yes it was.  Nigel liked his stuff so we ended up buying his CD.  It pretty good.  Very easy to listen to.  After Luke played the in house comedian got up.  Chilly was really funny and he kept us in stitches.  It was a really enjoyable night and one that we can recommend.

Luke O'Shea

Our next stop on our quick drive north was at Mataranka.  This time we stayed for 2 nights.  We wanted to go to the thermal pools at Mataranka Homestead and Bitter Springs.  We pulled into the Homestead for our couple of nights and the place was a dust bowl.  The fine dust just gets stuck to everything.  Nigel and I were cursing the site in only a short while.  Oh well we spent most of the afternoon at the thermal pool anyway so it did not matter.  The kids really loved it down there.  The water was at a balmy 32oC.  I went back to the caravan for some me time and read a book and watch the wallabies bounding around the camp site.  We also had some resident peacocks.  Very gorgeous indeed.

Our next day we drove into Mataranka and had our photo at the largest termite mound only to find out later that it was man made.  How dull but funny.  We were heading for bitter springs and got around the corner to discover a great caravan park with lovely green grass...grrrr...that's we will be heading next time we visit Mataranka.  The dust bowl is annoying.  Bitter Springs was amazing.  It was a gentle flowing waterway that you just floated down and enjoyed the amazing water.  The kids found it a bit yucky at times because the slime from the lily pad was grouse and there were a few submerged trees they had to avoid.  It didn't stop them from floating along the river 3 times though.  I really liked the natural surroundings.  Very special really.

Back to the thermal pools we went for another long dip.  It's like the movie Cocoon.  The number of oldies who sit in the pool all day long is just amazing.  One bloke we got chatting to spends six weeks at Mataranka and goes for a dip in the pool four times a day.  While sitting in the pool we heard a couple talking about the census.  Oh no...'WHAT CENSUS!!!'.  The one that was on that night.  Oh shit....the man from the the ABofS was only staying till 5pm to hand out forms.  I looked at my watch - 4.57pm.  Shit shit shit.  I sprinted out of the pool, grabbed my thongs and dashed as quickly as I could to the office.  Thankfully he was still there.  So got my forms.  Became a citizen again.  And had a big laugh about it!

Relaxing after a long day in the Water

Unwanted guest. YUCK!

I lost my first tooth!  I LOST MY FIRST TOOTH!
How excited Austin was when it came out.

Heading for Katherine next.  Before leaving though the next door caravans decided to show the kids their catch of fresh water crays.  We got chatting only to find out they lived in Geelong also.  Whereabouts was the next question. "Hamlyn Heights," was their response.  Your kidding aren't you.  Not only that they live right next door to Aunty Judith and Andrew.  Shirley and Doug Archer will be known by plenty as they owned and ran the chicken shop on the corner of Minerva Road and Autumn Street for 16 years, not been in it for a few years now though.