Blythe Spirit, Tough Lives, Tough Times

---

DAY 260


Sleeping in the trailer tent with both the large end flaps open and all the side flaps open is just heaven, as throughout the night a gentle breeze wafts over you, and its like natures anaesthetic.

In the morning it takes me a while to come around, where usually I am out of bed like a bullet from a gun. The last thing I need is anything to help me sleep because at the moment its hard enough getting out of bed.

Camping up here at the moment is perfect, the weather in the mornings is fantastic, just lovely sunny and warm, whilst the late afternoons are melting hot but toward evening it cools as the sun goes, but then with the darkness the humidity comes, we melt, but the evenings are just crystal clear and later just the right temperature to go to bed, though you can only usually sleep with a very light sheet on top of you or else you would be too hot.

During the night we can hear the bats squeak, the wallabies pad around, the occasional rustle, the bird life is usually very quiet with the occasional tweet or squabble when there is a territory feud.

Caroline is out of bed before me this morning and our whistling friend is on and ready to whistle us a tune, I reluctantly come around and venture outside. I come too then go and have a shower, they are solar and I know there won’t be any hot water as the backpackers have been through the place like a plague of locusts. The water is definitely monkey and if I wasn’t awake I certainly am now.

We have a light breakfast of cereal, then hit the road, off to the Blythe Homestead, which about 15 K’s away then turn off the bitumen down a track for 10.5K’s, its strictly 4WD.

Our neighbours on the campsite Keith and Jan have had experience of this track, they did the first water crossing and unfortunately got some water in to their car, so we are mindful of this and just scope it out.

We are behind one of those Tourist Adventure 4x4 trucks that are really high clearance so as we get to the water we look to see where the water comes up to as a gauge and half way across is one of those water sticks that tell you the depth, 700mm deep, we should do that no worries, even though the bottom of the doors are 500mm and the water depth was 200mm above the doors, we have every faith in the Patrol, if not we were going to have wet carpets for a long time.

I hadn’t put it in to four wheel drive as the going, though rocky, was easy, now was the time to put it in to 4WD. We ease the Patrol gently into the water, we don’t want a bow wave as we don’t have a snorkel and the air intake is at the top of the near side wheel arch this is a stupid place, but the Japanese Nissan Technicians probably think this is high as they must be only 4ft nothing in their socks.

When we are right in the middle we stop to get a couple of shots, we are still hopeful of a picture of us in the water windows down with a crocodile swimming by, that would be a million dollar photo.

We go through a second water crossing this one is deeper still, we think it must have been nearly 800mm deep, shortly after we get to the Blythe Homestead, and park the truck, we see this tiny little Tin Humpy, it could hardly be called a homestead, but hey who am I to criticize History.

The homestead is in fact an outstation of the Stapleton Station, owned by the Sargent family, the outstation is now deserted and has been since 1964, 4 or 5 of the Sargent children used it at any one time, from here they managed the grazing cattle on the surrounding flood plains in the dry season and worked the Mount Tolmer Tin Mine in the wet season.

Harry Sargent worked his family hard from Dawn ‘til Dusk, even the children, they planted and harvested crops, built and repaired hundreds of miles of fencing, strung out barbed wire and mustered and branded cattle.

Bush Medicine was a priority, they were taught that to look for a doctor or someone else to help was a cowardly act and therefore they were forced to deal with emergencies on the spot, they had many of these emergencies in their early years. The Sargent Children were taught to stick together in cases of accidents, a lesson, which saved their lives on several occasions.

In their saddlebags they carried condy’s crystals, corrosive sublimate and quinine as a standard bush first aid kit (I can tell you we have none of those in our first aid kit), they used their dehorning saw to cut saplings to make stretchers when required.

The Sargent family developed Stapleton Station and its outstation at Blythe over 40 years, the family contributed substantially to the development of The Top End; today their descendants have dispersed although many remain as important Top End members of the community.

In 1964 Stapleton Station was sold to the Townsend family, in 1984 Bob and Roy Townsend initiated talks with the Northern Territory Government with a view to protecting some of the property as a National Park.

We drove back from the Homestead and again had great fun crossing the two river crossings, we decided to go and have lunch at the Litchfield precinct, which was nice and got chatting to a Victorian fella from Wangaratta (we have stayed overnight in Wangaratta) but he now lives in the Top End (Darwin) with his wife and baby.

We see little frog on chair leg fast asleep oblivious to people sitting on the chair, he is a big green tree frog who has the most serenet look on its face. Caroline grabs her camera from the Patrol and takes a few frames for the blog.

We get back to camp the afternoon is hot and humid, so we decide to go and have a swim, our neighbours are heading off that way so we walk with them, and as we go past the kiosk Keith and Janet stump us up for an ice cream.

The water was fantastic really cooling and standing on the sand bar in the sun is delightful.

We swim and chat to Janet and Keith, spending a good hour in the water until we look like Elizabeth Taylor, then it was time to get out and dry ourselves, which doesn’t take long in this heat. We all walked back up to camp, Caroline goes for a shower, the good news is that at this time of day there is hot water and I make a cup of tea and catch up on the blog.

After a light tea Caroline sits and carries on with the blog and makes notes for today, we download pictures, this is in between fighting off the mosquitoes, sand flies and everything else with wings that buzzes around at night that bites! Tonight Caroline is wearing a long sleeve shirt and long trousers and still they find a way, even sprayed with Bushman.

Before we close the laptop we have a quick game of Mahjong, we are hooked! We also check out Stellarium to see what is happening in the night sky above Litchfield National Park. We then turn all the lights out and look up into the sky to see what we know.

We hear the Agile Wallaby padding around camp, a few rustles from Cane Toads hopping around and no doubt a lizard or two, we wonder if the snake is rustling amongst them too.

We then decamp into the tent; this is by far the best place to be away from the things that buzz continually around us, we also cannot have a bright light in here as some of the tinier insects get through the mozzies net.

We do manage to sit and have a game of cards, finishing the game from the night before, we both play well but Caroline still manages to beat me. We start a new game before bedtime, we both continue to play well, but the winner will be decided tomorrow night.

Eventually we succumb to heavy eyes, the night air is lulling us to sleep so we climb onto the trailer and into bed, and tonight we are free of insects, bliss, it is a warm night so we only sleep again under the sheet.

So until tomorrow bloggers.

KJ

---

Photos

Read This
We just don't appreciate how tough their lives where

It looks Shallow
It was just a fraction under 800mm deep