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Oceania » Australia » Northern Territory » Darwin
April 10th 2007
Published: April 10th 2007
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an exploreran exploreran explorer

stuart goes south to north
Blog 15
The red centre has gone green
And so the reason Windorah is. Back in the olden days a man whose name escapes me had travelled from Longreach to collect supplies , he was returning to the cattle station when he was stopped because the cooper creek had flooded and was impassable , there were other travellers also stuck on the wrong side of the creek and so a camp was set up and the chap sold his supplies to the other travellers. He then realised what a busy route this was and so set up a shop , and so the town sprung up around the shop, I say sprung up there was only the shop , still trading ,and an hotel , and about 20 houses. I got this from the mayor of Windorah, who was sitting on the veranda of the hotel, I had asked another local who didn’t know , but she suggested I ask the mayor, him over there. Interesting assortment of people here, the barmaid was from Finland , I asked her how she came to be in such a remote place, she was working her way round Australia and had been offered
a buga buga bug

kamakazi bug
the job, she would be here for another 8 weeks then was moving on to Canberra, ‘’ oh that would be just north of Cairns’’ a local lad chipped in , no need to ask why he was there, he was bloody lost I said. His friends will never let him live that down.
And so we made our way to Longreach stopping at Stonehenge on the way , I asked a lady in the café where we had stopped for coffee, why Stonehenge, ‘’because its stony ‘’ she replied.
From Longreach to Winton , we had already been here but it was necessary to retrace our steps to get across to the Northern Territories , having been unable to achieve this via Innaminka and Birdsville. From Winton we headed for Boulia along the Min Min Highway , we stayed overnight at Middleton , now you may wonder why we stay behind so many bars , well this is a prime example , this town is just the hotel , it is really in the middle of nowhere , it is 172 kilometres from Winton and 255 kilometres from the town of Boulia. So why is it here ? It was a staging post for Cobb and Co , a cross between Wells Fargo and Eddie Stobart, they still trade today transporting people about . In the bar here, well there was nowhere else to go , we met the local station owner , Peter , and his main man. This chap was a jack of all trades master of none, he told us a story to demonstrate you could prove anything with statistics , the story goes , a man was making rabbit pies ,which he sold, he did very well and soon he was selling all over the country , then one day it was proved there was also horsemeat in the pies and he was summonsed to appear in court , and found guilty, the inspector then asked the man , off the record how much horsemeat there was to rabbit , the man replied 50-50 , adding one horse , one rabbit.
You wonder how anyone can make a living out here, but they do the lady here was famous for making camel stew and coaches full of tourists would arrive for lunch.
We travel on to Boulia , seeing wild camels on the way , we cross the Burke river where there is a sign inviting us to fill our water bottles from the river as Burke and Wills did all those years ago, we decline , it looks an awful murky brown colour. This is the home of the min min lights,. For almost 100 years the mystery of the min min light has baffled travellers and scientists alike. The Min min light takes its name from the old min min hotel and mail change that used to be part of the Cobb and Co route from Middleton to Boulia . All that remains of the hotel are the ruins of an old cemetery and a pile of broken bottles , yes we stopped and had a look , and of course the occasional appearance of the eerie min min light .The light is most often described as a hovering luminescent ball, and everyone has an opinion as to what it is.
Scientists believe it is due to the peculiarities of the landscape, flat plains with gentle hollows trap cold air creating ideal conditions for the appearance of the light , this is enhanced by clear views of the horizon in every direction.
Aboriginals call it ‘koorari’’ and believe it originates from an old aboriginal burial ground north of Winton, the spirits of murdered ancestors.
Locals have explanations as varied as the people themselves. And so Boulia have put together a multimillion dollar theatrical experience to encapsulate the history and encounters of this mystery . Before entering you are given a torch , and told where the alarm buttons are ,should you become scared , I will quote from the leaflet now’ ’life-like outback characters tell the Min Min story in a 45 minute show that is filled with great aussie accents , starry nights , giant lorries , eerie landscapes , a magical atmosphere and the famous Min Min lights.’’ I can still remember the last thing that is said ,’’don’t go looking for the Min Min , the Min Min will find you.’’ Think the Ned Kelly extravaganza and you have got the picture.
From here we head north to Dajarra , this is where the railhead used to be and where the drovers brought the cattle from western Australia to be transported . A big bustling town one could imagine , but alas now a shadow of it’s former self. Most of the inhabitants are Aboriginal , and when we arrived the first person we spoke to was one of the school teachers, he had worked in Mackay before , where classes would only have 2 Aboriginal children who were always quiet and withdrawn , but here he had a class full , and they were wonderful, the hardest thing was getting them to wear shoes to school , we were greeted at the campsite by 2 boys who wanted to know where we had come from, I told them England , they were unsure , I told them it was on the other side of the world , they concluded it was a long drive.
There was a simplicity and acceptance about them that reminded me of a poem I had read by Banjo Patterson, it is about a young aborigine boy who sees snow for the first time and asks one of the elders what makes snow, the old aborigine is called frying pan.

Snowflakes are falling,
Gently and low,
Youngster says’ ’frying pan ,
What makes it snow?

Frying pan , confident ,
Makes his reply,
‘im shake ‘im flour sack,
Up in the sky,

‘’When there is miles of it ,
Surly that brag,
What pfeller strong enough,
Lift such a bag ‘’?

Ole parson tellin’ you
Old Mr. Dodd,
Tell you in Sunday school,
Big pfeller ‘God’

‘im ride ‘im bullock dray,
Make thunder go,
‘im shake ‘im flour sack,
Tumble down snow.

In the morning an old Aborigine called to me ‘’where you from lady ?’’ ‘’England ‘’ I replied, ‘’ I Australian ‘’he called, laughing. I wished him well , there was no answer to that.
Next we passed through Mount Isa, this is a big mining town , through Cammooweal , then over the border into the Northern Territories and on to Barkly Homestead , there is just a fuel stop here, we then headed north across the Barkly Tablelands , the scenery was beautiful , because of the wets every thing was lush and green, and the birdlife incredible, we carry a book of the 100 most common Australian birds , most of the birds we saw weren’t in it. It was here we encountered kamikaze locust type thing that hurled themselves headlong into the front of the van making a terrible mess on the screen , they were like 3 inch crickets with red and yellow wings , 2 weeks later and we are still removing their bodies from the front bumper and headlights. We were 139 miles across the tablelands when the heavens opened , there was a pull in rest stop , and so we did , we watched as the water covered the road and the vast flat expanse of the tablelands, now we could understand the reason for the depth markers along the sides of the roads, before we couldn’t see how the water could be so deep on this large flat expanse. In the morning it had subsided. We drove on to Cape Crawford , just fuel here also. We spotted on the map, to the north ,on the gulf of Carpentaria a place called Bing Bong , we couldn’t resist it and it was on the sea, we were disappointed when we arrived it was just a loading area for a mining company , there was no access to the sea , and so like our friends Burke and Wills we could see our destination but couldn’t get there. We stayed at King Ash Bay , they were getting ready for the season , it starts after Easter. This is a fishing Mecca and there was to be a big contest over the Easter week about 700 people would arrive. Here we encountered the worst mosquito’s yet , they were vicious, something to do with the wets , on our return to Cape Crawford we stopped at the small town of Borroloola and bought a mosquito net to go over the bed, a wise investment, we often sleep with the doors open and this of course lets in all the flying biting things, so either you sleep restlessly in a pool of sweat or you put up with getting bitten .While the wets brought many birds to the area it also brought many flying things intent on sucking your blood. Between Borroloola and Cape Crawford we stopped to walk around a huge sandstone formation called the lost city by the white people and a word meaning ‘nice place’ by the Aborigines. From here we head west to Daly Waters. This is also a small town , but once was busy , just outside the town is a dead tree where John McDouall Stuart carved his initial .Stuart was an explorer , at the same time Burke and Wills were trying to find a route from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria , Stuart was also searching for a viable route north from Adelaide , the south Australian government had offered a prise of £2,000, to the first man to traverse the country south to north. In 1860 he reached the place now known as central mount Stuart, he found in the centre of the continent not an inland sea , not a desert , but a fertile grass country. You see like us he had arrived after the wets. He didn’t go on from here but returned to Adelaide , due to attacks by Aborigines , illness and lack of supplies.
But he was not deterred, he set off again in 1861 following his own route and this time he got even further north , he was blocked by the density of the scrub. But he would not be defeated , he set out again in 1862 , and on July 24th he reached the north coast near what is now port Darwin , finding Daly Waters was the key to travelling further north as they had found drinkable water here . The Stuart highway today follows his route and within ten years of his discovery a telegraph wire was put from one end of the country to the other connecting Australia with the known world. Stuart , originally from Scotland, was a good leader , very organised and never lost a man.
Daly Waters also has an airstrip , and it was used as a halfway stage for mail planes going to the northern Territories, it then became a staging and refuelling point for Qantas international flights going to Singapore . The airport is deserted now but the Qantas hanger is still there and you are welcome to visit, there are some photos and facts attached to the walls of the hanger. The historic pub has become famous for the money and underwear attached to is walls , I asked the girl who served us how it had started, ‘’locals would come in and help themselves to a drink and pin the money to the wall , tourists just added to it, and the underwear ? ‘’the locals play pool here and if you lost by more than 7 balls you have to remove an item of clothing, but once again tourists have made additions.’’ I must say it is an impressive collection.
We travel from here to Mataranka hoping to stay at the tourist resort but when we reached the little Roper river , we could see water across the road a 4x4 stopped at the edge and a chap wading in to see how deep it was as no depth gauges were visible, he was just above his waist in water , I called ‘’how tall are you ?’’ just 3 feet bring the van on through’’ he was now up to his armpits , his wife was sat on the bonnet of their car , ‘’he’s really 6 foot ‘’she said.
We turned around and stayed on a site in town where they hand fed barramundi morning and afternoon. From here we went to Katherine where we found an internet café and discovered Linda had booked her flights and would meet us in Alice Springs on the 5th of May. Great excitement . We stayed at Edith Falls overnight but first thing in the morning we would go straight to Darwin and book the van in for another service, we had travelled many miles and had many more to cover, out here it is very important to make sure your vehicle is tip top and that you carry lots of drinkable water , and a good supply of tinned food, fresh goes off even with the fridge, as we have discovered you can’t judge the size of a town by the size of the print on the maps, Barkly Homestead is written in the same size letters as Katherine , but whereas Katherine has supermarkets and a shopping mall Barkly Homestead is just a garage.. With Easter coming we can’t get a service until April 11th, and so we go to Litchfield National park. We spent 3 days here swimming under the waterfalls and just relaxing in the rock pools , quite a few tour buses came , the people would throw off there clothes get in , get out and get back on the bus. How sorry we were for them, and glad we had no schedule. We are now at a place called Grove Hill , it is an old hotel built by a blacksmith from materials collected from the old gold mines, it’s interesting, I’ve not seen a corrugated iron bar before , but it works, it’s on the original Stuart highway that was by-passed when the road was tarred. There are many abandoned gold mines along this road and we will go and explore after lunch when the sun is less intense. Just now we are sat wondering what the rich people are doing.
We didn’t find any dropped nuggets , and so we made our way to the mighty Kakadu Park , we reached the first Ranger and information centre , it was open but on a notice board was hung a list of closed areas due to the wets , none of the waterfalls were open , in fact there were only six places we could visit , three tourist resorts two billabongs and one art site. Well , never mind we were sure to see plenty of wildlife. There are 26 different species of bats , freshwater and saltwater crocs , several types of kangaroos , 25 species of frog , 60 types of mammals , 120 types of reptiles , 280 types of birds , and at least 10,000 types of insects. We were travelling to our first stop , a camp site , when having travelled 16 kilometres we saw a fire , and it was spreading , so we returned to the ranger station , I waited in the van Dave went inside , he hadn’t been gone long when I saw the rear door of the centre open and a ranger jump in his truck and drive off , then Dave appeared at the other door shouting , he ambled over , looking very angry. Dave could hear the ranger in an office on the phone , and so he knocked , there was no answer , next he heard the rear door shut and the truck start up out side , I told him I had seen the ranger jump into the truck and head off towards some houses just out of sight. We followed him to see him get out at one of the houses and go inside , he was on the veranda when he spotted us , Dave shouted , ‘’there’s a fire 16 kilometres down the road!!!’’ , ‘’I know ‘’ he said . Furious , Dave drove off , I knew then that we wouldn’t be reporting any more fires . We drove back past the fire which was still going well and on to the camp. During the night some mosquito’s had managed to get inside the net , we were covered in bites , bathed in sweat and not a little cranky. ( see it’s not all fun )But we still tried to make the best of it , Dave knew I would be interested in the rock art , and so we made our way there, the paintings were so bright and colourful , they had been there 20,000 years , but looked like they had been painted yesterday , our spirits were lifted. From here we went to a billabong , there were warnings not to go near the edge as crocs were present. We sat for a long time , I tried to encourage Dave to just dip a toe in , he wouldn’t, never was much of a sport , we didn’t see any crocs. While we were sat there we did see some birds , one had an interesting call , it sounded like it was saying , ‘’fuckall’’. I said to Dave ‘’I’ll ask that bird what we can do at Kakadu ?’’ of course the bird answered ‘’fuckall , fuckall’’ We had a laugh over that and made our way to one of the tourist resorts for the night. The beer was good and cold. We got talking to a chap from Australia , he had visited in the dry season , and hadn’t seen the waterfalls , due to lack of water , and so he came at the end of the wets , like us and still he was unable to see the waterfalls , because there was too much water, he had renamed Kakadu , Kakadont .
Again that night the mosquito’s had infiltrated the net and once more we were bitten , and we were still itching from the night before. The next morning we were looking at some brochures at the visitors centre on the resort on what to see that day , one poster stood out , Mosquito Alert , protect yourselves , some of the mosquito’s in Kakadu are carrying the Ross River Virus. That was it for me, we left Kakadu.
We are in a lovely park just outside Darwin , called the boomerang caravan park , it has a swimming pool , and all the facilities a person could want , and so we are based here until the 11th April. We have been into Darwin twice , the second time we visited a pearling exhibition , I can’t believe we paid to see a televised advert for the local pearl farmer, which was all it was. There was a static display of an old diving suit and a few oyster shells. We then drove up to Fanny bay , there is a lot of what remains of the defences put in place to protect the north coast during world war two , the beach was very rocky , the sea a tempting blue , the signs warning against taking a dip very prominent , we will be going into Darwin again to try and find something interesting , of course a lot of the history was lost in cyclone Tracy.


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14th April 2007

Catch up
Just got out of hospital after the best part of a month staying courtesy of the NHS so catching up! A wee story.... In 1983 I was working in London and I looked after a chap called Edgar Percival who was an aircraft designer. He never spoke, never responded but had a fedora in his locker that i later found out was his trade mark when he flew. He invented the Percival Gull and the Percival Proctor, one of which won the Schneider Trophy. Anyway one day my colleague Aiden and I decided to take him to the Imperial War Museum to see one of his planes there. It was the only time I ever saw any response from him..he had severe Alzheimers. We found the plane and I said to him...do you recognise this and he spoke the only two words I ever heard him say which were "It's mine". He died a few months later in 1984 and his obituary was a long feature in The Times and all the other broadsheets. Anyway the point of all this is that he was an Australian and in his obituary it said that the Percival Lakes in Western Australia are named after him. I would love to know if they are if you're passing that way!!!!! Glad you're having a great time but don't like the look of those bugs!
18th April 2007

Percival Lakes
will check it out when we get there, how interesting
9th June 2007

percival lakes
can't find any lakes by that name have you any more clues to where it is

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