Kakadu to Daly Waters pub

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With our brief but rewarding stop over in Kakadu completed, we set off south east back to the Stuart Highway, stopping at a number of points of interest as we travelled.

The roads here are generally excellent, but remembering some are through wetlands (a nice name for swamp) so there are areas that are uneven.

Our first stop was a little off the highway at Edith Falls. There is a national park camp here and many had said this was a great place to camp. We were out of luck as far as getting a camp site suited to our long vehicle, so just went walk about from the car park to look at the falls and the stream that flows away.

It is a great place to cool off in the lake at the bottom of the falls. Water was flowing steadily even in the dry conditions, but clearly a lot more water flows here from time to time.

We were admiring the view and watching a couple swim when all of a sudden 40 high school students jumped into the idyllic scene. No salty crocs here, but possibly a fresh water croc or two, so there was activity a plenty with Frisbee throwing and diving comps (biggest splash, rating 0 on Olympic scale) and a lot of joyful noise.

We decided that we should continue south and get fuel and groceries in Katherine, which we did. The next decision was where to stop for the night. We liked the camp we previously stayed at in Katherine, but chose to save $$$ and camp at a free camp a little south of Katherine, at King River.

The river was some distance from the camp which is good in the wet season, but made the late afternoon a little boring. No phone, no pool, no TV, just us and a couple of other travellers and dragon flies.

Seems it was the Spring Dance of the Dragonfly with mystical aerobatic manoeuvres followed by extended periods of sitting on a particular twig of a felled tree adjacent to our van. Previously I fluked a photo of a similar dragon fly showing its underside in flight. This time I was determined to find out how to get a sharp photo of a bug with the Canon SX50 camera.

Auto focus generally gave a poor result, tracking photo was not much better as the bug was too small to be recognised by the focus mechanism. So, I decided to try the manual focus option. I must say that while this option does work, it is clumsy to use on the SX50, and worse on the SX40 that Marg uses. Still, with much patience and many more dud shots, finally I pre-set the focus range so that when said dragonfly returned, I would be ready. It worked.

Then a very different but smaller dragon fly rocked up asking for a photo to. This time, one in three shots were OK using the manual focus.

After a meal and a good nights sleep, we set off south not quite knowing where we would stop. We took a look at Mataranka, another place where water flows, this time from a spring, providing a swimming hole (pool) supposedly at 31C all year. Marg put her toe in and thought the temp was much less. This camp is very popular with great birdlife and other animals mingling with tourists. It is also the place that the film We of the never never was filmed. There is a replica slab hut as lived in by the main characters of that story. It is really worth the look. Good pub there too with interesting tucker for the hungry.

It was to early to stop here, so we continued south, eventually stopping at the Daly Waters Pub. This is both a historical and hysterical place, and leaves you wondering why there had been an international airport in this remote bush location. As it happened, in the early days of commercial aviation, aircraft didn't have a great flying range, and Daly Waters was selected as a suitable fuel stop for domestic and international flights.

That need has long gone, but I have been told the old QANTAS hanger still exists.

The Pub and camping ground found a new focus, Barramundi. Now just about every traveller we spoke to including David and Mary said we had to have one of their Barra Burgers. In fact, David confessed that as they past this way a few days ahead of us, they had Barra Burger for lunch, and then Beef and Barra BBQ for dinner. We didn't emulate their lavish life style, and just settled for Beef and Barra BBQ for dinner.

This is now the off season for travel in the NT (too hot and humid) so were not surprised when we booked in to the camp that there was only one other caravan there, They had chosen the largest shade tree with surrounding green grass. Most of the park looked shadeless, but the caretaker conjured up for us a good shaded site on a rather hot day. It was so peaceful, and we were able to wander around and giggle over the unusual decorations at the pub.

Then more and more vans pulled in, filling the main camping area completely by about 4.00pm. Then the space pressure hit big time. Another northbound bus load of high school students from the Mornington Peninsular arrived. They were to put up tents in the open camping area, but the ground was so hard, they couldn't get pegs to penetrate more than 5mm. So they relocated down the middle of the caravans putting up their tents. Talk about a committee job! Still, they finally succeeded after upsetting an older gent and his Mrs who thought they were camping way too close.

I couldn't wait to get to the BBQ at 6:30 to try the Beef and Barra. It lived fully up to expectations with a very generous serve. Steak was cooked really well (medium rare) and the BBQ'd Barramundi was delicious. So, if you pass this way, do drop in over night for a treat.

Now, I'll leave the Pub decorations and signage to the photo section. Suffice to say, it is a cross between outback humour, a museum of fashion and anything else you care to make of it.

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Photos

Australias most remote traffic light
Stuck on red 24/7.

A welcome sight
They have similar spelling skills to my own!

Comments

[US2@136]

Good shooting
You did well to capture the dragonflies. Patience! some hilarious signs for sure. Inviting water in the heat and dust. Good comments too.