Advertisement
Published: August 23rd 2006
Edit Blog Post
Cutta Cutta Caves
This is a formation of a crocodile's head. Amazing!!! Day 137 Thursday 17 August 2006
Katherine to Mataranka
We only drove about 100 km’s today to Mataranka via Cutta Caves which are limestone caves which host rare host bats. We never saw any but very pretty crystals amongst the stalactities and stalagmites. Mataranka is renowned for the famous thermal pools and the town of “We of the Never Never” book. We visited “Bitter Springs” which is a hot springs that is 32 degrees. Beautiful surroundings with all palm trees around and very deep. These have been only recently opened. Well over Graeme and my head. There were three caravan parks in town and all below average. Graeme checked into the only one that had a pool but when they went to see it there was all slime over it and covered with small bugs. Needless to say the kids did not swim. After lunch we then walked through town and say all the stautes of the characters of the “The Never Never book” and visited the talking Termite mound (which when you push a button it is suppose to talk but Graeme put his cards on it that it didn’t work and GUESS WHAT it didn’t). We then drove to
Cutta Cutta Caves
This is a crystal in the cave. Beautiful. the other thermal pools where we all had another great time. A little bit colder than the others but we all still had a great time. The kids love it, duck diving down to see what is underneath. These pools were a bit overcrowded (heaps of tours come here) and would have been happy to stay at Bitter Springs. Will know next time. There is a lot of aborigines here just hanging around (as usual)!! Went for a drink at the pub and that was about it for the day.
Day 138 Friday 18 August 2006 (only one more month before we come home)
Mataranka to Daly Waters
This morning we went to the Barra fish feeding show at 9.30am in the caravan park we stayed at. Graeme, Duane and Kiera all had a turn at feeding these huge barramundi. The biggest one in the dam was 1 metre long. Duane got the fright of his life when the barra grabbed the fish. We then drove onto Larrimah which is a town that is renowned for the highest (tallest) bar that has a large Pink Panther sitting outside it beside the biggest NT stubbie you have ever seen. Apparently
Mataranka thermal pools
These pools were about 28-32 degrees. if you can drink the stubbie in one gulp you win the pub. The pub has many snakes, lizards, crocodiles in cages in it. The walls are covered in beer cans. Actually the pub is for sale - I saw an ad in the NT News(anybody want to buy it - not likely). Not sure how much. The museum is amazing too being the last railway station (from Darwin to Larrimah). This was closed in 1976 two years after the Cyclone Tracy. It was used to freight goods up to Darwin and the mine sites. We then drove onto the famous “Daly Waters” pub. Graeme says all the towns are not what he expected. Tonight we are staying and having the famous “Barra and Chips” for tea and watching entertainment. Who knows what it will be like?? The weather is quite windy today and cooler. How I dread coming back to the south and the cold.
Day 139 Saturday 19 August 2006
Daly Waters to Borroloola
We left about 9am after a huge night at Daly Waters. Quite cool this morning and Kiera and I have a jumper on. The first time in ages. Kiera has woken up with
a cold. Poor thing - this is the first time for her this trip. This is a pub that you cannot miss on your travels. It is full of tourists but it is well worth a look. The pub is full of covered walls with business cards and photos of everyone that has visited and walls of all different coins. The rafters are covered with bras, undies and boxer shorts. Amazing!!!! The caravan park is like a car park and you are packed in like sardines. It was very cheap only $16.00 a night to stay. This is the cheapest we have stayed in. You order your tea at the bar when you arrive and your tea is ready for you at 6.30pm ready for your entertainment at 7pm. Frank is your entertainment who is a humorous singer/songwriter/poem writer. He was so funny. We laughed all night. The highlight of the night was when Bob has these black chickens as his props but he calls them his black edged eagles. He makes them sit on his funny home hat (refer photos). Kiera went to pat one of them and she got bitten on her pointer finger. She cried and cried
and cried. It was during the show and everybody was laughing. Also Duane got chosen to go up on stage with him and he had to tell the audience about the arguments that his Mum and Dad had on the road. It was so funny, he was not allowed to look at us and Frank kept prompting him for more information. Fortunately Duane did not say too much about us. He was also asking if he fought with Kiera and who wins. It was very funny and the audience was laughing heaps. It is hard to explain but you will have to wait for the video and photos. Duane also had the opportunity to sing “Fishing all Day” with him. All in all it was a great night and great food.
We are now driving to possibly Borroloola if we make it that far, otherwise we will stop at Cape Crawford (which is in the Gulf of Carpentaria). It is 380 km’s today and we haven’t done these kind of km’s for quite some time now. The road is very narrow and when a car comes towards you, you have to pull over and let them past. The trucks just
Larrimah pub
The stubby you had to drink to win the pub!! come straight for you and quite scary sometimes. Graeme is looking forward to his barra fishing for the next three nights possibly. We stopped for our morning toilet stop when we noticed that the bikes had fallen off the back of the caravan. The kids are devastated. The bracket must have broken with the weight of the bike that we bought Kiera in Darwin. She was getting so good at riding. Duane will be so lost without his bike. That is the first thing that comes off the caravan when we stop. We also lost our other wheel cap off our caravan - at least it matches now after losing the other one the first day we left on this trip. We stopped for lunch at Cape Crawford - not much here except the Heartbreak Hotel (which I would call more a roadhouse). People that came in after us told us they had seen our bikes all mangled on the road. Apparently one family stopped and said they were wrecked. We decided to drive on to Boroloola where we booked into the so called caravan park for power as there was nowhere else to stay except the pub (but I
Larrimah pub
Graeme as usual at the bar again!! think that was worse). We found out that there was the annual rodeo on so we went there in the afternoon. I am sure we were the only white people there except another ten maybe. Thousands of brothers and loads of kids. They were really friendly. The rodeo was great and everytime the bulls and the wild horses come towards the fence we all jumped off it and stood back. Even one cowboy got his bum spiked by a bull. It was a real eye opener to all of us as we had never experienced a rodeo before. It was very rowdy in the town that night. Lots of screaming, yelling offsensive words and cars screeching up and down the street. No trouble tin the caravan park fortunately.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.083s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0405s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb