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Published: July 11th 2023
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We had an interesting journey from Alice Springs, with stopovers, on our way to Mataranka. After crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, we stopped off at Aileron Roadhouse to view two massive sculptures of Anmatjere Man’ and 'Anmatjere Woman and Child'. The 'Anmatjere Man' was erected in December 2005. At 17 metres he strikes an impressive figure as he overlooks Aileron and the surrounding region. The figure is 12 metres high, with the tip of the spear taking it to 17 metres. Weighing approximately 8 tonnes, the sculpture is made from a steel frame, mesh wire and ferris cement. It was created by local sculptor Mark Egan (son of Ted Egan). ‘Anmatjere Woman and Child’ was erected in December 2008 joining ‘Anmatjere Man’. Josephine Stone decided to create Anmatjere woman and child to match ‘Anmatjere Man’.
Our first planned stay was at a very small town called Barrow Creek, however, on slowing down to view the Hotel and attached Caravan Park, we decided to keep driving. The place just didn’t have a good feel about it. I only read tonight in researching the town that on 14 July 2001, Barrow Creek became a vital part of one of the Australian outback's
most horrific and mystifying crimes. On the night of 14 July 2001, Bradley John Murdoch stopped a VW Kombi van driven by English traveller, Peter Falconio, and persuaded Falconio to leave the vehicle, shot him, tied up Falconio's girlfriend Joanne Lees who, miraculously, managed to escape, hide in the scrub along the highway, and was eventually picked up by a truck driver who took her 13 km south to the Barrow Creek pub where the police were alerted. There was also an infamous aboriginal massacre that took place at Barrow Creek.
We kept driving, and decided to stop overnight in our caravan near the Devils Marbles Hotel. We enjoyed a great meal that night at the Hotel, and left early the next morning to drive to Karlu Karlu (the aboriginal name for the Devils Marbles). The rock marbles themselves were not as large as I had imagined, but were nonetheless very impressive to walk around. We prefer renowned photographer Ken Duncan’s renaming of the Devils Marbles to God’s Marbles.
After viewing Karlu Karlu, we drove through to Banka Banka Station, a well known caravan park stopover for grey nomads. We stayed two nights and met some wonderful fellow
travellers, that we have subsequently caught up with on our journey northward. We walked to the station waterhole, and watched two amazing sunsets from the top of the rise overlooking the park.
Next stopover was at Daly Waters Hotel Caravan Park. Daly Waters Hotel is the quintessential outback pub, with classic meals such as Barra n Beef, and a musician playing as we ate dinner. We enjoyed a swim in the pool to cool off in the hot afternoon. The memorabilia inside the pub looks like something out of Crocodile Dundee. On our way out of Daly Waters, we inspected a secret WWII Airfield. It is surprising how many WWII Airfields we passed on our drive to Mataranka. I guess the Japanese bombing of Darwin caused the Australian forces to scatter their resources.
One of the major reasons we wanted to stay in Mataranka was to swim in the Hot Springs at Bitter Springs. Unfortunately, a two and a half metre saltie croc was sighted in the springs the day prior, and they were closed until the croc could be captured, which could take up to four weeks. We instead swam in the hot springs at Mataranka Homestead,
which were great. There is a lot of history associated with Mataranka Homestead, with this being the location Jeannie Gunn wrote about in her autobiographical novel, We of the Never Never. The great Australian film We of the Never Never was filmed mainly on location here.
We had planned on staying Mataranka for four days, however, with Bitter Springs closed, we cut our stay down to two days, and hope to call in on to Mataranka on our way back from Darwin. We did enjoy a great meal and country and western show whilst we were at the caravan park here.
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