Day 30 (June 28, 2015): Mataranka to Cape Crawford

On the road again this morning we had to make a stopover at a roadside cafe at the little town of Larrimah. 

You can see from the signage that you are pretty much compelled to stop and check out this place that has been run for 30 years by a lady called "Fran" - and my god what a character she is. 

Her foods on offer are expensive - but she makes everything herself on site and is renowned for her food. She shops for all fresh ingredients at Katherine (some 250km round trip) and gets up at 4am each morning to start cooking so that she has fresh things on offer each day - it was pasties the day we were there and also fresh cooked scones.

She makes buns or bread daily as well - we got couple buns to take with us for lunch - they were fresh out of the oven - at $3.00 each pretty expensive - but were beautiful.

She makes no bones about her prices - and aims to provide travellers with quality home cooked foods that you cannot get anywhere else along the road. 

Had to laugh when someone asked for an extra knife and fork (as they were sharing the huge pastie) - they were promptly told "No you cannot"!! The reason being that they don't have a lot of cutlery and have trouble keeping up with the washing. There is only Fran and her side kick running the place.

We asked for a Latte and Flat White and we also got properly informed that - "NO - all flat whites".

It was an entertaining stopover that ended up a lot longer than we planned - what with trying to stuff in the huge plate of food we were presented with at only 10am in the morning not too long after breakfast. The comings and goings of patrons and the good humour of everyone dealing with this eccentric lady made for a fun visit- you just had to smile/laugh at the things she came out with.

I love the fly streamers at the door to the inside of the cafe - all eating and payment is outside this doorway. 

It says "Staff Only - No Entry - If you want to live"

Larrimah is pretty much non- existent little village now - but has one other interesting site - the quirky pub!!

It does also have some interesting history from WW11 - but we did not have time to look around after such a long stopover for morning tea.

South of Larrimah we decided to head a slightly different way home to Brissie.

Instead of going back to Three Ways on the Stuart Highway (then onto the Barkly Highway to QLD) we took a left at "The Hi Way Inn" onto the Carpentaria Highway.

We stopped at the Hi Way Inn for a quick toilet break and ran into our new friends (Dennis & Robin) who were heading down the same way out to King Ash Bay. After a bit of discussion about this place with them we decided we would head out there as well for a couple of days.

The Carpentaria Highway is one of the common outback highways with one lane of tar down the middle. So you have to be wary of oncoming traffic  - as you need to each get half off the road onto the gravel and slow right down - hoping you can pick a spot to get off where the edges of the tar are not too bad otherwise you risk cutting up your tyres.

With the road trains you need to pick a spot, get right off and stop - giving them the whole of the tarred section. 

It's pretty tiring driving as you are watching for oncoming traffic, what traffic might come up behind you, roadkill and wedge tailed Eagles, Roos and wandering cattle.

We made it to Cape Crawford by about 3pm so this is our camp stop for the night. All that is there really is a campground and pub - perfect!!

We got setup for the night -  showered up and headed over for happy hour. It was really pleasant and relaxing sitting out on the front verandah of the Cape Crawford pub - "The HeartBreak Hotel" having a few drinks and here we stayed for the evening - settling in for dinner as well. Food was great and lots of it - we had the homemade rissoles and gravy with veg!!

Day 28 / 29 (June 26th / 27th, 2015): Mataranka Thermal Springs

We decided this time in Mataranka we would stay at the Mataranka Homestead which has easy walking access to the Mataranka Thermal Springs in Elsey NP. 

Minimum dress standard for the pub - we have seen this most places in the NT. Plus note where the flood high water mark was in 1998.

This is a much older camping ground, than Bitter Springs, where we previously camped on the way North on this trip - but it has a really nice friendly vibe and its pretty much camp where you want.

Our 2x nights here were much cooler than we have had for the last few weeks of our trip and we really could have done with a fire to keep warm if you wanted to stay outside very long in the evening. The first night we did not bother as we went to Happy Hour at the pub and stayed for dinner and the free entertainment. The second night we were pretty tired and went to bed early reading for a while.

Both nights at the Homestead there was a group of 75 year eleven students from a catholic school in Melbourne. Their tents were in an area away from the rest of the campers. They were a great bunch of kids, very polite and chatty, and we're having a really good time at the Thermal Pools and at the free entertainment in the evenings.

The guy singing each night was just okay - but the guy doing the Whip Cracking show was fantastic and was a great showman - he put on a really entertaining act. First time I have seen anyone doing whip cracking to music - he was amazing.

At the pub the first night we met a lovely couple from Wadonga (Robin and Denñis) who told us about a place called King Ash Bay where they were heading to after Mataranka. It sounds pretty good so we are now thinking of going there ourselves.

Each day at the Homestead involved a swim at the Thermal pools where we could walk to in 5 minutes - via a very shaded cool walkway through dense palms and other foliage. The pools are spring fed and were discovered, dammed and made easily accessible by soldiers in this area during WW11.  They were for the use of the officers only. Years later after the war an ex-serviceman bought the Mataranka Station and opened the springs to the public as he could see their potential for tourist draw card.

The pools are a lovely temperature and we would take the noodles down and float about for a good hour or so just chatting with travellers and enjoying the sparkling clear waters.

Usually this time of year you can hire canoes as well and paddle on the local river - but at the moment they would not hire them out as the river flow and turbulence is still a bit too dangerous. It is of course not open to swimming yet either for the same reason. We are told that they only get freshies (freshwater crocodiles) here in the river and they have pontoons further downstream near the NP campground that they install for swimming.

We were really surprised on one walk to the pools when we spotted a family of feral pigs just off a few metres from the walkway. Very surprising that they were so close to a highly traversed pathway.

Another walk we spotted about 8x black cockatoos

Whilst here in Mataranka we also went to check out the free barramundi feeding at the Territory Manor (just on the northern side of Mataranka) near Bitter Springs. 

The barramundi did not seem to be too hungry but the pool they are in was covered in lovely lily pads and flowers and there were cute turtles there as well.

One little girl did get quite a surprise when the Barra jumped out to grab the little fish she was holding out to feed them with.

And they also had a couple of Brolgas wandering around the grounds when we were there.

Mataranka area was the site where the Australian film "We of The Never Never" was filmed and there is a replica of the Elsey Homestead used in the film just across the road from the Homestead Campground pub.

Day 26/ 27 (June 24th / June 25th, 2015): Katherine Gorge

HLThis morning we left Gunlom & Kakadu NP.

We are now beginning our journey south towards home. We had skipped over visiting Katherine Gorge on the way North so that we had some new places to visit as we headed home (going back the way we had already travelled). 

So off to Katherine Gorge we headed - with a much needed stop in Katherine to do stock up on food supplies - as we were starting to get very depleted.

We also made a stop over in Pine Creek where we were able to get a mechanic to do an oil change for us (we had now done 5300km since the ute was serviced - done just before leaving on this trip).

We rang ahead to the Toyota dealership, and couple of other places in Katherine, to organise for the oil change to be done - but this was not an option as they were currently taking bookings for the following week.

So we had to go treat ourselves to a nice lunch of yummy home made pies at a local Pine Creek cafe whilst we waited for the ute.

Into Katherine Woolworths Supermarket again and lots of stocking up this time round. We were there after 2pm this time so we were able to access the bottle shop to get some wine. 

We were pretty shocked by the presence of 2x security guards and 3x police at the bottle shop. Also had to show your licence for ID and asked where you planned to drink the wine.

There is apparently a huge problem in Katherine with the "locals" and alcohol.

Not sure that I mentioned on our previous visit that as you walk back over to the huge car/caravan carpark behind woollies you are discreetly followed by indigenous guys. It did freak me out a bit the first time we shopped there - as I was on my own asking and this guy seemed to appear out of nowhere asking me could he take my trolley back. He was very polite and chatty and just waited a bit away from me til I was ready to give it to him. 

They are after the $1 you need to insert into the trolleys - so when they take it back for you they retrieve the $1. I was happy for them to have it.

Arriving at Katherine Gorge campground we secured an unpowered site for 2x nights - not far from the pool. Settling for drinkies we were happily chatting with the travellers next to us who lived in a Brisbane suburb quite near us. We have noted on this trip that there seem to be more Qlders holidaying in NT than from any other state - where as when we holidayed in outback QLD a couple of years ago it was mostly Victorians we were seeing.

We were up early the next morning and headed off to do the Gorge lookout loop walk - a good steep walk to the top - but nothing too taxing for us. At the top you reach a lovely lookout over Gorge 1 - there are actually 13 gorges in total that make up what is Katherine Gorge.

We did have some fun taking the panorama shots on my camera - you may notice that I appear twice in the same shot - so clever!!

Coming back down from the lookout we decided that we would head over to the cafe for a late breakfast. This was a real treat - and was yummy - out on the deck over looking the Katherine River. Whilst here we had a young blue-winged Kookaburra settled in the tree just below our table. 

There was also another adult Blue-Winged Kookaburra that flew in for a short visit nearby us.

After breakfast we enjoyed a lovely wander around the information centre 

-- and then headed back for an afternoon of poolside reading and swimming.  This travelling life just keeps getting tougher!!!

Next morning we decided to opt for a helicopter flight over the first 8x gorges - rather than a boat trip up 1 - 3 gorges. 

The flight was at 8.30am just as the sun was starting to get into the gorges.  It was a15minute flight but it seemed longer and was quite exciting - a fantastic way to get a sense of the grandeur of these gorges. 

This was only my second ever helicopter flight - and I loved it once again!!!

On the way up we saw kayakers heading up the gorge. This was the first day they had opened it up for the kayaks - as they had still been doing croc surveys and still catching some salties. 

The pilot suggested that he would not like to be one of the "Guinea Pigs" (as he called them) heading out into the gorge in a kayak - he said he prefers to wait a bit later into the season - at least a few weeks when it's a bit more certain that the danger of "Salties" is minimal. We were then not too disappointed that we were going to be moving on and missing out on a canoe trip - something hat I had thought I would like to do on the gorge.

After our chopper scenic flight we packed up camp setting off now further South for another stopover in Mataranka.

But before heading out of Katherine we took ourselves out to have a look at "The Gahn" - as it stops over in Katherine from 9am - 1pm on Fridays.