After leaving Kakadu, the plan was to stay at Edith Falls tonight. As we turned off the highway to drive down to the campground we noticed a big sign saying “no sites available”…oops, we didn’t book. We rang the camp caretaker and he told us no worries, all the land on the way in is part of the reserve – we could camp by the river and come in to use the showers in the morning. Nice man - that saved us the $20 camping fees and we were in to check out the falls first thing in the morning.
The main pool at the bottom of the falls isn’t as impressive as others we have seen. The pools above the falls are apparently nicer but we were a bit over the walks so didn’t bother.
All cleaned and refreshed we drove to Katherine where we restocked on groceries etc before heading out to check out Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge. We didn’t go to the gorge on the way up to Darwin because it was closed to kayaks due to the crocs. We were hoping that they would have been cleared by now (not that we wanted to be one of the first to test how well the rangers had cleared it) but it was not to be. No kayaks, no swimming…and it was hot too! We walked up to the first lookout to see the view…
…yeah it was nice…but we have been spoilt for gorges on the trip. Would have been great to see it from the water paddling up the nine gorges. Maybe another time. After a picnic lunch we continued south and set up camp for the night at Stirling Mill free camp (not much there) just north of Mataranka.
Monday 28 – Wednesday 30 June
Ahh a little cooler last night. A bit easier to sleep. We were off to Territory Manor (caravan park) at Mataranka for the 9.30am barramundi feeding. The kids enjoyed getting up close to these big fish.
Interesting fact we learnt about barra – they are all born male and change to female when they reach approximately 75cm long.
Just up the road from Territory Manor is Bitter Springs, a great place to have a dip. Very beautiful surroundings and no crocs here.
This water monitor made sure everyone behaved themselves.
The current gently floats you along for about 150m through the warm, crystal clear water and tropical surrounds where you can get out, walk back to the start and go again. We went down a few times.
After checking out the national park camping area over lunch we decided against staying the night and instead had another swim at Mataranka Springs (which is at the Mataranka Homestead). Not as nice as Bitter Springs – too crowded and not as natural.
Continuing south we stopped at Larrimah in the hope of having some afternoon tea. If you ever come through this region do not stop at Fran’s Devonshire Tea house. Some people would say she is a quirky character of the bush…but she is nothing but a rip off artist. A serve of scones was $8 and a cold drink $6 a glass. She’s gotta be kidding!
After a long drive we ended up squeezing into a rest area at Newcastle Waters at about 6pm – popular because there are such long stretches of nothing! On the drive the girls did some French knitting in the back seat. Their little scarf was about 3m long!
Much shorter drive on Tuesday. We arrived at Banka Banka Station at about 10.30am. The simple pleasures are often the best – you should have seen how excited the kids were at having a site with grass! No water restrictions here as there is a natural spring supplying all that is needed. We all enjoyed the hot showers.
Plenty of cartwheels, cricket and football played throughout the day. When we arrived there were only two other vans but they just kept rolling in all day long. By 4pm the place was choccas. Apparently it’s the same every day.
That night we watched a very interesting slide show about the history of the station and the local area and then us kids played spotlight with some other kids in the park.
Wednesday morning we continued the drive towards Queensland.
Frans Place, memorable for the wrong reasons. Don`t bother stopping there.
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