The Savannah Way...

Our outback adventure now truly begins. Steve wants to tackle part of the Savannah Way, from Mataranka via Roper Bar right through to Doomadgee and down to Lawn Hill in Queensland. This encompasses 850 kms of dirt, gravel and rocky roads, bulldust, corrugations and heaps of creek crossings!! Not to mention freshwater and saltwater crocs. Bring it on I say as we'll get to see one of the places on my bucket list...Lorella Springs.

After leaving Pine Creek ( & being kicked out of one bar half way through the State of Origin, luckily there was a bar next door although the result didn't make us happy) we set off back through Mataranka and then on to the Roper Highway.

Yes they call this a highway in NT!

We're now heading toward one of the most remote places in Australia... Gulf Country!

We pass by some beautiful billabongs covered in water lillies, I'm always checking for two little eyes and a long snout.

 We refuel at Roper Bar and cross the bar just to check it out. The Roper River is wide and so inviting but a no go for swimming.

This is the mail box opposite an aircraft landing where they pick up and deliver the mail???

We spent one night at Tomato Island, nice camp on the river but not much to do there so head off to Butterfly Springs. This spring fed water hole was just what we needed as the days have been sunny and in the 30's everyday, so good to wash away the dust.

I can't count how many creek crossings we've made. I use to freak out but now it's just an everyday event.

On the way to Lorella Springs we stopped at "The Lost City" We hiked a few kms around these amazing rock formations. We certainly are getting fitter. 

The Lost City was created by weathering. The foundations were built as sediment was washed into the inland sea 1,500 million years ago. Isn't that incredible. Once again I couldn't stop taking photos, these are just a few...

The hike led us up to this spectacular view above .

Below is a close up of the sandstone showing it's beautiful colour.

We finally arrived at Lorella Springs after travelling on one of the worst roads we've ever been on, leading into the Homestead. At that stage I didn't realise there was much worse roads to come!

Steve had already give the van a wash down..



Lorella Springs is a
million acre property bought by the current owners in the 1980's for $1000! That's .001 cents per acre!!!

   We camped along the river for 5 nights.There's so much to see and do including a thermal pool
 (36 degrees) about 50 metres from where we were camped, so naturally we swam and let the waters wash away all our aches and pains everyday, after a full day of extreme 4W driving to the see the sights.

 

We received a map and info on all the places we could explore such as other thermal pools, cold water spring fed waterholes, Billabongs,swamps & creeks that had boats tied up that we could use to further explore, rock formations, gorges and great hiking tracks. The only thing was to be able to see these places, we had to traverse the roughest 4W drive tracks and river crossings you can imagine but as they say that's all part of the adventure. Yes that's a road...

Here are some photos of  the wonderful places we visited: Unfortunately the photos just don't do justice to these magical places.

Wild Fire Gorge a beautiful cool spring fed water hole. We just had to go skinny dipping, one of many times...( no pics of me allowed!) This was our favorite!!

  Crocodile Springs, which we jumped in a boat to go exploring and saw a freshwater croc!

 

We took our lunch with us each day. This is one of our picnic stops! Yes in the middle of nowhere..

The Arch. A great walking track

The reflections are fantastic in the waterways.

Eagles Nest Billabong and another boat for exploring. 

One of my favorites " The Cascades" which was great for swimming in too, no crocs. This place is like a tropical jungle, then you drive a few kms down a track and it's a dry arid landscape..

 Two more favorites above the crystal clear waters of Fern Gully which was another cool swimming hole and below is Nanny's Retreat, where you could swim through two rocks through to another great swimming hole.

 

One of the many rough tracks we took to everyday! Now you can see why we needed the warm springs of an afternoon to relax our weary bones.
Other great places we saw were Nudie Hot Springs. Where the water bubbles out of the ground at 50 degrees then mixes with a cooler stream to a beautiful 40 degrees. Just like a nice hot bath!
 Monarch Rocks which Steve climbedto the top but the photos came out blurry! These large rocks were named after the monarch butterflies of which there are hundreds flying around! We  also saw aboriginal  rock art there.

Lorella Springs has certainly been a highlight of our travels. We want to come back here again, stay for a month and bring camping gear so so we can camp at some of the more remote parts of the property where we can't take our caravan and see more of this incredible place . Anyone want to join us??

When Bad Luck Turns Good...

Our original trip planned about twelve months ago was that we wanted to see Australia's Red Centre. The plan was say g'day to our kids in Newcastle travel down to Port Pirie to see our grandson then up the middle exploring the Flinders Ranges, Uluru, Kings Canyon, Alice Springs and both East & West MacDonald ranges then turn right at three ways and make our way home through central Queensland.

Now this blog is about the extra 1000kms we have travelled mostly due to bad luck but what great luck in that we have seen so much more of our wonderful country... After our lunch at Daly Waters
iconic pub instead of turning right, our next stop is Mataranka as I nagged Steve that I really, really wanted to go there!

We decided to stay a few nights which turned into four at a very rustic, family owned bush camp "Little Roper Stock Camp"  What a little gem. We loved it... with buffalo, brahma bulls, a horse , chickens and dogs all living there along with the owner, Des  who was just the most hospitable, generous, rough diamond you could ever meet, a real bushie.

As soon as we set up, we drove down to the thermal pools which were only 2.5 kms away

The water is spring fed and bubbles up at 32 degrees absolutely fantastic for relaxing.

Back to Little Roper for a Campfire feast prepared by Des. These camp ovens held buffalo, lamb, beef and vegetables but firstly we had the best pumpkin soup with sour cream & chives and it was followed by apple crumble, custard & ice cream. All yummo. I've left out we could also have spotted dick but that was yuk!!

What a great  night, meeting lots of people and Des singing a few songs and telling lots of  Territory yarns.

Had to take a few pictures of Des the bloody legend! He cut the roof off his Prado and below just check out his microphone stand!

Next day off to Bitter Springs which are even better than Manaranka in that it's a stream that you jump into and float for twenty minutes down a crystal clear, warm spring surrounded by water lillys, palms and tropical woodlands. This is just the best.

Here comes the monster from The Black Lagoon

When we got back to camp from Bitter Springs about a dozen young aborigines with their minders had walked 40kms YES I said WALKED 40kms for a night or 2 and Des gave them a feed.

These young lads had no fear of the buffalos or the Brahmas just check out these pictures...

Just look how young this little guy is and he walked the 40kms to Little Roper.

Now this is where bad luck starts to play a part. Steve realises he has finished his heart medication but has left his script at home. He made an appointment to see the Dr at Mataranka to be told they couldn't do it, he'd have to go to Katherine. Now that's another 110 kms away and we need to turn right here to go to the Gulf country for crabbing & fishing! Oh well we decide to do a day trip up there and then come back and stay 2 more nights in Mataranka but at a different camp.

Now this is the good news... after seeing the Dr we went on a Katherine Gorge cruise. This was absolutely brilliant although where we had to board the boat the trees were just full of flying foxes and the place stank to high heaven!


We saw freshwater crocs sun baking...

Only problem was it was very hot and no swimming allowed. I wonder why???

The gorge really is spectacular. There are actually 13 interconnected gorges and we saw 2.

We checked out the museum (all starting to look a bit the same), picked up some supplies and headed back to Mataranka. This time we stayed a Mataranka Homestead  which is where the movie "We of The Never Never" was filmed, so we could charge up our batteries and get also check out the live entertainment they have on each night.

First up was a duo not bad but then the star attraction was Nathan Griggs a professional whipcracker who holds the Guinness book of records for most whip cracks in a minute 531!! Plus he has cracked the longest whip being 100metres. He was fantastic and great pumped guns .

Of course I just had to get a photo with him...the groupie that I am

The next day more exploring on our push bikes of this beautiful area where Steve just had to jump in even though it said no swimming freshwater crocs here..

This is part of the bike/walking track.

Now for more bad news/good news ...Our fridge is working but only at half capacity staying at about 12 degrees and it won't keep our beer cold!!! In this heat this is a catastrophe! We ring all around to see what can be done but the only thing we can do is make the 420km trip to Darwin. Oh well I always wanted to see Darwin. Unfortunately due to it's high tourist season , the horse racing season has just begun and the famous beercan regatta is on, Darwin is totally booked out. Our luck comes in again and I see a post by Lisa,a friend of ours who's visiting her daughter in Darwin so I ring up and she kindly lets us park our van in front of her place. So now we are officially  "Street people"

No complaints though Kara had a beautiful pool we used everyday to cool off as the temperature has been over 30 degrees everyday!!

Darwin Harbour by moonlight

We spend 5 nights living on the street but all good Steve finally gets the fridge fixed, with a few more mishaps being Steve moved the caravan 5 metres to be in the shade and ripped the back hatch cover off!!! $600 later ... we fit in some sightseeing, some great meals and meet up with an old friend so all's well that ends well. 

Mindil Beach was fantastic and the beercan regatta was well worth seeing.. Funny how everyone stands in the water drinking and having a great time

The Mindil markets were also on and there are food vans there with food from all corners of the globe!

Everyone sitting on the beach waiting for the wonderful sunset. Naturally we had a few beers and sat with everyone else.

We back track 500kms tomorrow to resume our travels after watching State of Origin tonight. GO BLUES!!!