iNTo Tourist Territory

Sitting here in the beer garden at Mataranka I can be certain we are well and truly in tourist territory. The excess of grey nomads has turned into a mix of backpackers, campervans, families and foreign languages. I’m listening to a woman playing guitar and singing. It was a bit ordinary when she was singing 80s covers and bad country while we ate dinner, but now she is singing stuff I don’t know and that seems rather better. Another thing I have noticed is that smoking is alive and well in the NT as well. You really notice it more when you haven’t had it for so long.

I think I am at Elsey Homestead just south of the town of Mataranka, but really it is famous for the thermal springs. They are just next to the campground and while I cooked dinner, the others went for a dip after the tents were up. I’ll go in the morning, but I suspect I’ll have company.

The morning started at Banka Banka, cool and breezy. I climbed the small ridge behind the campground for sunrise, but not spectacular. After breakfast I dragged everybody out for a walk to the local waterhole, a grand total of a little over 3km. You would think I’d sprung on them a pilgrimage march! Let’s just say, as I thought, we have some work to do on that front if this holiday will be a success. We’ll try again tomorrow. There are some likely looking walks along the Little Roper River at the campground.

First stop this morning was at the town of Elliott, for obvious reasons. A photo, a souvenir at the roadhouse and little else. All of this area is littered with WW2 staging areas and airfields, and this town, no less than any other, would owe it’s existence to it. Lunch was at Newcastle Waters and the Drover’s Memorial Park, but again with the end of the Droving industry, now pretty much a ghost town. The disused pub has copies of old droving documents on the walls which made for interesting reading. Wave Hill station was mentioned often, and I’m sure we’ll be finding out more about this soon. A Bicentennial bronze statue of a drover only served to emphasise the death of the town.

The afternoon was spent completing our “pub crawl” between tacky outback themed pubs at Daly Waters and Larrimah, both filled with backpackers.

Tomorrow  will be much quieter as we only intend getting to Katherine, about 100km up the road.

Statistics for the day. About 500km, completing the first week at about 3600km. The big days have put us back on schedule. Avoided much Diesel in the $1.70s a litre, but the trend is downwards as we go further north, so that is good. That ends the big driving days to get us into the business part of the holiday. Katherine and Kakadu beckon, and are not that far away now.