“It is 8:00pm (local time) and we are sitting in the caravan attempting to get an internet connection. Whilst this post will not be uploaded for a couple of days, we have very limited internet access and spasmodic receipt of emails.
All that aside, we have the aircon running as the outside temperature is in the mid 20’s and we had vents open until someone nearby decided they needed a fire. So now the vents are closed and the aircon will offset the temperature rise.
We are in the Bitter Springs Caravan Park at Materanka, a Northern Territory town famous with travellers for its hot springs. We arrived here just after 12:30pm and were lucky to be able to obtain one of the few remaining powered sites. In fact, had we stopped to empty our toilet cassette on the way in as planned, we would have missed out on a site.
The park is tight and it took some time to get onto our site. When we finally got the van onto the site, we found it was dead level (left to right only as we are parked on a hill).
We left Daly Waters at 9:15am today and paid a visit to the old WW2 airfield that was also used by QANTAS in early days. There is a hangar on site said to be the oldest hanger in the Northern Territory. Whilst the airfield is still active, there was no traffic whilst we were there.
After leaving the airfield we had a quick look at the Daly Waters Hotel before commencing our journey north.
We stopped for morning tea at a small settlement called Larrimah at “Fran’s Tea House”. Fran is one of the territories colourful residents. It cost us $15ph for coffee, tea and scones and a couple of pieces of cake. Whilst expensive, the entertainment by Fran offset the cost.
The terrain is changing. Whilst travelling north for the past two days, all we are seeing is a never ending sea of trees. The earth has changed colour again with the red soil now only a memory. The termite hills are becoming larger and there is now a practice to place clothing over the termite hill. We are also the furthest distance north we have ever travelled in Australia.
Tomorrow we head to Katherine and then to Kakadu and finally Darwin. We should be in Darwin for Northern Territory Day and hope to see a fireworks display that we saw being shipped by road yesterday to Darwin.”