Mataranka

I really need to continue blogging the round Australia trip.  The last time I added a diary entry from the trip was in December. At that time we had made it as far as Mataranka and set about washing the mud from our car after the hell raising drive through Limmen Bight National Park.

The diary entry from 15/5/07 records:
....Bought heaps of cleaning solutions for both car and clothes.  Our clothes have stains that just wont come out.
Kids had a ball washing the filthy car with the NP hose.  It has been transformed - unfortunately, they also managed to saturate the carpet....

Mataranka is located at a hot spring and the main attraction are the beautiful thermal pools. They are a cozy 34 degrees Celsius and a major draw card for tourists. Mataranka was also the fabled land from the Story We of the Never Never by Miles Franklin.  At the homestead resort they play the movie of We of the Never Never on a continuous loop.  We sat down at one point to watch it.  I hadn't seen it for about 20 years, so it was interesting to reacquaint myself with this Aussie classic. As I like to compare book with film, I also purchased the book while I was there and proceeded to read it during my trip. The most notable difference between the book and the film was the depiction of the main (female) character.  In the movie she is depicted as a silly female, whereas the book depicts her as a much stronger character who endured the hardships well and was resourceful and clever.

We stayed in Mataranka for 3 days and visted the thermal pools and had a swim in each of them. Bitter Springs was a thermal pool with natural banks.  We were able to float down it in the current.  The main thermal pool at the homestead had constructed sides and steps to facilitate the large numbers of tourists enjoying its pleasures.

We left on the eighteenth and headed to Edith falls, via Katherine.

Evan has three diary entries for Mataranka.

Mataranka Thermal Pool

The down stream you went the shallower it gets.
I didn't think it was hot, but it wasn't cold either, it was just a bit warmer than the outside temperature.

I commented: It was a lovely temperature, I could have stayed in all day.

Mataranka Bitter Springs

Today we're at Bitter Springs.  It is quite deep and the normal heat.
I liked it when we went all the way following the current to the bridge and climbed up the ladder and walked back to the car.

I commented: The current flowed quite fast in the deep parts.  I was worried that I wouldn't be ale to get out in time once we reached the bridge!

Mataranka Cane Toad Hunting

Tonight I have gone cane toad hunting. I didn't really know what was going to happen to the cane toads until morning.
But........they weren't there. Do you know where they went?

I commented: Maybe they weren't dead after all - just stunned.

Roper Bar and one very muddy car

Overnight we had some light rain at Butterfly Spring.  It was mildly annoying packing up a damp tent, but I was very happy to be getting away from the incessant annoyance of the mosquitoes and other insects.  We duly loaded up the car and trailer and headed on down the red dirt road towards Roper Bar.  As we were travelling along we passed Limmen Bight River and noticed that far from having a little light rain over night, they had had ALOT of rain.  So much that it had turned the road to an absolute quagmire.  Many of the caravaners and boaters were stranded and unable to traverse the road.  We gave it a try.  The red dirt is amazing stuff when it gets wet.  Of course during the wet season this area would be completely unpassable and would regularly get isolated for months at a time. That's because when this red dust turns to mud it becomes incredibly sticky.  It just builds up and up on the wheels and in the wheel arches and eventually effectively prevents the wheels from turning at all. Before that there is absolutely no traction and driving suddenly become extremely hair raising.

At many sections along the road we were progressing sideways down the road, praying that no one was heading in the opposite direction.  It took all of Steve's skills as a driver and good luck to stay on the road and not end up in a watery ditch by the side.  Obviously Steve and I grasped the severity of the situation and were a little tense during the whole trip, worried about what we would do if we became stranded.  Meanwhile, the children in the back were pretty much oblivious.  To them it was just another bumpy road.  Sarah looked up from her book at one point as we were sliding sideways down the road with our trailer threatening to overtake us, when she said "Dad, what are you doing?"  She said it in a tone of voice that suggested that she thought dad was just mucking around and having some thrills.  In actual fact I think Steve was gripping the steering wheel with white knuckled hands and quietly shitting himself.  He replied to Sarah's enquiry through gritted teeth, "trying to keep the car on the road".

We stopped at Roper Bar having survived the worst of the road and indulged in a hamburger, refuelled the car, and Steve took to the mud in the wheel arches with a shovel.  We left great clumps of red mud behind as we continued our journey to Mataranka.  The car still looked like it had been through a mud tornado, covered from top to bottom in red mud.  It was funny at the intersection of the Stuart Highway we saw another young family who we had made friends with at Lawn Hill.  They had chosen a different, more sedate route to travel to Mataranka.  They took one look at us and recognised the car and assessed the muddy state that we were in and their mouths were agog.  Amazing what a transformation can happen in just a few short days in the outback.

We arrived in Mataranka and set up camp at 12 mile in the National Park.  The kindly ranger allowed us to use the fire hoses to wash our car, so we were able to return it to some semblance of respectability.  We found a good spot in camp next to another family who had 2 boys, Sarah and Evan's age.  We would later meet up with this family again in Darwin.