Entry 9 – Elsey National Park & Devils Marbles 10th - 15th August.
Leaving Katherine Gorge, we propped about 30 kilometres back down the road, at the town of Katherine. We restocked the pantry, fridge and the tow tug’s fuel tank. There is a large Woolworths supermarket in Katherine and many of the shelves were looking sparsely stocked. The queue of people with trolleys full of food waiting to pay for their supplies stretched across the front of the store with about 30 plus people waiting to exit. We had spoken with a Katherine local a week earlier and they made the comment that the Katherine Woolworths store was known to be the busiest store in Australia with bare shelves a regular occurrence throughout the year. We would agree that the Katherine Woolworths Supermarket was one of our most hectic supermarket experiences with many of our sort after items missing with a bare shelf where they should be located.
We added to our Katherine experience, with lunch at the Katherine Club who provided very satisfying meals. Mary’s serving did stretch for a second meal.
We spent 5 hours attending to our needs in Katherine including uploading our last blog edition and submitting our required once every 5 years, electronic census forms. Katherine would be our last opportunity to access satisfactory food supplies and quality internet for our planned route directly south for a distance of about 1,200 kilometres until we arrive at the next more populated town of Alice Springs nearby the centre of Australia.
About 100 kilometres south of Katherine is the township of Mataranka. Mataranka is known for its thermal hot springs with 4 caravan parks which are all generally at capacity during this period of the year. We chose to stay a few nights basing ourselves at Elsey National Park located about 17 kilometres from Mataranka. It was a nice bush setting with the predominate background noise provided by nature. There were two walking trails from the campground, both following the nearby Roper River banks. One walk was around a couple of kilometres and the other a bit over 8 kilometres. We did both walks, enjoying the exercise and the scenery.
It was ok at the National Park, though the main drawcard for this location is Mataranka Homestead warm Thermal Pools and the flowing warm thermal waters of Bitter Springs. We drove to Bitter Springs twice where we immensely enjoyed immersing our bodies into its beautiful waters, once late afternoon until the sun set and another time early in the morning. We chose these times hoping for a more peaceful experience, avoiding the day time crowds. There is an entry point into the stream and you spend 15 – 20 minutes floating in the water pushed along by the current, meandering along its winding path. There is an exit point where you spend about 2 minutes walking back to the entry point, starting all over again. It was a most delightful experience.
The Botanic walk was another enjoyable experience.
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Farmer’s daughter Mary decided to put freshly thermal waters cleaned Steve through an early 19th century sheep dip.
Bitter Springs and the Mataranka Thermal Pools were both located in the Elsey National Park, with free access to the public. For us it was a nice location to experience but we had no inclination to stay on. The nearby locations around bitter springs and the close by thermal pools were controlled by commercial enterprises and for us, unappealing with people herded together into close quarters to obtain maximum benefit for these businesses. After 3 nights we were up early to continue our travel journey, though we did stop on our way out for an hour in the thermal pools, starting our day with a great frame of mind.
Driving about in out-back Australia involves travelling hundreds of kilometres through deserted country side. You do enjoy a change in scenery to break up the monotony of driving with stretches of termite mounds or a sighting of black cockatoos.
Two days later and about 700 kilometres down the road we set camp at another unique and special location at the Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve. The campground is predominately utilized as an overnight stop over with a few staying longer. There were 34 rigs camping at Devils Marbles the night we were there.
This was our third stopover at this location over a ten-year period and it hadn’t lost any of its wow factor. We were pleased with an increase of available walking tracks this visit, ranging from a few hundred metres up to four kilometres in length.
If you can identify a spot suitable for your camera eye you could capture some great sunset and sunrise photographs. Naturally your efforts may be hindered by people deciding to stand in front of you as well as identifying where the sun sets and rises over the landscape. It all adds to the experience of a good challenge.
During the afternoon of our arrival, we spent a couple of hours walking around, enthralled by the special setting of the Devils Marbles. We were so mesmerised looking at its unique landscape we spent a further couple of hours wondering about the rock formations prior our departure the following day. It was a great setting aiding with a bonus for some fun photographs.
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