Day 8 Katherine to Mainou Store on our 'Taking the scenic route to the beach!'

 Today we opted for a slower start to the day and headed out from Katherine, with Brenda and David's daughter Elise and her partner Simon now joining us for this leg of the trip in their car. Simon and Elise joined us last year to do the Gibb River Road. We took the turn off to Nhulunbuy, some 50km south of Katherine, and took the opportunity for some photos in front of the distance road signs. 

The road for the first 60km was a single lane bitumen strip with well graded dirt on either side, with a speed limit of 110km/hr. Although we didn't drive that fast, a lot of the oncoming traffic did, (clearly they were locals). We stopped in Beswick for morning tea and an explore, but the Indigenous arts gallery was unfortunately closed. and pretty much all that was left to explore was the wrecked cars in front yards and a lot of bats in the trees. just as we left, a current model toyota hilux passed us, it was the roughest hilux id seen in a while. no front on it at all, no windows, and not a straight panel on it. it looked like it had been crashed 7 times, but it was cruising around town like there was nothing wrong.

From there, the bitumen disappeared and the dirt road became quite rough with corrugations, very quickly. Early on, Matt pulled over to reduce the tyre pressure, (cause i was bouncing all over the place. while we were doing this Sal noticed some buffalo walking through the bush nearby and found the orange flowering gum that i liked) 

the lower tyre pressure made the corrugations more tolerable, and he also dropped his speed. We both had noise cancelling earbuds in to reduce the rattle as everything inside 'Bridget' would shake and bounce and get covered in red dirt. The others had gone on ahead, and as we rounded a corner, we noticed the 2 Clippers and car had pulled over and we noticed their hazard lights were on, and Ian was in his overalls. The unscheduled roadside stop was because the tailshaft in Brenda and David's 'Discovery' had broken. For those not in the know, normally this would be a catastrophic breakdown, but with the 'A Team' fellas in their overalls, were soon lying underneath 'Discovery' and pulling out the tailshaft, and it was deemed doable. I went for a walk to place the emergency triangles out to warn the oncoming traffic. Not long after they had removed the tailshaft, they were seated around a table, with parts spread out and they were busily repairing the said tailshaft. They pulled it apart, cut off the shredded metal sleeve, cleaned up and repaired the damaged splines, and put it all back together, and in the bus and we were on the move two hours later. Meanwhile, the rest of us had sat in 'Discovery' and played cards and made lunch. A few passerbys slowed down to enquire if we needed help or to admire the buses. We were amused by a few comments between some truckies over the radio, that in one breath were admiring the buses and the next expletive filled comment was about how crazy we were to be driving them out on this road. If only they knew these buses had been made and used for these kinds of roads in the years of service in the 1950's and 60's, and that we had taken them on the Gibb River Road and Tanami desert and they survived them. After the incident, Ian and David also decided to lower the pressure in their tyres as well. And as David always likes to say "its all part of the adventure!"

I think this is the fourth amendment. the technical description for the failure is that the slip yoke in the tailshaft slipped beyond its capabilities. when the differential goes up and down with bumps in the road, it gets further away from the gearbox. the tailshaft connects the two, and needs to get longer as the diff gets further away when it drops. thats what the slip yoke or splines are for.  its telescopic. but it has a limit and in this case the bump was too deep and the tailshaft came too far apart, and separated, then the two ends argued over who's fault it was that they were now seperate entities, and they smashed each other to pieces. so once out on the table we had to remove all the scars from the punchup, and see if we could get the two ends to talk to each other again , cause they really wouldn't go back together at first, they were very mangled. preliminary dress up with an angle grinder to remove the large chunks, then about an hour of filing, me on one piece and david on the other. till the two became one again and we could reinstall it. i could hear machinists crying as we filed away on our Arnhem land workbench. when failure isn't an option, you do what gets you home. 

my safety triangles case has a motivational sticker of my own design on it...

We continued on, and enjoyed a brief scenic lookout across the 'Jurassic Park', and took a few photos, before we continued along passing some wetlands, water buffalo, I spotted a 'black-necked stork (Jabiru), donkeys, road trains with a full load of cattle, going very slowly and some extensive roadworks. 

The temporary road was better than the rest of the road we had been driving on. Finally we reached our destination, Mainoru Store, on a station, where there was a campground. Everyone already camped there were popping over for a chat and were friendly. We headed off for a walk by the river, and Brenda and Simon spotted a water monitor (big lizard), that was sunning itself by the river. Again there was debris from the floods earlier in the year, and the area was quite rough and torn up too. Matt was still red from being covered in red dust and sand from working on the tailshaft and from having his driver's window open as we drove along. He was grateful for having a warm shower before dinner.

We had dinner under the stars again and a lovely chat, before retiring to have an early night after a wearying day and knowing we only drove 170km of this road and we have another 480km to drive tomorrow to reach our final destination...the beach!

 

 

Day 7 Mataranka (aka Crocodile Rock) to Katherine in our 'Taking the scenic route to the beach!'

 This morning we decided to have one last dip in the Bitter Springs warm, thermal waters, and on our stroll to the springs from the caravan park, we met an international tourist. The fella was keen to tell us about the crocodile swimming near the pool entry stairs. Undeterred, we continued to head to the pools. Near the viewing platform by the waters, a young Mum with her toddler in a pram, was keen to tell us about and showed us videos of said crocodile. It wasn't clear if it was a saltwater or freshwater croc. A team of water scientists then arrived to study the waters, and they also couldn't determine from the videos what type of croc it was. The young Mum also mentioned that the croc had been hissing and growling at them, which sounded like quite territorial behaviours. It was seen swimming away from the area where people would float and swim, though they weren't sure if the croc they had seen climbing up the bank further up was the same one, or a different one, due to the timing of the sightings.

Undeterred, Matt, Ian and David were seemingly still keen for a float down the spring, and proceeded to start climbing in the water, where a young couple were erring on whether they should continue filming their swim or not. there was no sign of any crocs at this point, Meanwhile, Brenda was taking videos and saying that this might be the last footage of our fellas alive! I had been hesitating, then decided, no the croc wasn't nearby, and so I climbed into my inflated tyre inner tube, and slipped into the warm waters. I hadn't got very far, when another young couple that had been filming there and saw the croc earlier, started calling out that the croc was coming back, the guys didn't seem worried and kept going, and I thought they were just teasing us, until they called out again more urgently, and I turned around to see the croc swimming at a rapid pace towards us. At that point, I had just passed the second set of entry stairs, and madly paddled myself against the current to reach them and get out as fast as I could! Matt wasn't far behind me either. (We estimated the croc was about 5-8 metres away from us by the time it caught up to us.) Still undeterred, Ian and David kept on floating on their pool noodles downstream with the water flow. I'm pretty sure ian and david were banking on the popping tyre inner tube creating enough of a diversion to scare the croc once it had chomped on Sal. they were gone around the first corner by the time we had completed our self preservation maneuvers.

it is a little unsettling to see a croc moving in your direction at a steady pace , and swimming 8 metres from a croc moving in your direction is a first for me, and it makes you think "im not in my natural environment, floating in this water that i cant move swiftly in. 

my sister's words of wisdom slipped through my mind , "nope" 

The croc seemed to settle across the other side of the water to the stairs, and it was around 2 metres long, probably just a large fresh water croc, but still not clear if it was. The water scientists arrived and jokingly were going to send the student in to the water for the samples they had come from Brisbane, to collect. When one also jokingly commented about OHS and assessing the safety of the situation. The young couple also decided not to keep swimming and filming themselves. although the bloke i think really wanted to. At least we knew David and Ian were safe, as we watched the croc. More tourists were coming down for a swim and watched the croc with us, and deciding against their swim. After David and Ian had returned from their float, David commented how the look on my face as I quickly turned to paddle and get out was hilarious and worth the risk of getting into the water to see my face of complete terror!! Thanks David!! they also declared the rest of the creek 400m downstream to be clear of crocs. 

We headed back to the caravan park and word was soon getting out about the croc, and by the time we had packed up and left, the gates to the thermal springs were shut (and would be for apparently around 2 weeks, so we were glad we got to enjoy the springs yesterday, albeit unknowingly sharing it with a croc, or possibly 2!) Rumour was that the croc was most likely to be the same one that comes to the springs this time of year and gets removed and moved elsewhere every year. So how do they know where to come back?!! Matt and I agree that that was maybe a bit too close to a croc as we are comfortable with! 

we think there was two chompy logs, as the filming couple had seen one climb up the bank 5mins before we got in about 300m upstream , which seemed a bit quick for it to get back to where we were by the time we got in. either way. swam with a croc. 

After we left, we drove the 100 odd kilometres to Katherine and while Meredith and I caught up on some washing at the laundromat, the fellas booked into a caravan park and filled up on some less than $2.00/litre diesel and then we headed to find a new (non bursting) gas bottle for our Clipper and then did some groceries, before heading to the caravan park to enjoy a quiet afternoon and evening, except for the screaming Curlews, now we are in Curlew zone (Curlews are birds that are known to sound like a woman screaming and tend to call at night time, and it reminds me of our time in Katherine Gorge/Nitmiluk last year, where the birds woke a camp of school kids and scared them to scream during the night.) 

The early start and adrenaline rush was exhausting!! Tomorrow we hit dirt, and start the remote road out to Nhulunbuy.

 

Day 6 Daly Waters to Mataranka on our 'Taking the scenic route to the beach!'

 We opted for a slower start to the day, heading out from Daly Waters, a little later, as we were aiming for Mataranka, a mere 165km drive, compared to the 6-700 plus kilometres that we have done on previous days. After checking in at the caravan park, we were quick to get ready and stroll down to Bitter Springs for the warm thermal waters. Since being here last year, the floods have been through, and the damage with the debris from the surrounding trees still everywhere. There was more water in the springs and even the floor of the creek was different. I enjoyed the float down in the tyre inner tube, keeping my chest safely out of the water. Matt wore the snorkel on our first float downstream, and I used it on the second run. Although neither of us spotted any turtles, you could see little fish and the greenery and sandy bottom through the clear waters. There was also evidence by the edges of the water, that wild pigs had been through too. The temperature of the water was around 30 degrees. Only a little chilly when you hopped out.

 After lunch, I had a nap and chilled in the bus reading a book, while Matt made a few running repairs as did Ian and David on their Clippers. They all went for another float in the Bitter Springs, but as I was connected up to my IV nutrition, I opted to continue to enjoy the book I was stuck into. We enjoyed dinner under the stars and all in all a great day.

running repairs were basically checking everything that was previously bolted to the underside of the bus, was still bolted to the underside of the bus. like tightening up the leaf spring mounts that i have recently repaired and they have now settled into their spot, so they tightened up a bit, greased a few suspension parts, and fixed a leak on the water tank, not really an amendment. i did weld up a broken mount on trailways, the red and cream bus, and fixed up a wiring issue that had as well . 

 then we had to go for the afternoon swim to wash off the red dirt we were now coated in. 

last nights entertainment at Daly waters  prior to watching the state of origin.

Day 5 Barkly Homestead to Daly Waters in our 'Taking the scenic route to the beach!'

 Another early start this morning, knowing our end destination was usually very popular and you can't book it. But many others thought the same thing, and there was a queue to leave the Barkly Homestead campgrounds and get fuel. You had to leave your keys at the counter, before they would turn on the bowser, and you could collect the keys once you paid. 

This was to help deal with fuel theft. Once we were back on the road, we spent the first 50km overtaking all the slower caravans. It was just under 200km before we reached the Stuart Highway and stopped for morning tea. Unfortunately, many of those same caravans then got passed us as we stopped, and once we started off again, we then had to overtake them again!

Heading north, we enjoyed the drive, as we wound through some small hills, that gave you great views from the top, overlooking the valleys and grasslands. It was looking so healthy and green. We stopped at Elliott for lunch, and had a flock of Peahens walk past. They looked like they were off on a girls day out, as no fellas were around trying to impress them!

We arrived early afternoon at Daly Waters, and the campground was already mostly full. We did our celebrity drive through the very short main street, with people lining the street filming or taking photos of the 3 Clippers. We managed to get a spot in the campground and parked up for the afternoon.

they forgot to empty the old lockup before abandoning it...

 A quiet afternoon, and stroll around the small town, and back to reserve a table for dinner, at this very popular tourist location, famous for the beef and barra dinner. We had to wait until 7pm to get ours. But it was worth the wait. Being state of origin, the evening music entertainer, who was actually really good, had to finish early. They had an outdoor screen and projector set up for the game, with plenty of Queensland supporters in the crowd. I watched for a bit but came back to the Clipper to write this up. I can hear the cheers from where we are parked up. The casualty for the day was the pipe leading to our gas pipes from the gas bottle. It blew off the end when Matt went to open the gas bottle. Luckily, our mate Ian had a spare and we will get a new one when we make it to Katherine. The weather is very warm and it is Summer clothes attire now. yes 3rd amendment is the gas hose. stole ian's spare for the moment. i opened the gas tank and the hose was hot due to the hot engine bay, and the fitting blew off the end of the hose. glad it didn't do it during the night. 

  

Day 4 Julia Creek to Barkly Homestead on our 'Taking the scenic route to the beach!'

 We had an earlier start this morning, as we had another long day of travel ahead. We left the caravan park at Julia Creek, with pretty much all the other guests standing and watch us leave. Matt reckons it was the most interesting thing to happen in the town for the week! Our next stop was morning tea at Cloncurry and fuelling up and a spare belt for the air con on Bridget was also sourced. The scenery also changed from the golden fields of grass with cattle, to winding roads, through rocky, red mountains, covered in greenery. We really like these mountains and the drive was a refreshing change from the flat plains that we had been driving through for the last day or so.

We drove through Mount Isa, but did stop briefly at the Super Cheap Auto for a replacement phone charger, as ours was broken. We continued on past the chimney stacks and mines that is Mount Isa, and slowly the mountains became hills, and the hills became golden grassy plains, that were very flat and seemed to disappear on the horizon.Whistling Kites could be seen floating and circling the skies, looking for prey, and I spied a Bustard hiding behind a hedge of tall weeds.

Occasionally a creek would have water, and small birds could be seen swooping up and around through the trees, while some dams had Cormorants, Pelicans and Egrets, floating or swimming in the green murky waters. 

We stopped at Camooweal for lunch, and just as we were leaving the tiny town, a police blitz pulled us in, and Matt had a breath test, license check and then the Spanish inquisition about Bridget!   Back on the road for the last stretch, Matt led the trio across the border into the Northern Territory and if you blinked, you wouldn't have noticed, but we gained half an hour! We drove past a cattle muster, with the Drover's on horseback. There seemed to be some stubborn cattle at the rear, not moving and the young Drover's signalled to Matt to sound the horn, maybe to try and get them moving, and Matt happily obliged. Whilst the navigator rebuked me for tooting a mob of 600 cattle, i said if the blokes indicated me to toot, then they must know what they are doing, and the impending stampede will be behind us, and on their heads . The afternoon sun was hot and blinding, and we were glad to finally reach the Barkly Homestead, our final destination for the day. Last year we had stopped here to stay overnight, and got to stay for free, as they had a 6am blasting of horns to try and stop the bats from roosting in their trees. This time, the bats are thankfully gone and you can smell the difference, though it seems the Galahs have moved in. We sat in the shade of a large tree to cool down, and rest from the long day of being in a hot bus. yes i replaced the A/C belt, but it barely works when it's working well, it only really dehumidifies. We enjoyed dinner at the pub, with a musician singing for entertainment. his entertainment mainly... We have estimated we are approximately half way there. A lovely evening together, finished up with the stroll back to the Clippers, under the Milky Way.

on a side note we came across this sign quite a lot in western QLD 

 apparently there are 3m tall car eating bovines roaming wild in the outback, we saw plenty of cows but none eating cars, yet...

Day 3 Lara Springs to Julia Creek on our 'taking the scenic route to the beach!'

 An easy start to the day, checking out the wetlands before we headed back down the dirt road and back onto the bitumen. 

We drove through Barcaldine, and stopped at Longreach for a photo op of the 3 Clipper buses at the Qantas Founder's museum and a sneaky photo in front of the last of the Qantas 747. After morning tea, and sharing around of my home-baked choc-chip cookies, we drove on to Winton for lunch. For Matt and I, having being in these areas just shy of 12 months ago, we were happy to just take a quick stroll around the main streets.

 

From Winton, we headed towards Cloncurry, but took a turn off and headed to Julia Creek. As we drove along, we were surrounded by golden grasses, that were looking long and the evidence of puddles remaining from some recent rain, were I'm sure, encouraging signs for the coming months for the farmers. Whilst on this narrow and lonely road, we did have a police car follow us and then overtake each bus separately, as we had all spread out over a couple of kilometres between us down this stretch. We heard Ian warn David over the radio that the police car had its light flashing as they approached behind David and Brenda's 'Discovery' bus, but it was just to overtake and not to pull him over fortunately. 

We opted to park up at the local caravan park for the night and wandered around the main streets of Julia Creek as the afternoon was slipping away, sadly noting that a few of the stores and businesses were up for sale.  Whilst on our walk today, I started to hear familiar bird calls, bird calls that became entrenched in my memories, of last year's adventure and that bring back fond recollections of the trip and the awesome and diverse bird life and images of the amazing and beautiful landscapes that we experienced, that will stay with me forever.

 Pre-dinner drinks together, as the sun began to set and a little later, dinner under the stars. Another long day driving but it is so good to be out here in the outback and switching off from the busyness of life that we have tried to leave behind. The weather is warming up too, the further northwest we travel, and we both pulled out shorts and t-shirts to wear today. Today's casualty was the fan belt for the air conditioner, that fell off somewhere.(See amendment #2- A/C belt replacement due to previous belt taking a permanent holiday, and amendment #1 revision 2 - fix a wire tie on the fan that has tried to escape again)

 

 

Day 2 Mitchell to Lara Springs on our 'Taking the scenic route to the beach!'

As per previous posts last year matt will post in italics and no capitals, and Sal in standard boring upright font....

A slower start for the day, and Matt did an engine bay check of 'Bridget' and discovered that the thermo fans had fallen down, as the shroud and brackets had given up (most likely snapped yesterday, after some very bumpy sections on the road to St George). So 'Mattgyver' kicked into gear and used the fencing wire he had, and wired the fans and shroud back into place. So far this repair is holding in place. 

this shall be termed "the first amendment" .the fan, in it's own uneducated wisdom, saw the engine underneath it and thought " ive had enough of trying to cool this engine by blowing on this radiator, im going down there to blow on the engine itself". now this is admirable in that the fan is trying to better itself and try new things, and i'm all for using parts in ways that the designers never intended, but the poor fan didn't account for its power cable that wouldn't let it get to the engine. so it hung itself half way down and blew around un-tethered willy nilly. so i placed the fan back in it's designated spot, and wired it in with the fencing wire, tapping it on the head,saying "that's not going anywhere" . 

onward and upward. 

From Mitchell, we headed via Morven, to Augathella for morning tea and a stroll around town. The football club mascot is a 'meat ant!' (A carnivorous ant, useful cleaning up animal carcasses, or football opponents ).i'm sure  the football team have never been call meat heads... Reading the history of the town and how it came to be, was very interesting; with a couple literally travelling and deciding let's stop here and start a shop in the mid 1800's and they had hoped that maybe a town could become of it, and they were right. As we left town, I looked down a dirt road, off the main road, and spied a dingo, just casually standing the in the middle of this side road, a sign we were in the outback for sure!

 

 Next stop was Tambo, home to the famous 'Tambo Teddies', a store that the locals run and where they make these famous teddy bears. Being Sunday, the shop was closed sadly. This town also runs chicken racing events daily, yes you read correctly, they race chickens. Cant afford horses. I spied a green rooster strutting its stuff behind the pub that hosts the event, clearly the leader of the green racing team!! As we drove today, I did notice that the further north we headed, the greener the grasses became, and there was more of it. It was lovely to see this area look like this, as we have mostly seen this region in drought. Hopefully, there is enough feed on the ground to last through Winter and beyond. 

From Tambo, we continued heading northwest and just before we reached the town of Barcaldine, we turned down a 13km dirt road and headed on the station property of 'Lara Springs'. The dirt road was a little cut up from recent rain, and Matt had to criss-cross the road to find the firmest parts and avoid the patches of black dirt, notorious for being slippery and dangerous, and swallowing heavy vehicles in deep bogs. We eventually made it to the camping ground, and booked in. This campground has been created by the property owners, and was set by the waters of the Lara Springs wetlands. There are water sports activities, bikes and playgrounds, amongst the facilities, but the best part of this location, was the hot Artesian pool. We were able to soak again in the mineral waters, this time they were unchlorinated, and contained little fish, that liked to find the wounds and peeling skin of the soaking humans, and nibble it off. Poor Brenda was under attack the whole time, but it was still a pleasant way to relax after the 550km long drive.

 

We then later sat under the stars and enjoyed a yummy pasta dinner by the campfire. I reclined my camp chair and watched the satellites whizzing on by and the stars twinkle and sparkle, meanwhile, the drone of frog song is in the background. A great end to the day.