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August 27, 2007
We passed a new milestone today, after two months in Australia we finally crossed a state line, from Queensland into Northern Territory. A sign on the wall of the last roadhouse in the state read "Welcome to Queensland, 5 years and 30 minutes ahead of Northern Territory (NT). The five years is a joke on what is considered the backwardness of NT, while the 30 minutes has to do with the time difference between the two states. Yes, it is only 30 minutes, not the one hour that might be expected in other countries.
At the border there was a photo stop welcoming us into the state. Don climbed up on the roof to take a 360º photo of the emptiness that stretched all the way to the horizon.
| Then we drove the entire day, as there wasn't much of anything else to do or see. When we stopped for lunch, we were bombarded by tons of grasshoppers, it was almost like a plague of locusts. We made it all the way to the town of Tennant Creek because there was no reason to stop. The last 30 miles or so, we passed by an area that was suffering from a bush fire, so there was lots of smoke and even flames right up to the roadway. At night, the smoke covered the sky and the flat land made for a simultaneous blood red sunset and moonrise. |
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August 28, 2007
| Once again we were up early and did Internet and shopping to replenish our supplies for the drive north. We then headed off to explore an old telegraph station, one of only four left along the Stuart Highway and then to a spiritually important aboriginal site for the Warumungu women, called Kunjarra, in English it means The Pebbles. At night we celebrated a total lunar eclipse at this spiritual place. |
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Tenant Creek Overland Telegraph Station
August 29, 2007
| In the morning, we headed north along the Stuart Hwy, named after the explorer John McDougal Stuart which closely follows the route he took in his crossing of Central Australia from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north. His crossing was an amazing feat considering the landscape. We stopped at the Historic Town of Newcastle Waters, more of a ghost town really, but the old hotel was interesting with information, letters and newspaper clippings detailing its history as a focal point along three major stock routes, where drovers (cowboys) began their long cattle drives taking the cows to market. The last major drive took place in the 1970's, then the highway and the road trains replaced the long journeys. A final drive took place in the 80's as a celebration of the history of the drover. Along the way we crossed the imaginary line that divides the wet tropic region for the dry central region. We stopped for the night at a roadhouse in Dunmarra. |
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August 30, 2007
We read about the town of Daly Waters, also more of a ghost town than anything else, and decided to stop and explore. The two reasons to visit here are the abandoned airfield and the old Daly Waters Pub. The airfield played an important part during the early days of aviation when planes needed a place to stop and refuel on trips from Sydney to Singapore. There is a sign on the gate indicating that the airfield is in line to be protected, but only the hanger is still standing fully intact. Everything else, buildings and even a plane wreck, is falling apart.
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The Daly Waters Pub is a different story altogether. It has a history as the oldest operating pub in Northern Territory, having been licensed since 1893. It also is renowned for its bizarre decorating tastes. Nearly every square inch of wall space is covered by: name tags, police or other official patches, money, t-shirts, underwear, stickers, farming implements and who knows what else! We stopped for a drink and to watch the action as people came and went. |
| Now that we are out of the dry central area, there are more interesting water related sights to visit. We camped in Elsey National Park, a very small park, which protects the head waters of the Roper River. The Roper gets its start in a number of springs, several of which are thermal and which can be visited. We swam in the Mataranka Thermal Pool which has a temperature of 34 degrees C, just cooler than body temperature, which was very relaxing. Even though it is called a thermal pool, the water isn't really heated by anything, that's just the temperature that most of the underground water is in Australia! |
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August 31, 2007
This morning we did a hike to Mataranka Falls. It was 4km each way, which made it almost 5 miles round trip. We started a little late in the morning, so we didn't get back until the heat of the day at 2:00. We were pretty exhausted so a dip in a different thermal pool sounded really good.
After eating lunch, we headed off to Bitter Springs. The spring runs a long way above ground and you can swim a good portion of its length. The water again was the 34 degrees C, but this time we had our masks and snorkels and were able to see what was under the water. The bright green growth was really beautiful and even better were the two turtles we saw. It was so much fun that we did the round trip twice!
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