Mataranka

We got to Mataranka - home of the famous Jeannie Gunn and We of the Never Never, and decided to stay at the Park near the thermal springs. We stopped at the dump point in town to do the chore of emptying the chemical toilet. As we finished up, an aboriginal man and a child came and filled up their water bottles using the hose that we used to clean out the toilet!! Heaven help when I think of where that hose has been. I felt quite ill!
The park was quite nice and we got a good place right next to a palace on wheels -that's what we call an enormous caravan. We really are very small in comparison to some of the vans travelling around!
Once setup we went straight away to the thermal springs - Randall loved it - his kind of temperature. There were lots of people there, and it was very pleasant.

This was our first taste of crocodile country and we were a bit daunted by the sign we saw:

I felt comfortable in the springs but doubt I would swim in the rivers. Swimming pools for me from now on unless otherwise stated!!

We went to the Elysey National Park and looked in on each touristy thing on the way. We decided to walk to the Mataranka Falls, a 4 k walk. Glad we took our water bottles. Not thinking about how hot you get walking around here, we didn't really think about how much we'd need water. We even had to fill up at a stream - water was running so Randall said it was perfectly safe. The walk was fairly hard as the track was very sandy. There was rubber matting every now and then and it was really good to walk on. The falls were very pretty, so we had a bit of a rest before heading back.

We were very hot and red faced when we got back to the car. I was so glad to sit on the tailgate of the car and have a piece of fruit and some munchies. We headed back to the town of Mataranka to have a bit of a look around. There are lots of termite mounds around here, and and ENORMOUS one in the township. Randall reckons they give him the creeps.

We also drove into Bitter Springs, just like at Mataranka. It is all very pretty, and nice because it is so warm.

I have to say the road kill around here is awful. It must be because the animals are much bigger than we have at home. We have finally seen a bit of wildlife - lovely fine little kangaroos hopping across the road and a lot squashed on the road. I have seen a dead cow and horse by the side of the road and enormous eagles on top of road kill.