Friday 31 May 2013

26 May - 28 May 2013 – Mataranka



After sitting up until 2am last night, cursing the blog and the internet connection, I finally went to bed and got a fairly good sleep – it was much warmer in bed than out.  On our way out of town this morning we first checked out the jewellery store across the road from the pub (which has an old helicopter sitting on its roof), followed by a drive to the Stuart Tree.  This tree is famous as John McDouall Stuart  carved an “S” in this tree (now only a tree-truck) in 1861-2 when he made the first successful journey from Adelaide to Darwin.  Not far from here is an old Qantas hanger.  The airport here at Daly Waters was the first international airport in Australia.  However, with the outbreak of WWII, a change of roles came to this aerodrome.  It was after this that the airport was expanded and became a military base.  Onward we then drove along the Stuart Highway until we reached Mataranka, our stop-over for the night.  We pulled into the Mataranka Homestead Resort, which is situated in Elsey National Park and is well-known for its Thermal Springs.  We settled in and quickly got changed heading for a dip in the lovely warm spring fed thermal waters.  The temperature is a lovely 34 degrees and the water itself is crystal clear.  Many of the resident peacocks and wallabies came to visit us at dinner tonight.  First were the peacocks who we fed the scrap celery and corn kernels and later came lots of friendly wallabies.  We opened up a packet of milk arrowroot biscuits  and had a few ourselves and then spent ages feeding the rest of the packet to the wallabies; they were adorable.  At one point the wallabies were even holding Zoe’s hand while they ate their biscuits.

The following day we spent quite a few hours doing boring schoolwork with the kids.  They started out pretty good and got some work done but by the end we were having our usual arguments.  It has to be the worst part of our trip!  I had allocated the drama segment to Josh to get done with the kids… not a great idea.  Josh’s acting was ok but the kids didn’t put much effort into it and Josh wasn’t about to push too hard.  Oh well, it’s now done and gone – I can’t see the kids having an acting career at the end of their schooling careers.  It was fairly late this afternoon when we decided that they’d actually done enough work, so Josh took them back to the thermal springs for a dip while I just cleaned up the van a bit.  After dinner tonight we ducked over to the reception area where again we had some free entertainment.  A gentleman singing with his guitar and didgeridoo and again this guy was pretty good.  After a few drinks we returned to the van and invited our new neighbours over for a drink.  Matt & Elissa had just put their kids Mitch (8) and Anna (6) to bed  and we sat around enjoying a few drinks and some great laughs with them.

Tuesday morning we decided to have another sneaky break from school and head into town to check out the barramundi feeding and more springs .  Our new friends, the Hirst’s, thankfully decided to join us for the fun today.  The kids were off to a slow start in becoming friends but it didn’t take long before they were really enjoying themselves.  After a quick stop for my morning coffee, both Zoe and Samantha got in the gorgeous big pond with the floating pink lilies and tried their hand at fish feeding.  There were only about half a dozen barras but they were each a good size.  As the girls dropped their hand down just above the water, the barras warily approached and made a big “snap” taking the fish from their hands.  They were harmless in their taking but they really gave us a shock each time they took their food and made a mighty big splash and they turned and took off after taking the food.  It was a bit of fun.  Next we left here and went to Bitter Springs for a swim.  Again, the water was a lovely temperature and very clean and clear.  Upon recommendation from talking to others, we took our snorkels and masks / goggles with us and it was so well worth the underwater viewing.  It was just like an underwater garden with lots to see.  The kids were a bit irked by the bits of moss floating about but they eventually got used to it and happily floated down the stream a few times…. it was very relaxing, warm and simply divine.  We stopped in at the local store before we headed back to the caravan park, had a bit of lunch and eventually the kids got stuck back into a little bit of schoolwork, even though it is never enough.  We relaxed this afternoon with further drinks and great conversation with the Hirst’s whilst the kids relaxed in the van watching a movie together.  Our wallaby friends from last night returned after dinner tonight requesting a few more biscuits and we were happy to oblige – that was until the bossy male came along.  No harm done but he certainly was assertive.





















































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