Katherine, Daly Waters, Borroloola, Hell’s Gate – 21 to 26 September 2010

We left Darwin and stayed overnight at Katherine Low Level and Daly Waters, two campsites we like.

At Daly Waters being cloudy we succeeded in photographing the tree blazed with an “S” by John McDouall Stuart on 23rd May 1862 on his successful journey from Adelaide to Darwin.
After Daly Waters we took our National Highway [Highway 1] also known between Broome and Cairns as the Savannah Way and in the section from Daly Waters to Normanton as the Great Top Road. 
We stopped at the Hi Way Roadhouse for diesel and a last coffee before embarking on the Carpentaria Road section of the Savannah Way.  At this point it looks like an old WW2 Road as the bitumen is so narrow. It is also as straight as a ruler.
Our next stop was the Heartbreak Hotel for lunch. It was so hard for the contractor to build this Roadhouse owing to the difficulty of getting deliveries and hiring workers that when it finally neared completion his name for it was the Heartbreak Hotel and despite the publican’s pleas the name stuck.
There is a Ukrainian girl working here at the moment; the place is spotlessly clean and the meal is good.
This is where the Tablelands Highway and the Carpentaria Highway diverge and the road is not so good although still bitumen. We stopped at the Caranbirini Reserve and walked through the eroded limestone pillars.  From there we drove to Borroloola where we spent the night in a nice quiet campsite.  Borroloola was a rough and tough town during the Gold Rushes but has quietened down and is now a transit stop for those who are traveling West and East.  The hotel provides an adequate meal.


After Borroloola your car should be 4WD and your caravan outback capable. We saw one camper trailer in pieces by the side of the road.  The next day there were frequent river crossings and the road was mostly dirt however the surface is reasonable. We crossed the border into Queensland.  Wollogorang Station and Roadhouse has ceased trading so we drove through to Hell’s Gate Roadhouse.
       
Hell’s Gate derives its name from the fact that the native Police could not guarantee your safety beyond this point if you were traveling West.  At Hell’s Gate there was wood ready for our fire which was helpful. The Roadhouses have very minimal supplies at the moment as the wet is due and travel by road will cease shortly but Hell’s Gate did have fuel, apparently not always the case. We spent the evening talking to fellow travelers round the fire. and watching a spectacular lightning show from a nearby storm.
From Hell’s Gate we tried to drive in to Kingfisher Camp and Lawn Hill.  The road in was cut by a large sheet of water so we had to turn back. Our thunderstorm had dumped some water near Kingfisher Camp, cutting the road.
Consequently we drove to Normanton, a long drive but a reasonably good road, although large portions of it are still dirt. We passed through Burketown, the prototype for “Willstown” in Nevil Shute's novel 'A Town like Alice'.  There was nothing to keep us there as nothing was open on a Sunday. 
We stopped at Leichardt River.  The falls were dry, although the gathering storm clouds threatened to change this.
We drove to  Burke and Wills base camp number B119, their furthest North Camp. From there they made a dash to the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Although they reached the shore by their maps they were unable to see or reach the open sea because of the impenetrable mangrove swamps. Burke and Wills expedition to find a North- South Route across Australia  was in competition with John Stuart. It is hard to have a lot of sympathy for Burke and Wills.  Their deaths on the way home were the final disaster for what was a well financed but badly prepared and managed expedition.  The actual route was discovered by John McDouall Stuart and is now the Stuart Highway from Adelaide to Darwin.
We finished the drive into Normanton late in the evening.

Darwin – 2 to 21 September 2010

We like Darwin and were glad to be back there.

Tricia had to go to the US and John spent his time cleaning the van, riding bikes and reading.  The early storms meant that most people had left, and the normally full park was relatively deserted.  Fortunately  friends we had met while travelling, Emma and Rob were here so he had some company.

After Tricia came back we had a lovely day visiting the Rapid Creek and Nightcliff markets. Rapid Creek has lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. Nightcliff is more of a brunch spot.

We had brunch at the Box Jellyfish Cafe on Nightcliff beach. This is a trailer cafe run by Matthew a former aboriginal footballer who John had met on his bike rides when we stayed in Darwin the year before.

It has good coffee and is reputed to have the best bacon and egg sandwiches in Darwin. One can sit and watch dogs and their owners brave the crocodiles and swim on the beach.

From there we went to the Darwin Museum. This has a small collection but it is very well curated.
The exhibition comprises an excellent selection of Aboriginal Paintings, from the Hermannsburg School onwards.
There is a section on Cyclone Tracy, which demolished Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974.
There is a section on the evolutionary history of Crocodilians.
There is a short film on catching Sweetheart a 5.1 meter crocodile who took to attacking boats. As he was dangerous a team from the Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission caught him with a view to relocating him at a crocodile farm as a breeding crocodile but he died shortly thereafter, was stuffed and is now resides in the museum. The name Sweetheart comes from his former residence, Sweets Billabong on the Finiss River.
There is also a collection of unusual Boats from the Pacific Rim. Occasionally boats get blown off course and end up in Australia, or they bring a group of refugees colloquially known as boat people. Some of them are quite unique and have been bought by the museum and are being restored.

From the Museum we went to see the National Trust Collection of houses by architect Beni Burnett. Born in Mongolia and living as an adult in Tientsin and Singapore Burnett had an intuitive understanding of what was needed in a house in the tropics. There are four houses left at Myilly Point and we could see through the K house, also known as the Burnett house. Walls of louvers and casement windows meant that the house was very cool even without air conditioning. He also understood that one did not want too much thermal mass exposed to radiant heat. His house designs were graceful, original and very livable. Burnett was a Government Architect and his houses were designed for upper level public servants.

The next day we visited Fanny Bay Gaol. Fanny Bay Gaol was opened in 1883. From the outset this Gaol was thought to be badly positioned so not much money was spent on it and in 1979 prisoners were transferred to other locations. It was handed over to the Government and then housed Vietnamese Boat People in the children’s section for a while after which it was designated a historic site.

Kununurra to Darwin – 1 to 2 September 2010

From Kununurra we drove to Katherine,  leaving Western Australia after ten months of great travel and experiences. 

We passed the site on the Victoria River where the North Australian Expedition led by Augustus Charles  Gregory established their main base camp in October 1855, and spent the next eight months exploring the Victoria River Region as far as 500km south to the Great Sandy Desert.  He marked a Boab Tree with details, an early form of Facebook page for explorers!

We stopped for lunch at the Victoria River Roadhouse, which proudly announced it was “Under New [Ownership] Wife.

We then drove on to the Low Level Park in Katherine, a nice park on the edge of a tiny National Park.  It has good amenities and is great spot for an overnight stop.  From Katherine we drove on to Darwin.

Darwin to Port Lincoln - 20 to 26 October 2009

Mindful that Burke and Wills get no credit for being the first to cross Australia from North to South because they failed to return to their start point, instead ending up dead near the "Dig Tree" in outback Queensland, we decided to retrace our steps south before heading west to Perth.

We drove 3,095 km following the  Stuart Highway from Darwin to Port Augusta, where we stopped to collect mail, and then on to Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula.  We plan to follow the coast of the Eyre Peninsula to Ceduna and then across the Nullabor Plain to Perth.

Click here to go to Google Maps for an interactive version of this map

A      Darwin                20 October 2009

B      Katherine            20 October 2009

C      Tennant Creek   21 October 2009

D      Alice Springs       22 October 2009

E      Coober Pedy       23 October 2009

F      Port Augusta       24 and 25 October 2009

G     Port Lincoln         26 October 2009

Darwin - 30 September to 18 October 2009

John stayed in Darwin while Trish returned to the USA for about three weeks.  Darwin was entering the "buildup" prior to the start of the wet season and was hot and humid, but has great bike trails so John could ride every day.

Litchfield - 24 to 27 September 2009

We arrived in Batchelor on the 24th September and stayed at the Batchelor Caravillage. They feed the parrots each evening.

Batchelor was initially an experimental farm. The farm was named for the South Australian Politician Egerton Lee Batchelor, although given its history it could well have been a reflection of the marital state of the many thousands who have called it home over the years.

An airport was developed in 1933 and due to the outbreak of World War II it was extended in 1941 to enable B-17's to land. From December 1941 it played an important role as the base for General MacArthur's bombing force and thousands of men were stationed here.

Uranium was discovered in 1949. Batchelor then became the service town for the Rum Jungle Uranium Mine. The miners stayed in town and were bussed to the mine.

Of the many stories about the naming of Rum Jungle the best and most likely concerns the bullock team carrying the rum rations for the construction workers on the Overland Telegraph in 1870. Why all the rum was shipped in one lot is a mystery, but not surprisingly it got bogged in the East Finiss River, and the only solution was to lighten the load. The bullockies drank the rum, having one of the better binges in history and leaving the name Rum Jungle behind them.

The mine is inactive now and the pit has become a lake.

Nowadays Batchelor is the entry point for the Litchfield National Park. Litchfield is on the escarpment and has a lot of waterfalls.

We visited Florence waterfall and plunge pool, Buley Rockhole, Tolmer Falls and Wangi Falls

We swam at Wangi Falls plunge pool and walked the rain forest canopy walk.

We can highly recommend the Butterfly Farm Restaurant in Batchelor which has excellent fresh, well cooked local food. A lot is grown on the premises.

We dined there a number of times.

We visited the Termite mounds. [We are not keen on termites as they ate some of our house once, although it did enable us to do some remodeling so it wasn't totally bad]

After listening to the Ranger, a complete enthusiast, we felt much more positively disposed towards them. There are many different species of which about 400 reside in the Top End of Australia. They clean up debris, animal and vegetable depending on the termite, bringing the nutrients into the mound. When their mounds are no longer occupied and fall down they contribute to the ecosystem by liberating these nutrients into the soil. As tropical soils are nutrient poor this is a very positive benefit.

Tree pipe termites make hollow branches which can be used as homes by other animals and as didgeridoos.

Magnetic Termites orient their mounds on a North South axis to keep the mound at an even temperature. Their mounds look like tombstones.

We also visited the lost city. This kind of rock formation occurs as the Sandstone fractures at right angles. As it erodes it give the impression of walls remaining.

We visited Blyth Homestead built in 1929 as an outstation of Stapleton Station, owned by the Sargent Family. This is a typical pioneering homestead or camp of the era. There once were many houses like this but for obvious reasons not many remain. We think it shows how tough it was for the early settlers in this area and the difficult conditions they worked in.

Douglas Daly Nature Park - 22 & 23 September 2009

We left Kakadu reluctantly and drove down the Kakadu Highway to Pine Creek an old gold Mining town, lunching at a roadside stop and then on to the Douglas Daly Nature Park.

 
This is another exceptionally beautiful camping park, on the banks of the Daly River, and almost empty of travellers.

We had dinner at the bar and met another visitor, a great grandson of Stanley Kidman, who established the Kidman Pastoral empire. He talked in detail of the provisions Kidman had made to keep the empire family owned, which it still is.

This park has many great swimming venues.

  

We drifted down Butterfly Gorge on the good ship rubber tyre which saved us scrambling a kilometre straight up and down. Unfortunately we only have this glimpse of the gorge as our camera is not waterproof and the good ship rubber tyre is not all that stable. We had fun though tipping each other off. The gorge was stunning. Tricia is happy in water anywhere ( almost).

Douglas Hot springs, part of which is a sacred site flows at between 50C and 60C, even hotter than Dalhousie Springs, and again the rubber tyre is put to use.

Above the camp ground on the Daly Esplanade were the Twin Pools, the Thermal Pool and The Arches. Near the Arches is a sandy beach and people swim up giving them a natural water slide down. As the sandstone erodes the country is returning to ocean floor.

Amazingly, given their location all these areas are free of salt water crocodiles, so swimming is encouraged.

This was also the home of the Fenton Airbase extensively used by both Americans and Australians during WW2.

 

The road in to Butterfly gorge had a great patch of "bulldust" - a part of the road where the soil turns into a fine dust like talcum powder and as a consequence the road develops huge ruts and holes, some which can be hidden by the dust.  These can be a real hazard on outback roads, and are another reason for the snorkel on the Landcruiser, as normally air for the engine is taken in from under the front mud guards.  As can be seen from this photo the dust is all pervasive.