All posts by Scott

Geocaching in the City …

Today was a geocaching day in the Darwin City area. What I mean by that is I geocached while Jenny stayed in the airconditioned car reading her book.

Ratio of finds to “Did Not Finds” was not that good, with few finds which is normal for the Darwin area. Many in the Darwin CBD are micro caches and tend to go missing regularly for some reason.

This evening we ended up with a clash of activities. Normally the Supercars Officials night is held on the Wednesday night and I hold a geocaching event on the Thursday night at the Mindil Markets.

I organised my normal Geocaching event, Mingle at Mindil 9, tonight even though COVID-19 has stopped the Thursday market. The problem was NT Major Events changed the Officials night to Thursday night this year as well.

We attended the Officials night early around 5:30pm but it was a very different night due to the postponement of the Race Meeting. There were no credentials and every team were staggered. We grabbed a couple of drinks then made our way down the road to Mindil Beach to my Geocaching event for an hour.

There were a few locals as well as some travelling cachers from Germany. It was good to catch up with the locals and get some hints to some of the DNF’s from earlier in the day.

After watching the sunset, it was farewell to the cachers and back to the Officials night for a meal and meet all the fire crew. Even though it was a different sort of Officials night, the fire crew continued the tradition of being the last to leave.

Race Meeting has been postponed …

Today was a holiday day with relaxing around the van at the Discovery Park. A few little jobs on the Taj before doing some shopping and refuelling. Fuel is cheaper here than in Adelaide at $1.13 per litre for diesel.

We had keeping in touch with the fire crew driving up from Adelaide. Just before they arrived, we received an email indicating the Race Meeting for this weekend had been postponed with Supercars drivers and crews being placed in quarantine due to COVID-19. Looks like we will be staying up in the north for a little longer.

There wasn’t much to do now but catch up with the Adelaide crew at the hotel and chew the fat over some beverages.

Darwin here we come …

It was up earlier than normal this morning. We wanted to pack up and head down for one last soak before hitting the road to Darwin.

Once again, the thermal pool was almost empty but we did have a couple of the local wild pigs come down for a chew on the berries that abound around the edge of the pool.

Apparently, they have been around the pool since they were piglets so are reasonably tame, allowing people to pat them while they eat.

After an hour of soaking, we hit the road to Darwin. An uneventful drive had us arriving around 3:30pm and checking into the Darwin Discovery Park. We now know why we have not seen too many vans down south. They are all here in the caravan park.

Once set-up, it was a quick trip to stock up the fridge and pantry for the next week. There was even toilet paper in the supermarket here, amazing.

Jenny had organised to catch up with one of her softball buddies (Wendy and Neil) for tea at the Darwin Ski Club. Given that the credentials night on Thursday night will be a quick tick and flick event here, it was a good chance for a sit-down meal and watch the sunset (we just made it in time).

Even at 9:00pm it was still 27C. Beats the 4C at home.

The mob has cleared out

With the NT Long Weekend coming to an end, Mataranka Homestead cleared out with the huge mob heading back to Darwin and leaving the pool for us “grey nomads”.

We waited until after lunch before going soaking to make sure the crowds had cleared out.

Jenny wanted to go to Bitter Springs so after a quick stop for fuel in town (with a 5c per litre discount), we found a near empty carpark at Bitter Springs.

There were very few floating except for one noisy family but we ended up timing our float down the river to avoid the noise and relax.

After a few hours, the sun was on its way to setting so we drove back to camp just before dark.

The campground was a lot quieter than the weekend, so much that we could hear the music act down on the Homestead stage.

The full moon came up in all its glory, ideal for a night soak in the Thermal Pool.

We walked down around 8:00pm to find the pool empty. It was 20 minutes before being joined by a small number of other campers.

We soaked for another couple of hours. How can you not enjoy this lifestyle?

The holiday has begun …

Now that the big driving is over for now, that means the holiday has begun.

For us, that meant a day of doing not much of anything, starting with a sleep in until lunchtime then heading down after a cooked “brunch” to the thermal pool for some serious soaking.

A lot of our noisy weekend neighbours had packed up and it also the meant that the pool was not as busy as yesterday. We later found out that most were Bitter Springs. Lucky we are not doing them until Monday.

It was a great relaxation time with 4 ½ hours of soaking before finally getting back to the Taj in time to watch the sunset over some beverages.

We have another day here before we head to Darwin for the Supercars.

It is a soaking we will go …

We woke up at Renner Springs this morning with some strong winds. This would normally mean not a good day for towing but they were tending to be tail winds so that was going to save some fuel.

It was only a 400km journey today from Renner Springs through to Mataranka Homestead. Only one stop for fuel at Elliott and sat between 100 to 110 kph with the tail wind.

Again, only light traffic on the road with some caravans and road trains making up the most of it.

On arrival at Mataranka Homestead we were expecting it to be empty but it was chockers. It turns out that it is a long weekend in the Northern Territory and most of Darwin seemed to have come down to Mataranka for the weekend.

So, we missed out on one of the shady spots closer to the Thermal Pool but settled for a spot on the old WW2 Runway. Even though it was in full sun, the awning and shade cloth kept the van cool. It is a powered site so the A/C was on as well.

After setting up the Taj, we walked down to the Thermal Pool. We have never seen it so packed. So much for social distancing. The signs said to keep a crocodile distance between yourself and the next person. There was no chance of that. It looked more like the Ganges today.

We kept our distance as best we could soaking for around 3 hours. The pool emptied out towards 530pm with all the kids being taken back to camp for the evening meal.

After some quiet time in the near empty pool it was back to the van for a lamb roast before heading down to the Homestead for the Nathan “Whippy” Griggs whip cracking show. This must be about the 15th time I have seen it and it hasn’t changed. It is still entertaining all the same.

30C – now we are talking …

Not a real rush to get going today with another relatively easy drive of 680kms. We were originally going to stop at Banka Banka Station but kept going to Renner Springs Tourist Inn to catchup with Robin and Louise who would be staying there tonight.

As we passed Banka Banka, it would normally be packed by this time but there were once again only around 6 vans.

Once again not a lot of traffic on the way with stops at Wycliffe Well and Tennant Creek for fuel.

We arrived at Renner Springs around 4pm and was greeted with 30C. Now we are talking.

Only 5 vans at Renner Springs. I wonder if they are all parked up at Mataranka. I guess we will find out tomorrow. Only 400kms to go.

We have made it to the Northern Territory …

It was still warm enough for shorts this morning and the thongs were on as well. You can get used to this.

A smaller drive today with only 690kms to Alice Springs. We left around 9am again after filling up at Bulls Garage (cheapest fuel in Coober Pedy).

Once again traffic was light with more traffic heading south than north. Hope these aren’t people that have been turned back at the Northern Territory Border.

Arriving at the Border, it was a little different to the usual with the tourist area all blocked up and lanes setup for checking by the NT Police and ADF personnel.

As we stopped the cop with a smile said, “Welcome to Victoria”. They are obviously getting bored out here but at least they have a sense of humour. Either that or I have been driving for 2 days in the wrong direction. LOL.

We had done the online border forms and printed them out so the process was all done in 2 minutes and we were on our way again and in the Northern Territory.

A couple of stops at Kulgera and Erldunda had us arriving in Alice Springs at 5pm.
The big thing noticed on the way in is the aircraft parking lot that has been set-up at Alice Springs Airport with mothballed planes from all around the world with the standouts being some A380’s from Singapore Airlines.

We were going to stay at the Big4 but they wanted a minimum of 2 nights so it was Alice Springs Tourist Park for us tonight.

After setting up, we hit the town meeting up with some Geocaching friends, Vanessa and Nic (who moved up here almost 2 years ago), for a meal at the Casino restaurant, the Juicy Rump.
A good meal with some good company and it was back to the Taj for an early night. This travelling gig can get tiring.

Time to break out the shorts … well nearly

In a couple of days’ time we were supposed to be on our way to Alaska, British Columbia and Washington State, but COVID-19 put an end to that idea.

A good alternative was to head to Northern Territory and Queensland provided the borders remained open.

The Taj was packed and we hit the road around 9am with a big drive of 861kms to Coober Pedy. There was a little bit of traffic through the city but once we made it to the Northern Connector is was plain sailing all the way.

A couple of quick stops for fuel and sitting on cruise control at 100 kph and we arrived at the Big4 Stuart Range Outback Resort 10 hours later.

It was still warmish, well about 18C but that was a win after a 2C start this morning. Time to take the jeans off and shorts on.

Travel restrictions are having their impact with only about 6 other vans in the Park which is normally packed. Even traffic on the Stuart Highway was light.

Don’t forget your 20c coins for the showers here.

Another Geocaching Milestone …

With Garry having completed his 14 day quarantine at the Burra Showground, I met up with him at the mighty metropolis of Maggea in the Mallee.

This looks to have been an old railway siding with what might have been an oval, a tennis club, a hall and a few houses. You could see where the railway must have gone through but the rails and sleepers are long gone.

We camped at the oval, well we think it was once an oval.

There was no-one around so the generator could run all night and not disturb anyone. It was certainly needed to keep the heater going as it hit 0C overnight. I must fit the diesel heater at some time. After all, it has only been sitting in the box since August 2018.

Today we were targeting the “On your Bike” series of geocaches to the north of Maggea which consisted of 100 caches. It was a mixture of ground based and tree based caches.

I managed to make another milestone, this time up a tree of 23000 geocache finds.

We finished up early in the afternoon so I headed back to the block at Sedan and Garry headed up to the Riverland.

The Murray River

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