After a big weekend, there was not much activity in the van this morning. After-all, today is a rest day before the remainder of the holiday.

 

The boys rang around lunchtime to say that everyone was headed to the Humpty Doo Hotel for lunch and would we like to join them. Sounded like a plan and it wasn’t long before we were there.

 

The beverages were cold and wet, the meals were good as was the company of the crew. 

 

As we were ready to leave, a minibus arrived and out hopped the Blackwood mob following their jumping crocodile cruise. 

 

With the race crew gone, we chatted with the Blackwood mob for a while.

 

There was one more thing to do in Darwin. It was to visit a mate from Adelaide, Chris, who is also a distant cousin of Jenny. He has been battling Cancer and him and Sally have decided to do some travel around Australia but still getting chemo along the way.

 

Unfortunately he contracted pneumonia along the way, so it was into the Royal Darwin Hospital to get that sorted but then they found another tumour which needs to be sorted.

 

Chris was in high spirits but unsure of what is to come.

 

I needed to do some geocache maintenance at my Anzac Memorial cache on the foreshore then that was it for the night.

 

After a relaxing night and bit of a sleep in, no deadlines here, it was off to float at Bitter Springs.

 

I had heard there was a new concrete path to the springs, however that was only half right. The concrete path only ran from the exit point to the entry point into the springs.

 

The path from the car park to the entry was closed as they were now concreting that path. This meant the big walk around on the eastern side to get to the entry. 

 

No wonder there are large numbers at Mataranka. Most didn’t wont to do the big walk at Bitter Springs.

 

After a couple of hours floating, walking, repeat it was time to head back to Mataranka.

 

On one pass, something moved under me. They had found a croc in here a couple of weeks ago so the heart did a couple of skips but it ended up being a turtle the size of a dinner plate.

 

Back at Mataranka there were some familiar faces in the water, Mike, Maria, Peter & Carol had come down from Darwin during their northern trip away.

 

Another couple of hours until sunset with a few flying foxes darting around grabbing the mozzies buzzing near the water.

 

Got to see Nathan “Whippy” Griggs, whip cracking show again down at the Homestead, 9th time now I guess and the stores haven’t changed over the years.

 

Tomorrow it is time to head to Darwin and the start of Race Week.

 

After a relaxing night which cooled down enough to turn off the AC, it was time for some serious soaking in the Mataranka Thermal Pool. 

 

I went down for a couple of 2 hour soaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Two hours seems to be a good time as the pruning of the fingers is not bad enough that I haven’t lost feeling in them ?

 

It appeared that I had snuck onto the set of the film, “Cocoon“, as most of the soakers were grey nomads, definitely older than me.

 

To finish the night, it was down to the Homestead to watch the Nathan “Whippy” Griggs, whip cracking show. I think it is now the 8th time I have seen it.

 

The plan was to take it easy today with 407 kilometres to the Daly Waters Pub. With another day of little traffic on the road north, it was smooth going.

 

As there is only limited powered sites at Mataranka, you need to get in early to get one. I was to leave early in the morning to do the 175 kilometres from Daly Waters.

 

It was only 1430 when I arrived at Daly Waters, so I continued on to Mataranka and was prepared to go unpowered for a night then move onto a powered site in the morning.

 

There was no need to worry. Mataranka has put in a whole new section of powered sites on the old airstrip and there was plenty to pick from. Not a lot of shade at the moment but once the trees grow it will get better.

 

It was great to have a couple of hours soaking in the Thermal Pool. It is going to be hard to leave here on Wednesday.

 

I missed the excitement by about 1/2 an hour. There were 3 brown snakes that also had a swim which cleared the pool.

 

That probably explains why it was a little empty when I got there.

 

 

With most of the traffic heading south to the Finke Desert Race, the road north was almost deserted so it made for easy travel with the occasional stop for a geocache.

 

The distance to Tennant Creek was too much for one tank of fuel so I was going to have to fill up somewhere or break out the jerry cans I was carrying.

 

At Ti Tree, fuel was $1.75 at the roadhouse but across the way at the Ti Tree Farm Garden was a huge sign saying $1.49. That cant be right but it was. 

 

The owner told me that after the tanker fills the roadhouse he comes over and fills his tanks. So it is the same fuel but he is not as greedy.

 

I made it 514 kilometres to Tennant Creek staying at the Outback Caravan Park.

 

Team Smith had caught up with me and called in to say hello before heading on to Renner Springs for the night.

 

After a week on the road, it was time to do some washing and I was trying different pipe arrangements from the washing machine but the first one failed being too small resulting in the bathroom getting flooded.

 

Oh well, the floor needed a wash anyway to get rid of the dust.

 

I finally found a combination of fittings and hoses that worked without flooding the inside.