Edith Falls

Spectacular is the only way to describe Edith Falls. A nice swimming hole 100m from the camp ground. Each site has grass and drinking water and only $10/person/site.






Rose was in her element. Swimming, walking, jogging.

Katherine

Mataranka to Katherine... best mileage ever.... 12.8k/100k..... Wow!

We stayed at The Riverview Caravan Park. We stayed there once before about 15 years ago when we used to drive to Katherine down from Nullunbuy with the boys for their BMX. 

It's all become too "touristy" now, but it's still worth doing a couple of the walks.

 

Bitter Springs

Not a all bitter, but springs yes! We spent all day after the drive up from Daly Waters floating in warm water. We're camped alongside the spring, and I mean right alongside. We've just finished our evening meal, Rose is asleep and I'm catching up with the blog because we finally have some reliable internet access.








We'll be in Katherine tomorrow for a couple of days before heading up towards Jabiru for a few days then in to Darwin. We want to try and arrive after the school break.

Daly River Pub

Yep! This is the place to be. Camped at the pub after a short drive from Elliot. The moment we passed 3 Ways the traffic increased 10 fold. 9 of 10 vehicles coming the other way are towing Caravans, so I assume that's the same number going north, but we never see those. I'm reliably informed the Territory Diesel consumption trebles during these peak periods and that's reflected the number of tankers

on the road. The others in the photo are June and Glen from Newcastle.

Longreach Waterhole (Elliott)

Wow! What a place. About a k north of Elliott, turn left and drive 18k through sand, mud, clay, bull dust, corrugations and then arrive at this absolutely stunning very large waterhole (it feeds in to Lake Woods). We brought the van in, planned to stay 1 night, but ended up staying for 2. We weren't alone. We met up with Glen and June from the Marbles and Pebbles, and shared a campfire.

The place was absolutely teaming with wildlife. Thousands of Pellicans, Spoonbills, Cormorants, Egretts and all manner of other varieties were feeding on the fish morning and night. They would team up, and school the fish then turn turtle, dive or other and simply feed. The waterhole is a reserve on the Newcastle Waters station and aside from the rough ride in, is well worth the trip.

Pebbles

About 120k North of the Devils Marbles are the pebbles. It's about 4k off the road, dusty and has dunny's. It's also quiet and a god place to overnight. It also costs nothing.

We set up camp and Glen and June, whom we camped next to at the Marbles also pulled up, out came the wine and nibbles, and up popped Eric and his partner. Eric played the piano accordion so we, in the middle of the bush, drank wine, ate nibbles and listened to Eric. 

Devils Marbles

Our mail arrived at the Alice Springs Post Office, so we're finally on our way North. We're not in any hurry so we dropped by the Transport Hall of Fame for a a couple of hours. We actually found an old picture of me at Kenworth a long time ago. You could spend the day there and not get through it. It's a good place to free camp and do some volunteer work if you're on a tight budget.

The Devils Marbles are fascinating, but not near as interesting as the people. We arrived about midday. It costs $10/person/night to stay there. There were 3 other vans. By about 4pm, I counted 30 more.... note to self... replenish wine supply!