Mataranka 12/07/15
We had a last bit of 44km of gravel road out of Roper Bar which turned out to be pretty rough. :-(
Just before we got to the bitumen we had morning tea and pumped up the tires to road pressure again. Bitumen! Glorious Bitumen! Finally! After about 1300 km on gravel road between Normanton and Roper Bar we're finally back on bitumen! It was only a single lane bitumen road, but gee, it was heaven. We could finally cruise at 80km/h again and not a bump in the road! The road was so good, that we decided to drive all the way to Mataranka were we stayed on a campground for two nights.
We stayed within walking distance of the Bitter Springs - 34 C hot water. We all had lots of fun sitting on a pool noodle and gently drifting down the crystal clear creek for about 200m and then do it all again!
The second night we found a nice restaurant at another camping ground. We had a decent meal, alcohol and best of all: there was a buffet of veggies and salad! How nice after swallowing a lot of dust in the last 3 weeks. Sarah had lots of fun with all the other kids on the cushion of the 'mechanical bull' which was a perfect jumping castle. And later on we even got some live music.
Drifting down the warm creek at Bitter Springs - Mataranka
Cutta Cutta Caves 14/07/15
After seeing some of the most remote area of Australia and possible the world, we are back on the 'tourist drive'. Lots of other travellers, tours and camping grounds filled to the bream. Our next stop was Cutta Cutta Caves just south of Katherine. When we arrived we had only minutes to get ready for the cave tour (together with about 40 other people). It's a dry cave with only one entry. The further in you get the hotter and more humid it gets. We only went in about 1/3 of the 700m length and so it wasn't to bad. Apparently close to the end it's about 37C and 100 % humidity...
What a beautiful cave. It's big at the entrance, but the further in you get, the narrower it is. Cutta Cutta actually means 'many, many stars' and a lot of the stalactites and stalagmites are sparkling in the light. It is also very richly decorated with stunning formations. Only Sarah was disappointed - the bats had their home further in the cave in the section that wasn't accessible to us.
Cutta Cutta Caves - as I've always imagined a cave to beKatherine 14/07/15
It was only a short drive to Katherine and after a visit to the visitor centre and filling up our supplies at Woolworths we setup the caravan on an overflow site in one of the 4 caravan parks. We were surprised to find another hot spring just down from our camp side and soon we were floating on our pool noodles again. This one was a little cooler than Mataranka but had a little waterfall which was a great slide for Sarah.
Another hot spring in KatherineKatherine Gorge 15/07/15
We are staying another night in Katherine, and decided to do a day trip to Katherine Gorge. We booked a gorge cruise to see the first two gorges out of 13. Again we joined a group of another 50 people. This gorge is actually quite wide compared to the others we've seen so far. Nevertheless it was well worth the money. After the first gorge we had to disembark and walk about 300m to another ship on the second gorge. Here the gorge got more narrow and very spectacular. The rock formations are stunning and trying to imagine that the water in a good wet season would be about 5-10m higher, is hard to do. The guide said, the water rushing through would fill an empty Sydney harbour every 9 hours...
Crocs close up, Katherine Gorge and a happy Sarah especially when she can train her free-climbing skills
On the way back we (well our tour guide) spotted a freshwater crocodile (the harmless variety) and we've got some good close up shots.
