Aug 2008

Happy Birthday Ronnie (Steve’s mum) as we weren’t able to get a hold of her from the phone box at Barkley Homestead as she wasn’t home – just for something different – and her mobile isn’t working – also just for something different. Anyway Happy 81st Birthday from all of us!

We all had a rough night last night. Went off to sleep eventually but we were all awoken in the middle of the night by Midget huffing and puffing. We eventually had to let her out for a drink and she relaxed after running around for a while looking out of sorts.

During the night the nice cooling desert breeze dropped and the huge swell of sticky tropical heat dropped in to say hi, and welcome to the build up! It was quite uncomfortable for the rest of the night. We ended up leaving the van door wide open to let the breeze that was out there in, and Midget was happy in the coolness of her bag in the breeze under the stars.

In the morning we awoke to clouds, thick and dank with humidity. Steve went for a walk to the toilets and noticed Midget had followed and slunk off to a huge bucket located at the rear of the kitchen. Inside were the contents of offal and offcuts of meat that were left over from within. Apparently she’d nicked off before we went to bed and stuffed a few kilo’s of the gear into her enormously swollen gut and was now panting in agony with her gluttony. But I’m sure she hasn’t learnt from the experience. She walked around and around and around desperate to have a big poo before we left for the mornings’ drive.

The girl at the desk said we should get going as it will be 40o by lunch time, and incredible humidity to boot! We were sweating drinking our morning coffee and decided to take heed.

We then took the most scenic part of this leg of the trip that John had mentioned to us to see. Entering the Barkly Tablelands on a rickety single lane sealed road that bounced and jolted us back and forth, but the scenery was quite incredible. John said these huge plains were naturally found this way. Treeless and full of Mitchell Grass. It was an interesting sight after the lovely treed plains of the day before. We’ve definitely left the more tropical landscape behind.

Arriving 371kms later at the Barkley Homestead fuel stop, we were still struck by the heat. We thought that by heading south, we might beat a couple of degrees off our daily target, but no. We were also struck with $2.249/L for diesel that we were hit with. But they had everyone by the short and curly’s who’d taken the direction we had taken, so they cashed in.

We also ran into a huge road train of two hall packs with drivers, that couldn’t even make the one lane Tablelands Highway that we’d just left, and had to take the Carpentaria Highway all the way to Daly Waters and then down to Tenant Creek then back towards Queensland. A huge 650km diversion as the roads aren’t able to take the wider wheels, in fact, we struggled to stay on it ourselves at time.

The change is scenery is quite noticeable travelling from Katherine to our current location just 230kms from the QLD border. Looking forward to getting back up into the tropics and up to Queenstown.

Off to Daly Waters the most interesting pub we’ve seen on our travels. Visited the National Trust 1934 Listed Aerodrome the oldest airfield in Australia. Looks like its still a working airfield. There were interesting stories on the wall that the American and Australia Soldiers posted there thought they’d been sent to hell. One recounted their platoons arrival of about 20 personnel. The preceeded straight to the Pub and drank it dry. I would imagine it would be some time before stocks could be replenished, especially during the wet season.

Finally left the Stuart Highway and turned into the Carpentaria Highway. The weather is certainly on the change now. Started watching the puffy alto-cumulus clouds, which were really cute to start with, but on our arrival at Cape Crawford, its now thick cloud cover and quite humid. We’ve travelled about 300kms south of Katherine, and 270kms east, so we’ve moved into Savannah Grassland. Covered in Mitchell Grass and varying trees.

Arrived at the Heartbreak Hotel and Cape Crawford (no where near water) but the hotel had an interesting sign up when we went to check into the caravan park. The sign said the owners of the pub/caravan park/petrol station had so many problems sourcing contractors to build the place when they decided to setup here, that he lamented with a mate over a beer that his friend said it should be called the Heartbreak Hotel. He tried in vein to change it, but it had stuck. So for ever and a day it will remain the Heartbreak Hotel. The Ladies are called Pricilla and the Mens, Elvis, needless to say!

After a Jamaican Rum and Grape Juice, Steve got out the bird book to see our latest finds were a Bustard – quite a large and some Apostlebirds , always seen in groups of 12 around supper tables, they squeak and carry on as well!

The morning was a late start (again). In fact, we could hardly drag ourselves away from Jayne and John’s beautiful oasis. But we could feel the weather was starting to change and the desire to head of into uncharted waters beckoned.

Jayne & Johns House

Sam & Tango (the girls)

On our previous trip up with Mum and Dad in 1995, we’d gone as far east as Kakadu and as far south as Mataranka, so today we were keen to cross the Mataranka threshold and venture into the great unknown, at least for us anyway. Along the way we stopped at the Cutta Cutta Caves – Aboriginal for many stars. 750m long only 250m on display in the cave. Over 8 bat types living in the lower reaches of the cave, with a deep 34oC lagoon flooded with blind and opaque shrimp who’s nearest relative is in Madagascar! Maybe the shrimp came out with the boab tree? The caves were outstanding and very varied in forms, textures and colours. We also had this lovely tour guide who originally heralded from Broome, then Kununurra and moved to Katherine 3 years ago and loves it much better.

Arrived in Larrimah around 5pm and checked out the Museum and Telegraph office. Steve recognised some of the equipment that was still in use at the Bureau when he worked there!

Checked into the Larrimah Hotel Caravan Park. Sadly dubbed the Pink Panther Bar, which a huge pink panther on a huge chair holding a stubbie of beer in its paw, and everything in the caravan park was painted pink. It was an interesting place. We expect that there’ll be a lot more theme stops in Queensland, can’t wait.

Mossies, crocodiles, finches which escaped and mauled everyone in the park that night! Only $5pppn to camp! Pink Panther Bar

Dropped Steve and Midget (croc bait) back off to his kayak to continue is paddle back to the ranch. Thought he’d be only a couple of hours, given his description of where he landed. Turned out he was only about half way down the river not less than 10kms to go as John had deduced. So I went into town to get lunch and bits for dinner. Arriving back home we waited for a while, and John said lets go down and see if Steve is back. We drove the 2kms to the back of the block and walked down the bank. The dogs had a run around, but still no sign of Steve. So we returned.

Jayne had just returned from her week-long art classes in Jabiru and was exhausted. Made lunch and enjoyed the afternoon with Jayne chatting about her work, John’s work and life and the universe in general. It was really pleasant. Meanwhile John took another trip back down to the river to check again on Steve, in between installing fence posts. Around 4pm Jayne said lets go back and sit on the bank and wait till Steve returns. We took the dogs again and continued our conversations. It was really pleasant and relaxing.

When the sun started heading down, we walked back to the car. She then said she’d talk a drive along the fence line and see if we can see him coming. We headed through into the next door neighbour’s block and then turned down a track down below the flood plain. The owners were down doing some fencing and looked startled. Jayne wound down the window to ask about Steve when they announced that some weirdo just walked past pulling a kayak with a dog. Apparently they’d experienced some really weird experiences on their block including returning home one day to find some weirdo had got their ladder and climbed up onto their roof and remained until their return, and the worst was an arsonist who nearly burned their house down, and if Jayne and John weren’t home, they might have lost. Apparently the arsonist wont be doing that again. No more was said.

Steve and Midget had just arrived (via the road) to the house by the time we’d driven back. Boy was he in the shit!

We then started a dinner rather late of the most beautiful Barra that I’d ever tasted. Jayne chopped 3 huge fillets into small 2” cubes and rolled them in a little flour and sesame seeds (very nice!) and we pigged out! It appears that John & Jayne’s diet consists of a lot of home-caught wild Barra. What a life! They said they wont eat anything else!

Midget is resting up from her gruelling wallaby hunt. She caught nothing but heat exhaustion and a buggered right hip. She can hardly walk (again). I watched her go to lie down. It was quite an ordeal for her to go through. She lifted her entire body weight onto her front to legs. Lifted her whole rear end and legs to the right and placed it down on the rug and then the front half followed. And there she stayed. Jayne gave us a doggie anti-inflammatory tablet that really seemed to help Midget.

With Jayne not due back till tomorrow and John of early to work, we had the day to ourselves. I’d had a saw shoulder since our Ord River ordeal, so decided to drop Steve in Katherine (approx 30kms from John & Jayne’s) at the High Level Bridge and he’d paddle back to their house. I’d been instructed to hand our white towel from a branch indicating where he should stop. So I wandered into have an amazing 1 and a half hour remedial massage. Boy did I need that! I then went shopping for dinner and headed back home. On arrival, I grabbed all the dogs and started walking the 2kms to the river. I did try to leave Sam behind, as being mostly blind, she was going to be difficult to take. So she takes off in a different direction and I thought we were safely round the other side of the driveway to the river. Unbeknownst to me, the ground dropped away leaving a huge gap under it and little miss smarty Sam got under there. So I had a difficult 2km walk trying to keep Sam from knocking out was was left of her “good” eye in the barbed wire fences about dog eye level pretty much most of the way down to the river. I was a bit strung out once I’d reached the beach. Tango is just unstoppable and Midget is always searching for her next Wallaby to chase. We tried to sit for about half and hour and Steve hadn’t arrived. I walked back and started making dinner. John returned and ended up taking a further drive down. Being the ex Park Ranger that he is, he duly lit a fire, hung the towel and left a note and torch on the bank.

About 8:30pm, Steve walked through the door. He wasn’t sure how far he’d have to go, so kept stopping looking for people to ask. As John & Jayne are on 400 acre blocks, you can imagine that people to ask are few and far between! So Steve finally found a house that was near the river bank. He pulled his kayak up out of the way and then headed up to the house, hoping to get a lift back. There was no-one home. He then walked the 15kms or so back to John & Jayne’s. Being the usual Steve, he wasn’t wearing shoes and his legs hurt.

We turned in rather early after a nice curry.

Steve's pics follow. Following the wet each year, and larger than normal floods each year (the worst for a while was 1998 where Coles and most of the town was wet up to the tops of windows in all the shops) leaves many "loose" items to flow down the river. Steve saw fridges, car tyres and kayaks wrapped around trees. Most of which were some 10m or so above the water line!

saltwater croc trap. They use pigs heads as bait. The usually catch a couple each year. They seem to get back in after the wet. The freshies are supposedly in there, but Steve didnt see any.