Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 14 - Renner Springs to Mataranka

Its crisp yet again this morning and the wind is still biting. Checking the weather report last night brought joy to our faces as we are expecting 30 degrees plus in Mataranka and thermal springs to swim in.

Slept in excess of 10 hours last night and woke to what I thought was a light from the street getting in. It was actually the start of the sunrise. I crawled out of bed and wandered around taking some delightful pictures of the sun emerging from the east, getting colder by the moment. I video a road train leaving, moving up through the gears as it heads towards the south.

By 7.00am all the redness of the sunrise is gone. Some of the others in the park have left already and others are preparing to leave. Silver Leader and Forbsy have not yet risen. We have 2 hours before the planned departure time, so we have plenty of time. A shower, some bacon and eggs, pull in the washing and then we will consider readying the van for the next leg.

.

An enigma of sorts here, Telstra gets no reception in Renner Springs, but Optus is fine. We rang the Missing Link last night who still has vague hopes of meeting us at Katherine should his van be rewired in time, but I cannot see it. He has just had a good fight with bowel cancer and his rig requires a rigid truck licence, meaning the driving really cannot be shared and as we have found it’s a bloody long way here, AND we are not there yet. Silver Leader muses that the Missing Link will be much more enthused once we start posting pictures of Barramundi to tease him more than we already have been.

Today was one of the toughest drives. 409 kilometres of what someone might say was endless lengths of boring road. Yes there were very long straight stretches but boring it was not given there were places where fire gave an insight into the topography behind the bush verge. In places there were rocky outcrops and valleys and creeks, that in normally vegetated times would have been seen as part of the endless planes. The endless planes exacerbated by the road makers not only cutting here building up there but also crushing the edges of the road to bely the driver any sense of the terrain.

In other places the fire has left a vastness of simply red dirt in similarity to the road. And in others the trees simply stop, and we are left with either cleared land or land which has been cleared. Trees will go from tall all-encompassing fortresses of the road to dense low level bushes to almost nothing in what seems the blink of an eye and back again. The anthills from time to time are adorned as they have been for some time. There was a particular one with a onesie on that made it look like Grover Monster and another a pink and white Giraffe – too much time and imaginations in some drivers. Forbsy is taken aback by the preciseness of the gate builders here. There are some very impressive structures in metal, be they gates or cattle yards. Very infrequently a dam has been constructed beside the road and it is frequented by cattle. I am sure if we stopped and investigated further there would be many more species in close proximity.

The iconic Daly Waters Pub is our destination for lunch. There are a couple of towns along the highway, Elliott is one and the noises of the phones as we get close allow Robyn to quickly check her emails for news of a major contract she has been asked to consult upon. The internet dissolves just as quickly as it came in Elliott. Daly Waters will need to be a decent stop as there is a bit to do for her.

For a place which has so much history, it’s not easy to find. The Daly Waters Pub is a long way off the highway and adjacent to one of the many old, World War II airstrips in the area. We have been passing them as we travel. As well as the airstrips each of the roadside stops is named, I suppose in an attempt to be able to quickly find someone in trouble in the vastness of the outback.

Here we struggle to find a park and just as Forbsy tries to inch up behind Silver Leader a one tonne vehicle throws a U-turn right in front of him and takes half the available space which means Forbsy and his van no longer have sufficient space. The driver alights and heads off oblivious to his indiscretion. Finally we all find enough space. We also see three of JB Caravan vans including 2 others just like ours. We get to talk to one of the couples who are enjoying there’s as much as we are enjoying ours.

Inside the pub there is what we have found to be the “usual” iconic country pub regalia. The adornments are unique but similar, there are the normal clothing items adorned with the pub’s name you can purchase. Daly Waters is known for its Beef and Barra dinners, but we won’t be staying that long. Robyn finds a table in the eating area to work and sets down to it while I roam the attractions and order Barra Bites for lunch for the both of us. I answer a couple of texts I have received and make a phone call as well.

Work done and Bites consumed its back on the road again. Last night Silver Leader declared the wind was dropping and the temperature would be close to 30 degrees. Coming back to the highway the car suggests we are at 26 degrees and its 1.00pm. Full of confidence, Silver Leader notes we are heading north and have not reached the hottest part of the day. All of a sudden, cars pass in racing livery. First a Commodore in HDT livery, then a Ford Falcon, an XJS Jaguar, a Volvo (pronounced Ovlov), Mazda RX3’s and many other iconic racers of olde. Some sound very much like the roaring machines of their time, that rich guttural sound only a well-tuned V8 can make, the ones that grace the Mountain (and here I mean Mt Panorama). Must be a bash.

Into Mataranka and the temperature is a balmy 29 degrees, Silver Leader you are forgiven, that’s close enough, and certainly well warm enough for the swim in the hot springs here. When we rang to book in yesterday the receptionist suggested if they could not find a spot within their 161 spaces there would be something wrong. We are ushered to this large space by some conveniences where there are lots of room. It is only 3.00pm but there is no one here, save a huge motor home with a trailer with a vehicle attached. It more than takes up a space plus encroaches the road.

We easily reverse into spaces of our choosing, set the vans to living mode, legs down, water attached, power on etc. First order of business, a swim in the springs. Swimmers found, adorned, towels retrieved from stuffing duties in the crockery section, it off to the pools. The first sign we see – Beware of the Crocodiles. OK that’s not fair, but evidently, we need to remain “croc-safe” at all times in these areas, although freshwater crocodiles or freshies are not as fearsome or as large as their saltwater counterparts they can still be aggressive the sign warns of the danger.

The pools are refreshing. In fact, the water is warmer in, than out, and that’s interesting given the last look said it was 29 degrees on the thermometer in the Cruiser. Lolling about in the pool washes away the strain of a tough day’s driving. We return to set up the barbeque at our van. I want to once and for all sort out why Dentless does not produce. The gauge on the bottle says there should be sufficient gas to accommodate our requirements, but I cannot get flame to the barbeque. It certainly doesn’t help that I have turned off the access valve, but even with that in the right position there is no flame.

I go back to the bottles and change over to Dinty which I know to be full and it works immediately. The source of the troubles is soon discovered as the gauge on Dentless now shows the bottle to be empty. Job for tomorrow – fill Dentless. Next issue – we had not even considered having any meat out of the freezer today, not because there were other plans – we simply did not think ahead. Just as well we are on a powered site so we can engage the inverter and utilise the microwave to thaw out some nice pork fillets.

They are still thawing when everyone else turns up with their meat to cook. I allow the Silver Leader to cook as he is adept at it and he picked up the tongs while I was sitting, and I couldn’t be bothered getting up. We feast, we talk, we call the Missing Link and stir the crap out of him again. I recount a conversation I had at the service station when filling up about the Barramundi being a bit quiet at the moment because of the temperature of the water. He suggests it only take a couple of warm days to turn that around. He sounds quite cheerful as if he is still of the opinion, he can join us at perhaps Katherine after we do Kakadu and Darwin before we head into the Kimberly, but everything depends on his van being fit for purpose, which it presently isn’t.

There is entertainment here. A trio playing the Blues and a whip cracking expert. After dinner we venture down to take it in. It gets too cold before the trio finishes and Robyn and I retire. We have decided to give this place an extra day, so a lie in for the morning, another swim or two, be it here or at Bitter Creek and some looking around.