TOD Tour 2.0 Day 41 - Bitter Springs

Bitter Springs

There is no doubt that one-night stays have the distinct advantage of allowing a quick departure the next day. With the van already attached, there is little infrastructure to be reorganised and the majority of the time between waking up and driving away, is breakfast.

As has been the case for more than a week now, most of the travelers we shared the campground with last night were heading either south or south and then east. Very few are heading in our direction. We are aware the next four weeks will be hot and increasingly humid weather but our choices are limited. Even after we leave Darwin to cross Australia from north to south in about six weeks, there will only be increasing heat. It’s a price we have to pay for our late departure and the reason we have chosen to change our original intent to “go over the top”. Such is life and it’s not home.

There were three things about the drive which made it interesting. Easily the strangest happened when we stopped at Larrimah. Its barely a dot on the map, but it had a strategic importance in WWII, as Gorrie Airfield was built just out of town. It was built because it was just out of the range of Japanese bombers and it would provide a place for Allied aircraft to be repaired in safety. We stopped in here during AUC 1995 but I doubt the kids remember anything other than me shooting footage of hundreds of Pink Galahs being scared into flight by Chris running at them. Sarah would probably remember seeing her first Sturt's Dessert Pea. The Stuart Highway at Larrimah. We like funny little eateries and stray cups of coffee in out of the way places. They have always rewarded us.

Fran's place

Not this time. Fran, apparently, has "the cancer" and is in Melbourne for treatment. Young lady - unknown - was closing down the business "in a few days". We ordered tea and Sue ordered a scone. I drove back to the pub because the toilet was blocked but I was invited outback for man's business. By the time I returned, the tea and scone had arrived. The scone was a dried up bit of dough about the size of a fifty cent piece. The jam was of uncertain variety. The tea was a tea bag hanging in hot water. Sugar came the way of raw sugar which could be prized away from the motherload with judicious scraping. The spoons were plastic and in a screw lid jar which was labelled "clean spoons". Until then, I had thought the point of plastic spoons was to throw them away.

That had been the easy part. When I went to pay I was told my tea was $6 and Sue's tea and scone was $14. Now you are thinking what followed was spirited exchange with our host over the cost and a refusal to pay. Perhaps, on another day, when a NT Police sign - a big "vote for me"sized sign - asking for information on the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty, wasn't beside me. Paddy, who walked out of the Larrimah Pub one night, hopped on his quad bike with his dog and has never been seen again. Perhaps if I hadn't seen the woman's partner - we'll call him Billy Bob - who walked by us twice: the first time carrying a tommyhawk and the second an axe.

We paid and left and were still complaining about our sacrificed $20 when the truck nearly ran us off the road and the bushfire started to dominate the eastern side of the roadway

160kms today to Bitter Springs, which is a few kms east of Mataranka. Bitter Springs is part of Elsey National Park, so named because much of it was formerly Elsey Station, home of Aeneas and Jeannie Gunn from 1901 to 1903. It must have been a fertile place because Mrs Gunn found enough material to write two books, The Little Black Princess and the better known autobiographical novel We Of The Never Never. The latter has sold over a million copies since it was published in 1908 and although Gunn changed the names of characters in the book, it was a thinly disguised retelling of her life at Elsey. Tragically, her short time away from Melbourne and in the Northern Territory - two years - was caused by the death of her new husband.

There is nothing left of the Elsey Homestead but a marker.

After a quick stop at Mataranka, we traveled the short distance to our caravan park which borders the national park and the Bitter Springs thermal pool. The pool is a 500m spring fed thermal pool, of which about 200m is available to use. Unlike others in the area it is deeper than adult height and has a current but it does have the trademark warmth of about 28C. Most enter at one end with a noodle - those high density coloured foam things - and just float from one end to the other along the boomerang shaped pool.

We took a walk out to the springs in the late afternoon. The water is clearer than tap water and the entry and exit points well maintained. There is a cement pathway into the springs from a car park (no one mentioned you could take your car in) and around one side of a circular path on either side of the springs. Tall palms tower above you and paperbark fill the space between, so the area is constantly in shade.

Somewhat disquieting are the crocodile warning signs, but authorities are certain, at worst, that any encounter would be a freshwater crocodile. A man was bitten here a few years ago. Humans are not on their diet but they will still bite. The more dangerous saltwater crocodile don’t inhabit the area.

I’m not sure I’m reassured!

Click for today's photos

We have previously visited Mataranka Homestead, which has always been the tourist Mecca of the area. The Springs there were made into a formal pool with steps and formed sides during WWII, as a retreat for the officer class. It’s delightful but the adjacent caravan park and inn, leave a lot to be desired these days.

Three nights here.