Mataranka Hot Springs

Who cares about cars?? Not us, not today!

Today is a day of rest, and where better to relax than sitting in the Mataranka Hot springs.

Decision was made early today that we would spend another night in the park. Not much point going on to Katherine when it is a Sunday and nothing would be open until tomorrow anyway. So just before check out at 10am, Mark and I headed to the Kiosk to pay for another night.

The girl in the Kiosk looked up our booking from the night before, 2 Adults and 3 kids per site… “gee the kids must be young as they didn’t charge you for them…”

“Well, we have a four year old, three seven year olds, a nine year old and a twelve year old” Mark replied.

“Hmm.. well they didn’t charge you for the kids” she said, “Guess I’ll just do the same!”

Bonus, at $29 bucks a night each, we finally had a win 🙂

Anyway, after breakfast as the kids were getting ratty and Matthew had almost caught every skink in the park, we bathered up and headed for the Hot springs.

The “pool” was fantastic. Hot springs heat the water to 34 degrees, then spews water from the earth into a creek that then flows into the river. A pool area about 2m deep has been built in the middle of the creek where it is safe to swim. Needless to say we spent a good portion of the day here.

After a few hours in the pool, we headed back to the hot, dry dusty caravan site for lunch. Man was it hot away from the rainforest around the pool. On the way we stopped by the river for a look. Said it was safe for swimming, although there was a risk of crocs, and the murky green water didn’t look overly inviting. Mark and I considered a 2 second jump in and get out just to say we did it, but our wives put a quick end to that.

Back at the caravan with no bread for lunch, I declared that it was too hot and we should simply head to the pub for lunch. So we all wandered over to the local pub, which happens to be part of the park.

Had a good feed here, so much so that we didn’t need much for dinner! Was a nice way to spend a couple of hours in the shade with big fans cooling the area. Zac and Matthew chased and caught skinks, Zac catching one that he wanted to make his pet until a little mis-handling ended up with its tail falling off! Zac was most distressed, and after another skink that Matt found tried to take a bite out of Zac’s skink, he decided to return it to where it came from. He really struggles with just how harsh life can be sometimes, but has a good heart that kid 🙂

After lunch it was back into the springs where we stayed until well after 6pm. The kids had a ball swimming under the water to collect rocks. I didn’t see it, but Tara was diving under collecting rocks, which she brought to the surface and was stockpiling on the seat. Kate and Fiona were then pushing her rocks back under water when she wasn’t looking!! So mean, but it kept Tara going for ages… she kept finding new rocks on the sandy bottom!!

When we finally returned to the camp, the local wildlife had come out to play, and armed with some carrots, the kids were able to pat some of the kangaroos. We are still trying to decide if they are wallabies or kangaroos cause they are pretty small. As I write this, we are being constantly visited by these critters that keep wandering through our camp. We may as well not even be here as they suddenly appear beside you!!

So tomorrow we will leave Mataranka and head to Katherine to try to get Mark’s car fixed at Toyota. It is only a 100km drive, so hopefully the car doesn’t play up too much and i don’t have to rescue them on the side of the road…..again 😉

I know Fiona is about to post and include photos, so I’ll just add some shots I have taken while here.

This one I did steal from Fiona though!!

ps – has cost a fortune in internet downloads, but all our Apple devices have been updated to IOS 7 (see what happens when you travel with an IT guy) and we are all enjoying discovering the new features… loving it so far 😀