Katherine

Boy was it hot yesterday. 39 degrees, but felt so much hotter in the tropics with no breeze. Hot and humid.

Packed the vans and left Mataranka around 9am yesterday, stopping briefly for fuel before crossing all our fingers and toes and pointing the cars north towards Katherine. No stops along the way, it was Katherine or bust…

…luckily we didn’t bust!

Mark took the lead setting the pace, “she’s not happy…” came the response when I asked how the car was driving.

We made pretty good time, checking into the Big 4 Katherine just before 11am. Quickly setup the vans in the oppressive heat (thank god for air conditioning) before Mark headed to the Toyota dealership, and I followed shortly after. I found him in the cool air conditioning inside talking to the service co-ordinator.

“Man is it hot out there” I said as I joined them at the counter. “Maybe we should go for a swim in the river…” Mark cheekily responded. The poor girl behind the counter nearly had a fit “DON’T do that” she exclaimed!

LOL, we were only kidding. This river is well and truly croc infested and apparently it is breeding season, so they are extra feisty and territorial.

We left the car in the capable hands of Toyota and headed back to the caravan park. The girls finally got their way and we are back in a four star caravan park after some of the dry, dusty bug infested caravan parks where we have stopped in the last week. It is nice to have a patch of grass underfoot as opposed to the dirt we have gotten used to.

Hot and Hungry, we were trying to decided if we take a drive to the Hot Springs just down the road (I would have to ferry everyone in two trips), or do we just use the pool in the park, so Mark and I headed to town for bread rolls and said we will check out the springs on the way back.

These springs involved descending a good number of stairs to get to where the clear water wound its way through what can best be described as a creek. No where near as nice as the ones at Mataranka. By the time Mark and I had climbed the stairs back to the car in the heat, we both looked at each other and and said “Pool looks good” 😉

So we had our rolls before heading over to the pool. The park pool was so much better than I imagined. Probably 25m long and 10m wide, and 1.7m deep, we all had a blast having swimming races and diving under. Was so nice to cool off and escape the heat for awhile.

Didn’t last too long before a big Greyhound bus turned up. School camp, and the pool started to get crowded with hot boisterous kids (probably year 12’s) standing around the edge not allowed to get in the water until the teacher joined them. As we watched them, we made the decision that the pool was no longer the place for little kids. Good decision too, as we were leaving the teacher came in and said they could jump in and the pool became a frenzy of activity with kids leaping, diving and bombing all over the place.

Back at our more sedate caravan, we found relief in the shade as the oppressive heat tried to drain every ounce of water out of your body. Mark took a turn for the worst, and it wasn’t long before we found him dozing in the caravan under the doona with the air conditioning on with a chill. We left him there, Kate forcing water into him when ever she could until he surface later that night. Didn’t even want a bourbon last night, so it must have been bad!!

When we arrived at the caravan park, Fiona asked the receptionist if the water was drinkable, something we had learnt from the last trip in the west where often it was not. “Sure is” replied the receptionist “and you will want to drink a lot of it in this heat”

Yea right, the water may be potable, but it tastes like crap!! We are so spoiled for good water in Melbourne, filtered through the Mountain Ash resulting in clean crisp drinking water. Up here, the water is filtered through Limestone underground and leaves a horrible taste in your mouth. Not at all refreshing.

To fix this issue, late afternoon Zac and I took a drive into town for water supplies. Was most disappointed there was no Coles in town (I thought we had one here???), so I had to bite my lip and go to Woolworths 🙁

Zac had a bit of a cultural experience, as this was the first time he had been around so many Aboriginals. Sitting and lying around on the floor of the shopping centre, a boisterous obviously drunk bloke being moved on by security and an old lady hovering behind me as I loaded the groceries onto the car… “Take your trolley back mate” she asked, after the $1 coin I had inserted to release the trolley in the first place. Her eyes lit up as I said “sure”, and she raced the trolley to the nearest depot, greedily grabbing the coin and disappearing into the shopping centre.

Was a real shock to Zac to learn how they live and hopefully he will have learn to appreciate what a privileged life we really have.

Anyway, I’m sure you are all sitting on the edge of your seats wanting to know what is happening with the car…. Well, Mark took a call from Toyota as we were sitting around the pool and it turns out one of the ignition coils need replacing. The coil may have been strained by trying to cope with the bad fuel and finally gave up. There is one coil per cylinder, so Mark have driven here on 5 cylinders which explains why the car was a little “rough”.

Should be an easy fix to replace it, except they need to order the part from Darwin. Best case scenario it is fixed this afternoon, but with any parts delivery in the outback, it could be a couple of days. At least there is a little more to do in Katherine than Cloncurry!!

Will see how we go, but might make a trip out to see the Cutta Cutta caves this afternoon (got to be cooler underground right?). Depending on when the car is back, may even take a drive out to see Katherine gorge which is meant to be spectacular.

Right now though…. I need some bacon and eggs for breakfast!!!!!!