Elliott to Mataranka

19/03/2010


There are 4 other vans in this place called ‘Elliott’ what would bring other people to here? Interestingly they are all very experienced travellers, 1 has been travelling since the early 90’s. Just when I thought that I was the cursed one I found out that one of the vans lost a wheel, all the studs sheared off and he could not find the wheel. He is stuck in ‘Elliott’ as they are special studs and the only place you can get them is from Melbourne so he has to get them trucked up Then the 2nd vaners decided to go for a drive only to be towed back as he had gotten a tank full water contaminated diesel at Renner Springs. He is now waiting for new filters to be loaded onto a bus out of Darwin and delivered to the mechanic sometime in the next day or so.

Today we are off to Daly Waters to have a counter lunch and a beer. Just outside of Elliott there was a guy sleeping right on the edge of the road with his backpack. At first I thought that he may have been hit but he was all cuddled up to his backpack fast asleep. This area is renowned for its WWII and telegraph memorabilia from old airfields, an old hospital and where the original telegraph line was joined in 1872 which allowed instantaneous communication from Adelaide to Great Britain. The landscape has changed with larger trees very green and animals and birds, we couldn’t help but notice how devoid of wild life the centre of NT was and we are still yet to see a kangaroo, we have more wildlife in our front yard..

Daly Waters hotel what a hoot, a van of young backpackers had just arrived when we got there so tonight will be a big night. We sat down to a Barra burger and Scooner of Lite Ice and took copious photos of bras and knickers (they were on the wall, not the backpackers), I must say there must have been some very well proportioned girls who previously owned this equipment. Trice and I stapled our business cards in a prime spot on the front of the bar so when you are there you will see ‘Eternally Yours’ and ‘Tee Pee Threads’. See the photo at the end. We are going to call in on the way back as the nights just sound like they would be fantastic.

We then were on the lookout for the Stewart Tree, this is a trunk of a tree with a big “S” that was carved into it which everyone has assumed was Stewart on his way from Adelaide to Darwin. It would be a shame if it was in fact Steve on his way back to ‘Elliott’ to see his mates.

The old airfield was a hit, onto the airfield we went with our vans behind us and ZOOM down the strip trying to get lift off, even flapping my arms out the window didn’t help. This place was amazing, the old hanger was still there with part of the original communication board, a couple of old plane wrecks in the long grass and a lot of memorabilia still in the shed for all to see. The old hanger you can see in an old photo is the same hanger I parked the van in. Trice was saying OK let’s go I have had enough of this place, I could have just hung around there for ages.

Not a big day of driving today, we could have made Katherine but decided to pull up 100klm south in a little place called ‘Mataranka’ and are staying at the Manor Caravan Park. Very neat and tidy with barramundi feeding twice a day and this area has hot springs, barramundi fishing and walks so we will probably stay a couple of days and take it easy.

Still no phone service so I am no clearer on my sister Jo’s diagnosis so we are taking it as it comes and hopefully will know more once we get to Katherine. We are going to stop there for a couple of days and hopefully get the indicators fixed so Patrice is not panicking every time we are near other cars, she does not see the that putting my hazard lights on when we want to make a turn is working.

Must be beer o’clock I have a strong desire to partake in a beer chilled to perfection at -2 degrees in our wonderful Waeco fridge. (Just caught up with Jo on a borrowed phone not real good so we may have to cut a bit short).