The last six days have seen the Smeads travel 1,700 kms north to some incredible places on the map. Our first stop off was the famous Devils Marbles. We were all in awe of these incredible boulders so called ‘cottage cheese’ and ‘cheese rounds’ (?or rings) because of their stacked formations. The boys scaled these rock towers with ease, while Kate found it hard to keep up with even the girls. The colours were amazing at sunset and we climbed until it grew dark. We watched the dingoes come and go over dinner outside. We were all in a state of climate shock as after the mild days and nippy nights in Alice we were all feeling rather hot at the marbles, shedding our layers at night. The flies in the mouth and nose were the only drawback, thank goodness for fly nets – thanks Garnie and Poppy!!
The next day we drove north to the unremarkable road stop of Daly Waters where the only one of two remaining powered sites we could get was along side the trucks and road trains! We were grateful for the power and water to cool our warmish fridge and top up our water tanks after ‘roughing it’ at the marbles. Tim celebrated his birthday morning at this roadhouse stop off, but we soon hit the road to get to Mataranka Springs to enjoy more of his birthday. After trying one dodgy van park in Mataranka, we found probably the friendliest and one of the best parks we have stayed at on the trip. A sprawling grassy van park with a lily covered dam where we watched barramundi being hand fed and caught…..peacocks that wandered freely and congregated outside the Smeads van to be fed by 3 very enthusiastic children hoping for ‘the prized feather’….a great country bistro on site where we enjoyed dinner. From here we visited the two local thermal springs – Bitter and Mataranka Thermal Springs. We had such fun here – snorkelling and floating down the former and just relaxing in the Mataranka Springs. The constant 34deg water was initially a little disappointing when we felt quite hot, but was delightful in the morning and late afternoon.
From Mataranka we drove to Berry Springs (approx 50kms out of Darwin). This has been our base for exploring Litchfield National Park today. We all loved the waterfalls and swimming holes where we swam and snorkelled with the fish, and tried our best to balance in the water on slippery rocks. We saw amazing fields of magnetic termite mounds and ‘The Lost City’ rock formations. It was a great day! Tomorrow we will move a little closer into Darwin to explore the city.
All travelling very well again. The kids are champions coping with these repeatedly long distances!
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