Alice Spring to Tennant creek
We past
-NT highest point and the tropic of Capricorn marker. The weather now notably warmer especially at nights.
-The termite hills have started just after the turn off to Gemtree on the Plenty highway.
-Ryans well hand dug 1889 .
Aileron Indigenous statues
-Stuart memorial, an explorer of this highway in the 1860s.
Here we learnt that mulga trees drop leaves to form rings around their base which trap water for their use.
Our camp a free stop at Taylors rest with very noisy cows.
Today we stopped at Devils marbles
formed by a volcanic eruption 1700 million years ago where molten lava squeezed through the ancient sandstone layers of the earths crust and harden to form these granite boulders. The boulders are what is left erosion by the weather.
We did two walking tracks including the lookout.
Tennant creek
We stayed at the caravan park which now has electric fence and gates that lock at 6pm. A safety measure as the community is largely Ingeneous.
Here we caught up with friends Jackie and Mark whom we will travel with most of the time till Darwin.
The afternoon chatting.
Morning tea the next morning was at Mary Ann Lake just out of Tennant Creek then on to the next stop,
Banka Banka a caravan park run by the an indigeous community was our next overnighter.
Here we drove out to the water hole, walked up to the lookout and joined happy hour . A lovely park. A small roo watched us from the scrub.
Daly waters
The trip north to here was long and boring. 305 kms of nothing.
Although we did see large groups of pelicans flying south towards lake Eyre where the water is now arriving and filling both north and south lakes.
The afternoon and dinner spent at this iconic pub.
Mataranka Capital of the Never Never.
On the way to Mataranka we stopped at Larimah pink panther park for morning tea.
Over the next two days we swam at the mataranka hot springs several times and relaxed with Jackie and Mark.
On the way to Katherine we stopped at Bitter springs for a swim. The flow quite mild compared to our visit here in 2019.
Katherine
We stayed at the discovery park out of town, a lovely setting.
We did the Katherine gorge two gorge tour. Now known as the Nilmiluk ( singing cidardas) gorge.
The gorge was formed 1.6 million years ago caused by river system then 25 million years ago a earthquake caused the uplift of the rock and now the river flows between these fractures in the rock. We saw many fresh water crocodiles and some birdlife as well.
Day 2 in Katherine, Jackie and John did the 5 kms lookout walk and Mark and I did went to the information centre.
We left Katherine for Edith falls but the plunge pool was closed so on to Kakadu and 60 kms in the wheel on the car started to come off , the wheel studs sheared through from being over tightened at Alice Springs when we had a wheel alignment done. A Tow truck called and we were towed to Darwin, where the next blog starts.
