Mataranka Bitter Springs, Monday night, 2612 km, over the hump

NNWwards towards Darwin along the Stuart Highway, first noticing small changes – the dry Mitchell grass a little greener, the brush a little bushier? Then suddenly we’re out of the dry “Red Centre” and into the seasonally wet “Top End”, with open forestland

Boring stone monuments to explorers, national heroes (& the occasional heroine), signs to now overgrown WWII airfields, staging posts, field hospitals, but still the inexorable 100 to 150 km between roadhouses and nothing much else apart from signposts pointing along dirt tracks to far away cattle stations in between (“Nutwood Downs, 100 km”). And watch your fuel gage and the temporary signs by the road (“Next rest stop 89 km, no fuel”, “next fuel 160 km” for example.....
Few of the monuments are worth a stop, but the choices break the monotony – I break for a few minutes at Newcastle Waters, now a ghost town, but once a major centre for drovers going in all directions, then, following a small road train back to the main road – I see a truck with 2 trailers, horses (for local herding), all the basics for long term work out there (but I do note a small petrol-driven generator – not far too basic!). Remember Anna & Rebecca’s excitement seeing two spurred cowboys chomping their burgers and fries in a diner in Arizona 25 years ago, then the let-down when they jumped into their pickup, horse trailer in tow....

A brief stop too at the Daly Waters Historical Pub, much acclaimed in all the guides, but very touristy and “overquaint”– although they apparently have great raves most nights with cool contemporary aboriginal music and the sweet Irish colleen behind the bar served me up a mean barra wrap (Barramundi – the local catfish, delicious!)

Also a stop at one of the old airfields – this one first a staging post on the many day long flights from London on to Sydney in the 1930s, then a frontline field during the war – we Europeans don’t realise that northern Australia was under threat of Japanese invasion in 1942 and air attacks on Darwin killed more people than the much more famous attack on Pearl Harbour......

And then the most bizarre sight of the whole trip so far – I’ve wondered at the determination/masochism of the 3 bikers I’ve seen on the trip – imagine cycling with a heavy load over these distances in this heat? And the recurrent drive-by of a road-train at over 100 k an hour, blasting you to smithereens and choking/coating you with dust? But then suddenly comes a fella leading 2 camels pulling a sawn-off Toyota Hi-Ace – front engine end all gone, so now a modern day gypsy caravan – I took pics, asked him where he was going - “Back to Alice mate, should make it by Christmas” Now there’s the eternal optimist – of course the only reason he was on the main road just there was to get over a river flood channel, but even so... With around a 1,000 km still to go....

And on to Mataranka where a dip in the thermal pool, a chance of a nice cabin with power, shower, a real bed make me want to cool it and hang around here for a couple of days.... I'm now over halfway after all!

(More about Cambrian aquifers by the way – the Papua connection is of course a load of b...s... – the water in the aquifer flows from the tablelands and then out into the rivers heading northwards to the coast . and these "hot" springs aren’t truly thermal – the 30+ degrees of the water in the aquifer just shows how long the air round here has been so b.... hot......