We did eventually leave Tumbling Waters after 4 months there and it’s always a big effort to leave as we do love this place. The park was very quiet with all the long-termers having left but we stayed on for another couple more weeks. We are seeing more wildlife around the park now as it’s quieter and we marvelled at how quickly the ground had greened up after those recent bushfires.
Di and Wayne were the last of our friends to leave and Chris cooked a baked dinner in their honour on their last day. Wayne doesn’t quite know what all the fuss is about Yorkshire puddings but enjoyed his anyway!
We had our own snake experience when a large tree snake used the fly screen in our sky vent as a hammock. We pushed him out and he slithered under the solar panel on the roof. We had visions of him travelling away with us as we left! I think there were only seven set ups left in the park when we did pull out and the very hot, humid weather that is Darwin’s “build up” is probably the reason for that!
Now, still with very high temperatures, we are looking for power for the aircon so we head to the Territory Manor caravan park at Mataranka, down from Katherine. We stayed 2 nights and went out to swim in Bitter Springs. It was very refreshing but we were a bit disappointed after having been used to swimming in Berry Springs. I rated Bitter Springs a 6/10 to Berry Springs 9/10.
Next stop for us was Dunmarra at the roadhouse, where we had an excellent homemade pie and chips for our late lunch and the owner help me by printing off some forms I needed. We spent some time working out why the printer only sent out blank sheets and discovered the jets had dried out but with some maintenance, the printer is working again.
We then head to the Barkly Homestead after turning left at the threeways onto the Barkly highway. We stayed here 11 years ago but it’s changed a bit since then. Due to a fire a couple of years back it has been completely rebuilt and now it’s better than ever. We enjoyed the pool and the company of fellow travellers both in the pool and then in the restaurant later where we enjoyed good food at reasonable prices and the evening with a lovely Irish couple, Margaret and Joe.
Next stop was Mount Isa and we had 2 nights here. We caught up on shopping and washing then I went into Harvey Norman across from the park. I wanted to know why our tv does not recognise my iPhone. It looks like a fault with our tv so when we get back around the Tweed area we will be taking it into the store. We very rarely watch proper tv as we mostly use hard drives. A few weeks back I tried to solve the problem by resetting the tv to default. I spent a lot of time and data resetting everything and it worked again but only the once and not the next time! We have a 3 year warranty so hopefully this can be solved for us. The other tvs in Harvey Norman recognised my phone so it can only be the tv.
We made good use of the pool at Mount Isa, even though it was so much cooler than we have been used to. We chatted again with the young German travellers who we had met in the Barkly Homestead pool, swapped books at the office and accepted the mangoes provided by the park manager. Thanks guys, we hope you enjoy the sweet mustard pickle we left in exchange.
We then got to Cloncurry, booking into the Discovery Park which caters mostly for the miners with a few spots for travellers. As we pulled into our spot, Chris noticed our neighbours were Margaret and Joe from Barkly Homestead. What a pleasant surprise! We had thought to stay one night but extended another so we could check out the town, the two museums, the lookout, Chinaman’s Dam and the large eagle statue as we drove back down to town. We, of course enjoyed two good happy hours with our neighbours.
Now we are here in Winton and the best news is that we hope to catch up with Jo, Phil and the girls again. They are in Charters Towers heading towards Winton via Hughendon, then Longreach. The same way as us. Our time together will be limited though as we need to be in Noosaville in 10 days from now and that’s nearly 1400 kms away from Longreach. They also still have lots to see before they come to the end of their own journey. We’ll take what we can get and can’t wait to see them again!