Day 20 Friday 28th
Mataranka Springs
Site of the film place of 'We of the Never Never'. Also hosting a nightly presentation (which we unfortunately didn't come back for) of the world record holder for whip cracking; 649 cracks per minute with two whips and 354 with one whip.
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GHD- Mataranka Springs -Wasn't as nice a Bitter Springs.
Lots of old people and smelt funny. The water was warm but really noisy from Matilda screaming to get her googles back, lots of people started to leave and not just because they looked like prunes! Then mum wanted to leave to walk to Mataranka falls but she didn't want us to come, oh not the winging kids that can't walk 300meters without complaining, so I was left to baby sit I don't like the girls much either mum and it was soooooooo hot so we spent most of the 2 hours jumping over the fence to get to the sprinklers oh and the girls were on Minecraft most of the time not looking up to see day light!
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JD- Mataranka Falls Walk,
From the Thermal Pools there are a number of cattle yards along the Roper river as well as an old sheep dip a remnant from when sheep farming was unsuccessfully tried in the area. The last cattle yard is the 12 Mile which is also the start of the short 8km walk to Mataranka Falls. When the suggestion of completing the walk was raised were met with substantial resistance from the junior members of the family...... typical! I suggested that maybe they stay with the van and amuse themselves and Nicole and I set off. To my surprise Nicole agreed and within 10 mins we were off.
At this point in the trip my knowledge of crocodiles is limited to say the least. I'm not exactly sure how many there are, how aggressive they are or to what lengths they would go to eat a human. So as a result the walk along the banks of the Roper river was cautious and brisk and unusually, Nicole stuck close and didn't complain.
The walk was suggested to us by the Parsons family who also loaned us a foldout Hills Hoist style washing line which initially I thought was an unnecessary accessory (I thought we had probably been set up by Susie Ronnie, who were probably pissing themselves with laughter when we agreed to borrow it) but was proving to be invaluable. So armed with this knowledge we were looking forward to the spectacular Mataranka Falls! The build up was encouraging. The river is beautiful and for a while I wished I'd brought my fishing rod along, until I remembered my overgrown lizard mates in the water. The Falls themselves, I have to say we're a bit of a fizzer. They consist of a 600mm rock weir that the water cascades over. Not quite Niagara or even Liffey! Needless to say we didn't stay long remembering that we had left the kids in the van. By the time returned to the van it was time for a swim so we headed to Bitter Springs for a dip. In all honesty the walk was great and well worthwhile if your in the area. Good day all in all.