Last night we bush camped at the old Victoria river crossing. Nice spot on the rocky river bed, kids played hunters and gathers and collected all different types of rocks. We had Sals left over spag Bol on bread for dinner and I did up a fruit cobbler dessert cooked in her oven that we had with custard... yum.
Archie had a bit of a temp going to bed and didn't have much of his bottle before he was sound asleep. He woke around midnight with high temps poor lil fella so I fed him and he slept in our bed so I could keep an eye in him. Thankfully his temp came down and stayed down.
We had toast all round for breaky in the morning then packed up and headed for Katherine.
We went straight to the info centre in Katherine to find out what there was to do and decide weather to stay here or continue on to Mataranka springs. The Gorge is the big highlight of Katherine and it is quite a walk there with the kids and it was already close to lunch and very warm. So we decided we would leave Katherine sight seeing for a Darwin trip we hope to do another time seem as though we couldn't fit it in this trip. Went to the local country club for lunch before heading off to Mataranka.
After checking out all the parks here and getting a refund of our sight money at one... we finally set up camp near Bittter springs. We were def at the end of the season, most parks were nearly empty and had sectioned areas off that you were unable to camp in during the low season. It was close to 6pm after setting up camp and Archie and Zane were due for dinner so we decided to leave the swim in the springs till morning. Kids had to settle with another play under the sprinklers :) after the kids were in bed the four of us all sat outside with our phones enjoying having phone service after being without for quite a while ;)
Archie slept through till 6am which was awesome... I felt great after having a solid nights sleep. Caleb and Indi even slept till 7am so they caught up a bit as well. It was only 5.30am WA time so that was about right :) We all had raisin toast for breaky over in the camp kitchen then packed the campers up, put our togs on and walked down to the thermal springs.
The springs were lovely, crystal clear and not too warm. The kids loved floating down the springs with their noodles we had hired from the park. Shaun stayed with Archie and the pram while I did a lap with the kids then he had a turn. It was very refreshing and relaxing... even with the kids in tow :) The kids (mainly Shaun and Garry) then put their noodles to good use and had sword fights with them the whole walk back to camp.
We fueled up and the kids bought a Mataranka hat pin and we hit the road. Our A/C started playing up and by the time we got to the Larrimah 'Pink Panther' pub it had stopped working altogether :(
The kids had a great look around the pub, it was quite old and run down but they didn't care. There was an old zoo out the back with emus, blue tongue lizards and exotic birds. They also had a room of glass tanks filled with different pythons which Caleb loved. There was even a pale, sad looking croc in one caged pool. It was a great old bush pub and zoo just needed a lot of tlc and hopefully they still looked after animals.
Shaun had a look at the A/C while here and looks as though the compressor has seized. So we are now back in the car, windows down and heading to Daly Waters. Archie took a bit to go to sleep in the heat, it's 41 deg so far outside.
Pullled up at Daly Waters pub for a beer and I got a raspberry lemonade I shared with the kids. It was an awesome pub with loads of memorabilia to look at. Even an arrow that had been fired in a painting and a Goonyella Riverside cap. We bought our usual of stubby coolers and hat pins and went across the road in the shade to have our wraps for lunch.
Then with the windows down, full bottles of water and Archie with a wet cloth keeping him cool, we were on the road again. The plan was to get as far as we could and hopefully get to Mt Isa late Sunday to get the car looked at Monday.
We pulled up at Renner Springs at around 6pm for the night. Had a nice home cooked meal of roast beef for dinner at the road house and even sticky date pudding for dessert. We had left the car hooked up ready for an early getaway in the morning.