The Savannah Way adventure continues...

We stayed at Normanton for three nights, three nights of being lulled to sleep by barking dogs and the unmistakable alcohol-enhanced calls of the local indigenous population. During our stay we went for a day trip to Karumba for a look. Karumba is much like Normanton, just another outback town that prides itself on being the "home of Barramundi". Well, when we visited both towns the Barra must've been out, because we couldn't find any in the river... unless they now live somewhere else?? Anyway, unless one has a boat, there is not much to do at Karumba. One bonus to the trip was the fuel is 10 cpl cheaper than in Normanton, so we filled everything we had! We did manage a feed of Barra though, one of the older blokes in the caravan park had been going fishing at 2am every day and the night before had caught one too many fish, so he kindly donated it to our fridge. Awesome, free fish. On the whole, there is nothing much at Normanton or Karumba. The fishing is reportedly good, but for the most part you need a boat to access the fish. Shore based fishing is limited due to the presence of crocs. The towns themselves are nothing worth writing about....

On Monday morning we departed Normanton, following the Savannah Way west toward Burketown. The road is bitumen to start but becomes dirt again soon, suprisingly well looked after dirt road. We continued along the graded road, dodging the odd rough patch and enjoying the easy drive. After a while the road became less and less manicured, the corrugations returned along with rocks and washaways. Still, it was a big improvement over what we had travelled on the Burke Developmental Road. Eighty kilometres before Burketown the road crosses the Leichardt River. This is a very wide river with the concrete causeway winding it's way along the rocky riverbed for about 100 metres to the other side. There wasn't any water on the causeway on our visit, so the crossing was uneventful. The water at this time is only flowing through the deeper parts of the river, but it is easy to see how much water flows through here during the wet season, it would be an awesome sight! Near the causeway the river flows over a section of falls (again, only a fraction of what they would be like in the wet) and we found a good campsite high on the sandy banks downstream from there. This was a great camp. We had a view down the river from our camper, plenty of shade under the large gums, and no-one else around. We had the place to ourselves for four days. We cooked meals in the camp oven over the fire using a patented "camp-oven-holder-uperer" that I constructed, watched the wildlife and generally did b***** all. Unfortunately, the fish were not biting again. It is possible the fish may have been cleaned out of the decreasing water by the two Freshwater Crocodiles we saw on the river bank opposite our camp from time to time. Very shy creatures. As soon as they saw movement from our side of the river they slid in and disappeared, making it difficult to get photos of them. There was plenty of bird life to watch at our camp, Whistling Kites circled overhead constantly, Blue winged Kookaburras shot through the trees and returned at dusk to loudly call to each other (they sound like a pack of monkeys, most unlike the common Kookaburra), and Rainbow Bee Catchers swooped on insects before beating them into submission against a tree branch so they could be swallowed. We also had plenty of Wallabies close to the camp at dawn and dusk, not too worried about people but very cautious all the same.

On the Friday we left behing our camp at Leichardt Falls and rejoined the bitumen not far from the other side if the river. The bitumen went all the way to Burketown, where we stopped for diesel and a few food supplies. Once again, Burketown is nothing to get excited over, just another town in the Gulf region. Once fueled up we left town and familiarised ourselves once again with the dirt road, through (I mean straight through!) the aboriginal community of Doomadgee and on to Hells Gate Roadhouse where we camped for the night. Now... Hells Gate Roadhouse is on nearly every map you look at, it is mentioned in magazines and on the internet, so we naturally had some expectations of a large-ish outback style roadhouse before we got there. Well, we nearly drove straight past the bloody thing!! There is a sign on the road directly opposite the tin shed and a single fuel bowser, and if it wasn't for the fact that I saw "Hells Gate Roadhouse" spray painted on a large tank at the side of the shed, we would've continued driving!! Not at all what we expected... We camped at the rear of the roadhouse (not a bad camp spot for out here) for the night and sat around the fire under the stars talking to two other couples who were also travelling through.

The next day we headed out of Hells Gate and 59 km later we were in the Northern Territory!! We finally made it out of Queensland! The road from here on was similar to the previous section before Hells Gate, but there were quite a few creek crossings and some of the road was a lot rougher than the previous section. When we crossed the Calvert River the water was just under headlight level and the river bottom made up of football sized rocks. This was not a problem for our trusty Pajero, but we spared a thought for the couple we were talking to the night before who had come this way in their Peugeot AWD soft-roader thing, the water would have seemed quite a bit deeper in that vehicle. No wonder they were excited about their day travelling!! A couple of hundred thousand rocks, a few creek crossings and any number of corrugations later we stopped at Borroloola for a fuel top up. Borroloola is an aboriginal community that has apparently worked hard over the past years to clean up the town and it shows. It has a much better feel to it than Doomadgee, and we were comfortable being there. The locals are friendly enough and the streets are devoid of rubbish and feral dogs that are all to commonly seen in outback communities. Once fueled up again we followed the bitumen for a few kilometres, before taking the turn off to Roper Bar. Here the dirt road became more like a track again, it has not seen much in the way of maintenance for some time and was quite rough. We had planned to stop for the night at a camp at Batten Creek, but when we got there it was very overgrown and there was nowhere to set up the camper. It was getting late, but we decided to keep driving until something came up. It didn't take long, we found a graded bit of dirt off the side of the track near the turn off for Bauhinia Downs and camped there for the night. We were woken up at all hours of the night by the eerie sounds of Dingos howling not too far from the camper. They would go quiet for a few hours and then give us another rendition of their favourite tunes. Gotta love nature! We also found a small scorpion inside the camper tent while packing up in the morning. The next part of the track passed into the Limmen National Park. We took a short detour into the Southern Lost City for a short walk and some photos. This rock formation, like many others of a similar name across Australia, is a series of erroded pillar-like rocks that resemble the ruins of an ancient civilisation. It was a welcome break from the scenery of the Savannah Way, which can become a bit monotonous at times, and well worth the look. A short, bumpy drive from here brought us to Butterfly Springs, where we set up camp for the night. Again, this is a welcome change out here. Butterfly Springs is a waterfall that is created purely by water running off the surrounding rocky ranges. Water merges, flows down the waterfall and into a large pool. The pool then just empties out into the surrounding grassland, not into a river. This is significant because both the waterfall and the pool are not connected to any river or creek, and as such, do not have any connections for crocodiles to inhabit the pool, so it is safe for swimming, a rarity in the Gulf country. We proved this theory by swimming in the pool ourselves, swimming over to sit under the waterfall and watch the Mitchell's Water Monitors basking in the sun, then we swam back. We still have all our limbs, theory proved! To be honest, I don't trust crocs one bit. They can walk for miles over land, so there is never a complete guarantee a certain place is croc-free. When we arrived at Butterfly Springs we met a bloke (let's call him Poiter, from the Full Frontal show in the 90's... you get the picture) and he had already been swimming there for two days prior to our arrival. So, thanks to Poiter the pool was safe enough for me. It was a lovely spot to swim and camp, we were planning to stay a few nights but the next morning we were having brekky just on sunrise and we were smashed by mozzies. They were relentless and just got worse as the sun warmed up the morning. Being camped close to the only water hole for miles around it was not really surprising to find so many mozzies. We packed up and left while we still had enough blood in us to do so.

We continued along the rough, rocky and dusty track they call the "Savannah Way", across countless creek crossings, some of them with crystal clear water lined with palms and beautiful ferns, drove along a terribly rough and rutted 10 km-ish section of track and eventually made our way to Roper Bar. Along the way we made comment about all the creeks and rivers we had crossed on the trip from Normanton to Roper Bar, too many to count, and we agreed that some of the creeks and rivers out in the Gulf country were much more beautiful than most of the creeks and rivers in the Daintree Rainforest, which is marketed as being a pristine World Heritage Area and advertised everywhere as the place to visit. It just goes to show that there are places in Australia that are just as beautiful or more beautiful than the places advertised in tourist brochures, you just need to get out there and look. It's a pity that on the Savanah Way there are very few places to stop and admire these beautiful spots, there is usually only just the track, which is not the safest to stop on in the middle of a narrow causeway right next to the waters edge.... crocs and all... Anyway, back to Roper Bar....

You know when you speak of a place and someone says, "There's nothing there..." and when you get there you'll find a couple of shops, a servo or two, a couple of houses.... Well.... there is NOTHING at Roper Bar. Nothing. There is a general store with two fuel bowsers... and a tree. That's it. There is a camp spot a few k's up the road, which is only a place to sleep when you are finshed fishing from your boat for the day, and a runway... that is it. Oh, and we paid the princely sum of $2.20 per litre for diesel. We only bought 15 litres, enough to get to Mataranka.

The road to Mataranka started as a well graded dirt road, it had a few rough patches but was generally a good road. About 30 km from Roper Bar we hit the bitumen and left the dirt roads behind us, for now. The trip into Mataranka has a few scenic moments, but for the most part it is not that exciting. We arrived in Mataranka late in the arvo and camped at Elsey National Park, 13 km east of Mataranka. This is a nice camp spot close to the Roper River, showers and toilets, $13 a night. Not bad. We camped for two nights for a bit of a break from travelling, then on Wednesday, we packed up and drove south to Daly Waters. We had been to the Daly Waters pub on our trip to the Territory 3 years ago, and Kathy wanted to come back and hang something in the pub. It is only 165 k's from Mataranka, so why not? Daly Waters pub is a famous outback pub completely covered in memorabilia attached to the walls, ceiling, posts, doors and bar. It has all been placed there by travellers, the pub asks for a donation to a charity and you can attach something to the pub. Kathy got a hat we don't use, wrote our names and "full lap of oz" on it, along with the names of places we have been. She glued an Australian flag and a small crocodile along with a photo of ourselves to the hat, we made a small donation and stapled the hat to a pole out in the beer garden. Hopefully it will still be there when anyone we know visits the pub one day.

We stayed here for two nights. Tomorrow we will turn around and head north again, through Mataranka and on to Katherine. We will stay there for a few days, have a swim in the hot springs, relax and give the car and camper a wash to relieve it of some of the mud and red dust we have collected since leaving Chillagoe in Queensland.

We worked out that since leaving Chillagoe, we have driven more than 1,600 km on dirt roads, from well graded roads to bone-jarring rough tracks, through river crossings, quicksand-like mud and powder-fine dust. We have had a bit of dust entry, but all-in-all the Pajero and camper have performed well and stood up to what has been required of them. No complaints here.

It has been a great trip across the Gulf, after Katherine we will head up into the Top End somewhere, we'll see where we end up when we get there I suppose... :)