Notes from the Road

 Today’s road trip took us from Batchelor, down to Mataranka, and back up to Katherine. It’s been a fantastic day.

After EH picked me up at Wolf Creek Batchelor, at 7 a.m, we high-tailed tailed it out of this rather strange place, deciding breakfast in Adelaide River would be a good thing to do. It turned out to be a great idea. The roadhouse made an excellent egg and bacon pie and cup of coffee.

Note on getting a cup of coffee in outback Australia. Don’t try and be flash. When I asked for a coffee I asked for a standard skinny flat white hoping that my request for skinny milk be accepted. I explained that I was a Melbourne wanker and normally had an almond decaf latte. The lady behind the counter thought this was the funniest thing she had heard all day. The Melbourne wanker thing, not the skinny milk. Turns out they had soy and almond milk in this cafe. Well flash . (In Darwin, they punch above their weight when it comes to coffee).

People are very chatty out of Darwin. You don’t quite know what to make of it, but EH and I decided to run with it. Thankfully, the locals are friendly.

We had a few dramas with the music. Once again, being out of the metropolitan area, the is rather patchy.When trying to play music from my phone into the car, we found that we only had four songs able to be played. Now, I love the song Overkill, and the three Paul Simon songs are excellent, but after the second listen, you want to throw the phone out of the window. Once we got to Pine Creek, we downloaded a lot more music thanks to a working Telstra network.. EH has been subjected to my encyclopedic knowledge of 1980s music most of the day. I still don’t know how he didn’t  know about The Violent Femmes … or The Pogues… And he’s been submitted to a lot of very bizarre music trivia, but that’s one of the joys of going on a road trip with me.

The hybrid RAV4 we’ve hired, an upgrade from something small and tinny, is an excellent car, even if the start-up process is rather annoying.

Our main place to visit today was Mataranka, and the thermal springs. I can safely stay that this bucket list item has been knocked off. We spent about an hour in the pools floating around on pool noodles, chatting to other people, who have mistaken us for a couple and for grey nomads. I find this quite scary but dealing with it. The pool noodles were liberated from a manager’s office in Darwin. I will be returning them before he misses them. EH didn’t know why we should bring them, but they were excellent. He sees just how good these silly pieces of plastic really are. When you are walking around these hot, every has pool noodles.

My Darwin friend, Liz, told us that we had to visit Bitter Springs, Which is just the Darwin side of Mataranka. These pools were just as the thermal pools, however they were larger, and there was a current that could take you to another part of the complex, all the time on your noodle. Utterly glorious.I wish we had factored in more time there.

And now we are in Katherine. The Knotts Crossing Resort is a huge upgrade from where we were staying at Wolf Creek oops, Batchelor. The sheets, for one, are a lovely soft cotton. The rooms are old red brick, not a shipping container converted into a cabin. The staff are very friendly and knowledgeable. The restaurant at the resort is very good. We tried crocodile spring rolls for a starter taste like a bit a mix of fish and chicken. 

And there is internet!

Tomorrow, we go on a boat cruise of Nitmiluk Gorge, then meander our way back to Darwin, stopping in at Edith Falls and Pine Creek on the way home.

I had forgotten how much I love road trips.

Today’s song: