Bitter Springs Thermal Pool - lovely!
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2009
1
23
39
Trip End
??? 03, 2010
Mataranka, Northern Territory, Australia
Friday, July 17, 2009
We only had about 160 kms to travel today as we wanted to stop off at Mataranka. En route we stopped off at Larrimah for a cuppa. It was just a roadhouse with a Pink Panther theme! It also had lots of wonderfully coloured exotic looking birds in cages but they were obviously very well cared for. In fact there were lots of birds flying wild all around hoping to get in the cages I think! They also had a couple of crocodiles there – didn't like the look of them.
Mataranka is a place that a number of travellers had told us was really great to see because there are a number of hot springs here and because it was the setting for Jeannie Gunn’s book called "We of the Never Never”. Mataranka is known as the "Capital of the Never Never”. Jeannie Gunn moved from Melbourne in 1902 as the wife of Aeneas Gunn who was the manager of the Elsey cattle station. It is her story of her life there “amidst the beauty and cruelty of the land.”
The journey to Mataranka was uneventful and we arrived about 11 am. We had a little look around the place and saw the feeding of the barramundi at the Territory Manor. The barramundi are amazingly quick at swiping the piece of fish offered to them. Actually these fish were so well fed as they have this show twice a day they really didn’t want to eat too much but it was interesting to see.
We tried to see the largest man made Termite mound in the township but there was a bit of a fracas going on with some aboriginal folk so we carried on to see the homestead mentioned in the book above and visit the thermal springs near the homestead. They were pretty crowded with people enjoying the 34 degree constant water temperature. We saw Daz, Sandi, Georgia and Nathan in the pool having a great time. After a short walk around the spring we went back to have a coffee at the Territory Manor where the barramundi feeding had taken place. It is a lovely place to stay – the grass was green and the campsite looked clean and fresh. We were actually in a campsite further down the road, which was a bit of a free for all in that you could just choose where you wanted to be for the night as long as you could find power and water that is. The beauty of this site was that it was only a couple of hundred metres from Bitter Springs. So we changed and walked down to this lovely warm pool and had a bit of a swim. The day ended with a lovely cool glass of wine and a read before having to cook tea.
It was lovely to feel the warmth again although it is still getting a little cool in the evening.
In terms of the landscape we have seen a lot of what looks like “burn off’ along the side of the road. It didn’t seem to go back very far and always there appeared to be new growth showing through. Steve made the comment that the landscape looked a lot like north Victoria except for the amazing number of termite mounds! This country is amazing – so huge. It is difficult to grasp the vastness of it all.
