Day 9 – Wednesday 28 July 2021 – 636km

We know it is getting to be daybreak as the traffic starts again on the highway. The morning is very pleasant and after breakfast in the bush we are once again on the road before 9am. It is only an hour drive to the Three Ways (the intersection of the Barkly Highway from Queensland and the Stuart Highway between Adelaide and Darwin) and we turn right to Darwin. The scenery is more of the same, termite mounds, grasses, small trees and shrubs. Lots of termite mounds at the side of the road are dressed in shirts, singlets, hats, sunglasses and anything in between. It helps relieve the boredom of the drive a little. We stop at Elliot, a small town, to refuel and also to eat, however, they were only selling groceries & food to the locals. We decided to keep going for another 140Kms (first place that you could buy anything) and stopped at Daly Waters for lunch at around 1.30pm. The pub and surrounds are very eclectic and busy, the caravan park is full. The pub is very old fashioned and across the road are a collection of old plane and helicopter fuselages.  The pub is very busy as well, people coming and going all the time. We both have a barramundi burger for lunch, tasty and very filling.  The temperature is 37, good thing the car is air-conditioned.

Next stop is Mataranka, 3 hours away. We make good time, most of the traffic is passing us and we slowly catch up to a road train and decide to stay behind it the rest of the way to Mataranka.  Since Mt Isa we had no phone coverage, no radio & very little conversation between Ron & I, we ran out of saying anything. I am starting to run out of enthusiasm about this journey, it is such a long lonely drive with little change to the scenery. When we get phone coverage we try to book into Bitter Springs van park, but they are full so we turn into the Elyse National Park & Mataranka Station van park. Plenty of spots and we set up next to a nice couple that chat with us a while. Then off to the Mataranka Springs. A short walk down through the palm trees, unbelievable the change from the vista we have been driving through for days.  The pools are full, but not too crowded. After a while we are joined by our neighbours and chat for a long time, we have a lot in common with them. We stay in the pool for a couple of hours until it gets dark, then chat to some more people at the pool, a German & Italian couple. They told us that Bitter Springs are closed, there is a crocodile that had been spotted in there and they were in there swimming last night in the dark. Good thing we couldn’t get in there. Then back to our van for a light bite to eat. It is a great day now that Tereza has seen that there can be something nice on the other side of the horizon.