Darwin to Mataranka

Darwin to Mataranka

Hey Everyone!

Saturday morning was finally time to say goodbye to Darwin. The past four and a half years have been an adventure and I've made some great friends but the time has come for us to move on. 

The first day of our eight day road trip down the centre of Australia started off about an hour behind schedule (moving day was exhausting and I struggled to get out of bed). All was going well until about an hour down the road when Tom asked for his favourite toy. Hmmm. Turns out Blue Bunny was still in the hotel. Along with all the kids toys. And...all the kids clothes. U-turn and back to Darwin we went. At 130 kilometres an hour, you can cover a fair distance. The Northern Territory is the only place in Australia with 130 limit on a major highway and one of the few places you can see a road train with 4 trailers.

Round two - we left Darwin after lunch instead. We skipped one of our planned rest stops at a road house and didn't spend as long in Katherine so we still made it to Mataranka in time for a quick dip in the Bitter Springs thermal spring. It was much slimier and not as warm as I expected. A cool spring might have been more refreshing considering it was 40 degrees Celsius in the shade but it was something I'd always wanted to do though and we won't be coming past here again so I'm glad we made it in time.  There were lots of bats and wallabies around, and the termite mounds were the darkest red I've seen.