The Big Run, Halls Creek - Katherine went 'til Sawpit Gorge to spend the night and we (Ingo) lighted our first! campfire in this journey. Without potatoes, we had simply CB & BB, for a change... Via a good conditioned Gravel Road we travelled on. Sadly we coudln´t find the beautiful Marella Gorge & and were in no time in NT, adjust the clock to 90 minutes earlier, we know this now (let´s remember '95, the lost frying pan & and closed stores...).

The road was still good, so why went the other 4WD only 60 km/h & didn´t give way despite us useing headlamp flasher, turn signal & honking?! We overtook finally. Drunk or nearsighted, who can tell; the same thing happened shortly afterwards.
Otherwise heaps of stock, beef & cattle on the road. Do they think & if so, WHAT do they think? They stand and stare. Start running, turn around, stand, stare. What troubles them, the car or the dust-cloud? Do they recognise a dead cow lying on the roadside as a dead cow?

Lunch, change of driver. We are overtaken by the guys who were at the Sawpit Gorge yesterday. They stop, we go on & shortly after are overtaken by them again. We drive through Kalkarindji, if they refueled the car or something, I dunno, but they came again to overtake us.
In the Top Springs Roadhouse we stopped to refuel the car, in the meantime the jerry can had helped out; in Kalkarindji credit cards aren´t accepted. And, who is standing there? Yep. They finished before us and set off to Victoria River Downs. We started off in that direction, too & suddenly they came towards us. Some time later we found a side track to stay overnight, there are no Rest-Areas on the way. Later on passed who? Yep, those guys again... "Aussies"... ;-)

We sat on our camp chairs, suffering quietly ("Blowies"). A look on our arms showed, no, our skin hadn´t turned.brown from the sun on the journey... In Germany you can pay a lot of money for a powder called "African Wonder". Over here you get the Aussie-version, for free and you don´t even have to "make up" the stuff yourself.
You can also simply say, we were dirty.

New thing: It got cold! A campfire is not only nice to look at! In the morning you tend to sleep longer for a change, but no: Travel on!

Frequently changing landscapes, from yellow grasslands to barren land with termite mounds, green, lushy trees, harsh rocks.

From Victoria Hwy on we went on bitumen road to Katherine, "directly" to the Low Level Nature Park, to take a shower. Then we repaired the door again (dust), went grocery shopping & left that chaos. Was there another public holiday? There was really chaos at Woolworth or did we just have the feeling after being in loneliness?
So we left in direction Tennant Creek. After about 50 km through bushfire-smoke we finally found a more than full Rest-Area. It was also a parking-lot for Roadtrains, we got afraid of getting cracks again & had to think of Ceduna, the Garlic-accident & Windscreen 'O Broken... The roadtrain-driver had slept outside on his hanger - despite the cold & Kingsize-Mossies, that are around again here.

On we went to Mataranka , where there are thermal springs. Since we couldn´t find them in '95 we went in the small, provisional looking Tourist-office, that rightfully got awards for good - or best - service. The elderly lady found out when the Beer Can Regatta in Darwin takes place; in Broome that wasn´t possible...

But the date, 08th of August, mixes our plans up. Roper Hwy & Gulf Savannah Track have to be done another time. We have to spend some time without much driving around.

But here in Matarenka we can start right off with time-spending easily. The nice lady from the tourist-office gave us enough info-leaflets, including the tipp that there is at 12:00 the "We-of-Never-Never-Film" displayed.
We could hardly understand but it seemed to be a very schmaltzy story.

So we went on to the Thermal Pool, very convenient and beautifully bordered by palms & with a stonewall all around:

When you get out of the water, you feel,... cool! What was felt like heat before was cool now. Quick back in! Afterwards some hot showers - there are free solar showers available here.

Now we are near Mulurark, campen is allowed. Tomorrow we wanna do 2 walking tracks, go to the Pool & with showers available, everything is just fine. The motto here is "stay a while, wear a smile". And be prepared, "Never, Never go - without H2O".

"Although Mataranka does not have a many flies, other pests are very friendly, especially around sunset. Insect repellent may be required."... very friendly advice ;-)