Mount Isa

Mount Isa

We knew we would have to do a couple of big days to get us to our next stop, Mount Isa. 

From Daly Waters pub we headed down to three ways, before turning east and heading for the boarder of Queensland.

Day number one was about 600km, stopping at a free camp right on dark. 

Our over night stop in the middle of nowhere!

Day number 2 saw us wake early, pack up, and head to the boarder. 

Another boarder crossing

Before entering Mount Isa at lunch time.

Main street of Mount Isa

We came across a coles and grabbed some food for lunch then found a playground to sit and eat while I quickly googled caravan parks. I found one which was ok looking and a reasonable price.

The Discovery Caravan park on Little Bert Street. $42 per night for 2 adults and 3 kids. It came with one free dinner and one free breakfast at their mess hall.  When I was booking in they offered me an ensuite site for a cheaper price and considering I was getting up three times a night to walk children to the toilet block I took it.  I also booked in for four nights because I couldn’t bear the thought of packing up and setting up again for a while!

Our first day in Mount Isa saw us head to the underground hospital. It was an interesting tour of the man made tunnels that were fitted with basic hospital facilities back in the 1940’s as a precaution of Mount Isa being bombed by the Japanese. The old man who did the tour was a local for over 50 years and was a wealth of knowledge. We also saw in a tent house, the types of houses first built in Mount Isa to home the miners and their families. Again, it was volunteered by a very old couple who had actually lived in one of these homes when they were young.

Shopping with vouchers!

I then hit Coles and did a 'big' shop. I am so glad I got a heap of vouchers with my weekly shopping in the months before we left Perth and when Craig was still getting paid! It makes it a bit easier on the travel budget. 

On day 2 we visited school of the air. The hour long tour was just $2 an adult and kids were free. The school has pupils in stations as far west as the Kimberley and as far south as Alice Springs. We sat in on a school lesson, an English lesson to a grade 2 class. The two younger kids got bored and I ended up sitting outside with them while Craig and Matilda finished the tour. When we left Matilda told me how disappointed she had been, she had expected the ‘school of the air’ to be somewhere she could learn about the ‘air’. Not be about kids on a station doing school work.

The next day we had a drive around town, went to the look out and spent ages at the big playground in the centre of town

Mount Isa playground 

Kids loved the huge playground and the skate park attached

Our plans when leaving Mount Isa was to go south to Longreach and Winton, however, Craig heard about a rodeo in Normaton, a little community 6 hours north. So on a whim we changed our plans and the morning we left, we headed North to check out this outback rodeo.  

Daly Waters Pub

Mataranka to Daly Waters was only 169km,  arriving at the pub at 11.30am I suggested we have lunch then press on. But Craig was adamant we were staying for the famous ‘beef and barra’ dinner so we booked into the caravan park for the night and pre booked our meal. 

We set up camp in the hot sun then had lunch before heading to the pub pool. We sat by the pool having a few drinks while the kids splashed and played. Abigail decided today would be the day to have the biggest motherfucker of a tantrum, which came with kicking and screaming and falling to the ground. This resulted in me having to haul her back to the camper while Craig stayed with the other two swimming. As I lay her head on her pillow she went sound asleep for a good two hours so I lay next to her and read my book. My first lay down in our 7 week trip! 

The pool area moments before the tantrum 

She woke in time for a shower before we walked back the pub for dinner. She was in an angelic mood and I was so thankful she had slept away her bad mood. 

Our dinner was delicious, I ordered the barra and Craig had the beef and the barra. Both came with a plate to help yourself to a buffet of salads and bread. 

Happy hour drinks were only $3.50 so we found ourselves skulling back like teenagers because they were sooo cheap. It was only later that Craig told me my moscato wine wasn’t part of the happy hour and I worked out I had drunk about half a tank of diesel money. Oops.  

The pub itself was originally a general store set up around the 1930’s to provide supplies to people travelling through.  Daly Waters then became the site of the first international airport taking soldiers from Australia to be deployed over seas. It is now a quirky little pub full of memorabilia and has live music and meals every night. 

I was really surprised to see how busy the place gets, all 75 spaces in the caravan park were filled with oldies. All of who came for the dinner, enjoyed the happy hour and hassled my children endlessly (hello what’s you’re name how old are you aren’t you pretty). It’s a hard concept because I try to install a ‘stranger danger’ awareness into my girls. Yet these oldies are constantly stopping to chat to them. Don’t get me wrong, it is lovely that they want to talk to us, and most are missing their grandchildren from home, but when they take my kids by the hand and say ‘come with nana pat and have a look at the birds’ its certainly hard work for me. Abigail is quite willing to go with anyone and can be found chatting to people in the caravans next door. Matilda has a certain level of maturity that she is polite and answers questions but doesn’t volunteer too much info. Charlotte barely speaks and is shy, which prompts the old ladies to hassle her more! 

Daly Waters was a very fun experience and one of those places I think you HAVE to visit if you are in the Northern Territory.

Mataranka

After leaving Adelaide River we headed to Edith Falls for a quick look, then into Katherine to stock up on groceries as our next supermarket would be Mount Isa, which we figured would take about five days to get to.

We drove from Katherine to a roadside stop about 20km north of Mataranka. It had been a long day of driving and stops and everyone was tired. We spotted a family camping that we had been near in the caravan park in Darwin so we stopped and set up a quick camp next to them.  After a dinner of jatz crackers with cheese and tomato the kids from the camper next to us came over and had a dance party with my three. It was funny to see five little girls and a boy dancing to Taylor Swift songs in the middle of the outback. With no one else near us it was a good opportunity to let the kids be loud, put on music and play.

The next morning we got up early and packed away then drove into Mataranka. We did a quick drive by of the three caravan parks before choosing Bitter Springs. We had heard from fellow travellers that it was the better of the three and after seeing for ourselves we knew it to be true.

The hot springs only 1 km from our caravan park was a natural river that was lined with lilly pads and water fern. Stairs had been erected at two intervals in the river so you could climb in then float with the current and climb out at the other end. Then walk over a bridge back to the start and do it again. The length or river permitted to swim in was 150 metres, which was narrow but very deep and full of crystal clear water that sat at a constant 34 degrees. We hired pool noodles from the caravan park reception for $1 each which was great because the current was suprisingly strong and although I am a fairly good swimmer I would have struggled without a flotation device. The kids had their swimming vests on and Matilda floated with her own noodle. It was relaxing and peaceful and although I kept a close eye on the river bank for crocs (there had been a salty there 15 years ago) we never saw any wildlife apart from a few tiny fish. A couple near us spotted a turtle but it was gone before we saw. We stayed for a few hours, floating in the natural springs and eating oranges. Craig and Matilda returned the next afternoon to have a go but I decided to stay at camp with the younger two. Although it is beautiful to see these places it can also be hard work lugging the kids and towels etc down the path then having to hold onto the kids in the water incase the current takes them away.

The next morning we headed to Homestead pools which is a part of the river that has been made into a swimming pool type area. It was done in the second world war for soldiers to relax their aching bones after training all day. Now it is attached to the homestead caravan park and is used by tourists daily. It was a nice area but the water felt hotter than the river and was rather draining to swim in. We stayed an hour or so, chatting to some backpackers from France, before heading back to the caravan park to catch up on washing and school work.

Adelaide River

Chatting with an elderly couple at Wangi Falls, I heard about a war cemetery in Adelaide River a small community between Darwin and Katherine. A place we would only ever look at stopping for some fuel or a toilet break. They recommended visiting as it was quite a spot. After leaving Wangi Falls we headed to Adelaide River and made our way to the cemetery by the river. It was a spot allocated to bury fallen soldiers who died in Darwin and surrounds in air raids and in combat.

Before we travelled in the north of Australia I had no idea that, in the second world war, the Japanese had bombed not only Darwin but; Broome, Katherine and even as far east as Townsville and several small communities in between. Stations lost livestock, men were killed. We heard the story in Outback Western Australia that an Indigenous man who doesn’t know how old he is but his first memories are of war aircraft flying over Halls Creek in the second world war.

Basically the whole top part of our country was in extreme risk of being invaded and hundreds of men lost their lives defending. And here I am in my 30s and had no idea of this piece of history so close to home and so crucial in our lives today.

Infact it is a long time ago but not really that long ago. If you know what I mean. An elderly man that I used to clean house for when I was in University, told me the stories about how as a 20 year old he was sent out to central Australia for his Military training before being put in a troop carrier and sent to an international airport to be deployed overseas. (That airport is in Daly Waters, a town we also visited). I remember cleaning his sink and he sat at his little table peeling potatoes and told me that he was given one blanket in the cold night of the desert and he vowed if and when he grew old he would never let himself feel cold again. That’s why when I changed his sheets he had three thick blankets to tuck in. And a blanket on the end of his bed and several folded up underneath it. I wish now I had of asked him more questions. And sat and listened. But I didn’t and he died from old age just before I had Matilda.

So I found myself standing in the war cemetery at Adelaide River. A beautifully manicured grass area that was at the same time peaceful, sad and lonely. I stared at the headstones as one blended into another and read the stories. One man in his 20’s, left behind a wife and a baby daughter called Lucy. Died July 1942. Another man was 32 and died in the August 1942, he was not a pilot, nor a combat fighter. He was a cook and was killed when Darwin was bombed.

Rows and rows of names and dates. It was overwhelming.

Matilda read some of the headstones and asked some questions. Charlotte surprised me by sitting silently, alone, on the wall, and staring into the distance. Maybe her little soul felt it more than mine.

Abigail of course is too little to understand and started running and laughing and playing by the rows of graves. I was going to silence her but thought the spirits of these men wandering their resting place would probably welcome the sound of children playing.