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It’s been a week of long highway stretches, many free-range animals and a whole lot of termite hills as we ventured north to the Top End.
We bid farewell to Alice on Monday, travelling north to the Devils Marbles where we camped out the front of the pub for the night. Honey soy beef stirfry was on the cards for tea for the night, coupled with Kate cooking enough rice to feed an entire army and then some. Still, who doesn’t love leftovers! As for The Devils Marbles themselves, which we saw at sunrise the next day, the changing colours on all the precariously-perched rocks were spectacular.
Our destination on Tuesday was Barkly Homestead, about 180ks east of Tennant Creek, to catch up with our friend Ell Regan for a few days. We will always look back on that stay fondly, despite an ant problem that quickly developed in the car during our stay (we think we’re fine now).
On Friday, we headed to Daly Waters Pub, a place we had heard so much about – and rightly so! The place oozed Aussie culture, friendly people and at times political incorrectness – Claire’s three favourite things! We enjoyed meeting Polly the horse, Brahmans Jed and Charlie, and of course owner Tim Carter and all the friendly staff. Thanks to all of those who joined in with our Friday night hoedown, and thanks also for bearing with us while we attempted the dance Cyberdrop as a demo and got off to a bit of a shaky start!
We enjoyed floating down Bitter Springs at Mataranka on Saturday, despite seemingly missing the memo to byo pool noodle (everyone else had one!) and then continued onto Noonamah, where we’ve camped the past two nights and made good use of the pool here.
As for how we’ve passed time on our 1500km trip this past week, our go-to tips would be a) singing High School Musical songs as loudly as possible b) singing songs with slowish lyrics but alternate one word each and c) drawing Venn diagrams to demonstrate overlapping music taste between a group of friends.
This week, Claire’s heading home to South East Queensland while Kate stays in Darwin, before we get the crowd line dancing at the Adelaide River Show just south of Darwin next weekend.
Yours in boot-scootin’,
Kate and Claire.