Daly Waters and Mataranka

Decided to make a quick stop at Daly Waters. This area is quite well know for it's involvement in aviation as a refueling location  for bombers during WW11 and was also the location of Australia's first international airport. Turns out there is a really cool pub there as well!! Very busy with grey nomads so we camped in the overflow across the road. Was actually really nice and quite, but no fires. Bummer. Went for a beer at happy hour and listened to the resident entertainment. Quite good fun.  You will see the pub has a very rustic appearance  and is quite a popular stop off.
The boys had their first school lesson here which went well. Unfortunately the connection was not so good but they are also doing worksheets other days also.

Did you know NASA had Daly Waters airstrip marked as a possible emergency landing strip for the space shuttle

At Mataranka we camped at the 12 mile yards campground in Elsey National Park. This was a brilliant campground, shady, fire pits, toilets and solar showers.(thanks for the tip JD) Not many campers nearby so we pretty well had it to ourselves. The park is on the start of the Roper River and you can normally swim here but they where clearing it for crocs so we had to swim in the creek nearby (200m) which was really nice. Did the trip to Bitter Springs pool where you float down in the thermal stream, the boys had their noodles and goggles on. We did this 4 times and it was great, the boys loved it. On the way back we also did the Mataranka thermal pools which was also great.
From our camp we did a 8km return walk to the Mataranka waterfall, Lachlan set a good pace. Of course there was a billabong for a swim while we were there. Around camp there was lots's of animals, birds- inquisitive bowerbirds(see elaborate nest below complete with white shell decorations - evidently if the girl is not keen she trashs it?!! poor bloke), wallabies and of course a cane toad!!!
Enjoying camp life now, not having to pack up each day and having a coffee and relaxing in the morning.

Did you know 30.5million litres per day flow into the Roper River from Mataranka pools and the Roper River meets the sea 250km away at Roper Bar. Surly a croc cannot swim up this far?