Day 173 - 174 4th August - 5th August 2012

Day 173 Saturday 4th August 2012

Woke fairly early this morning and Oscar was off for his morning swim in the Bitter Springs.  I on the other had decided to laze away the morning.  I have not done that in the longest time and felt I owed it to myself.

After his swim and shower we attempted to do our jigsaw puzzle but after getting most of the edges done discovered that we did not have a large enough area on our dining table so the jigsaw has gone back to rest in the box it arrived in.  Unable to do this we decided to go into Mataranka to see the town.  It is not a very big place but is very famous for the story “We of the Never Never”, which has also been turned into a movie.  (Might be an idea to get my hands on a copy and have a good read, or get a copy of the DVD)

We drove to the Mataranka homestead where the set for the Movie “We of the Never Never” still stands and where the Mataranka Springs are.  These springs are more commercial than the ones at Bitter springs, but in all fairness I probably would prefer to swim in these as I am not a fan of slimy stuff under my feet. We also discovered that they have live entertainment in the evenings and happy hour is from 5:00pm to 6:00pm.  So we decided we will go and enjoy dinner, drinks and happy hour in the evening.

Got back to the van and Oscar decided to have a siesta, he calls it meditation…….  Woke him at 4:20, had a shower and off for the night’s entertainment. 

Back to our home at 8:45 and into bed for the night.

Dunnies for those not up to their Aussie slang = toilets

The Murials at the Mataranka homestead depicting the bar, kitchen and dunnies.  (For all those not up to their Aussie Slang  Dunnie = Toilets.)

An extremely tame and thirsty Roo at the Springs.

The source of the springs.  You can't see it in the picture but this is were the water bubbles up from the earth heated.

The set for the Movie "We of the Never Never."

Mataranka Springs - very commercial

A panoramic shot of the river into which the springs flow.

The fireplace whilst we watched the live entertainment on the stage at the rear of the pic.

Day 174 Sunday 5^th August 2012

Oscar was up and out early this morning again, after his torture treatment at my hands.  He has developed a rather nasty sty on his right bottom eyelid and it seems to be getting larger.  I am hoping that he will take my advice and go and see the doc in Alice Springs, on our way through.  I on the other hand can only offer to put an extremely hot cloth on to see whether we can at least get it to burst and get some of the muck out.

Another lazy morning for me…….  Today is going to be an R&R day as from here on out we will be pressing hard, doing as many K’s a day so we can get home.  Oscar wants to stop at Daly Waters as we have heard that there is good entertainment at the pub, so that will probably be our last stopover of any consequence, tomorrow night.  I am hoping to catch Bev and Brian on the way down but if I miss you guys I will visit you at home when you return from your trip.

So today I created a document of the entire blog for Oscar and he read his book “Life without limits” by Nick Vujicic.  We also did a toilet run not the last probably heaps more on the way as we will probably use our facilities a lot more now we are pressing home and will probably spend most nights in transit rather than in a caravan park.

I will also be sending Houdini’s folks a final letter when we get to Alice just to let them know he is on his way home.  I will personally go and deliver him to them.  Oscar is not too keen.

Well I will write most days just to let you know where we are and how we are progressing, but there won’t be very many interesting places or pictures.  Sorry guys.

Bitter Springs - more natural.

Steam coming off the water first thing in the morning.

Oscar enjoying the springs.

Not enjoying this eye though.....

PS Hi this is Oscar, simply wanted to say that I don’t have any regrets in doing this fantastic “journey”. Vania has been absolutely fantastic in her contributions to everything and I sincerely want to publicly acknowledge that.  This has been a “life” changing experience for me and I am very grateful. Cheers to all and take care.