Day 30 - Katherine Gorge

First thing on this day we drove back down the Stuart Highway to Willy's Motors to get the towbar welded. It was done in next to no time, and the welding is extremely neat. It is stronger than before it even cracked as the bloke, and I mean Stubbies and tank top wearing bloke, did a triple weld in place of the original single one. Three German women were getting a tyre puncture repaired, their fourth over 8000 km of driving. Here's hoping we avoid that kind of car drama. The travelling Shumacks can now rest easy with regards to the trailer remaining attached to the car during transit. After paying out a whopping $35 for the work, we headed for Mataranka Springs.

 

Fortunately we got a bit lost and found our way to Bitter Springs. We heard from other bathers that Mataranka Springs, further south by a kilometre. There has limited places to stand or hang off in the water, and are very crowded and hotter. These springs are a perfect 24 degrees, which meant we were able to stay in the water for two hours.

 

Not that you can tell looking at it, but the average flow here is 300 litres per second. I was sceptical of this statistic, until we floated down a palm lined watery highway to a third set of steps, and then began swimming back with Phoebe. Seventy metres later I needed a 10 minute rest! Justin got the masks and snorkels out and even though there are no fish living in the water, it was really nice to see the colours and textures underneath us.

 

Alex tried to swim across to Justin two metres away, but after George decided to tow on the back of her, Phoebe cut across her path and she then grabbed onto my head and sunk the lot of us, we decided it wasn't a good idea to let her try again. After the swim we decided to look at a replica of the Elsey homestead.

 

This is where the novel We of the Never Never was conceived. Jeannie Gunn wrote this as a novel, though it is really an autobiography. She came out here at the age of 19 as a young bride to this cattle station. This rebuild pictured above was used for the filming of the movie of the same name, which plays everyday at the Mataranka Homestead Caravan Park. I chose to wait until I return home for comfort viewing.

We toddled out to Cutta Cutta Caves to escape the heat. This is the entrance. Like many caves it was discovered by accident when a cow fell into it.

Except it was hotter than I expected, as these caves have only one opening. It gets quite muggy at the end of the walkway. We had to squeeze through some tight areas between rocks. Lexie had no trouble.

 

This is a very slow growing cave as it is dry for six months of the year, therefore the stalactites and stalacmites have a reduced growing time.

 

Some of them have been chopped off by World War II soldiers using the cave for shooting practice. The girls were most taken with the sparkly formations, which gives the cave its name. Cutta meaning stars, and the repetition of Cutta meaning many.

 

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