The small township of Mataranka sits on the upper reaches of the Roper River, an hour’s drive south-east of Katherine.
This tropical wayside stop is on the Explorer’s Way tourism drive, the main artery that connects Adelaide and Darwin, and is renowned for its thermal pool – a sandy-bottomed lagoon fringed by palm forest and a rejuvenating swimming spot.
Although the township itself is small, with a population of about 250, it services outlying cattle stations and Aboriginal communities. There’s a good range of camping grounds, accommodation and a supermarket.
The area was made famous by Jeannie Gunn’s 1908 novel 'We of the Never Never' – a book she wrote about nearby Elsey Station that is now part of Australian folklore. The Elsey Cemetery, 21 kilometres south of the township, marks the final resting place of many of the book’s characters.
Attractions around town include the Stockyard Gallery that exhibits local Aboriginal art, barramundi hand-feeding tours and the Never Never Museum that displays the local Aboriginal history.
Elsey National Park, eight kms from Mataranka, is another of the region’s natural attractions. The massive Roper river slices through this 140 square-kilometre expanse, flowing through large waterholes then tumbling over rocks and tufa dams.
It was a nice easy drive only 100kms... when we arrived at the Homestead we were greeted by a rather large kangaroo sunning himself in the middle of the road and he had no intentions of moving...until a fellow traveler made him move on :)
After settling in we checked out the "Hot Springs" in the park...a short walk through bushland..the water was awesome about 32 degrees...
The park has plenty of wildlife lots of kangaroos and peacocks roaming around..
27th July
Today we went for about a 2 km walk to Stevie's Hole through the bush...it's supposed to be safe to swim in but we were not prepared to risk it !!!!!! Once again along the track plenty of wild life...the wallabies are very active in the day time around these areas
28th July
We caught up with Terry and Lorraine again, they arrived for an overnight stay on their way back south...we enjoyed an afternoon at the hot springs, and later after happy hour we went out to the restaurant and had a nice meal...
30th July
Lois & Michael arrived and we had a nice time catching up again.. we are staying here for another 3 days before we move onto Mt Isa with a few bush camps in between..
At Happy Hour our little friends came around to join us again...
31 July
We went to the restaurant for dinner tonight and they had a good country and western singer on.. we also had the P.O.Ps staying at the camp..which stands for "Pelicans On Posties"
A group of guys got together to ride genuine postie bikes from Ballina NSW to Darwin in time for the Darwin Cup ..on the way raising money for Biala Special School in Ballina. The Royal Flying Doctor Service also benefit by receiving 20% of funds raised..
The guys run a few raffles and auctioned a t'shirt signed by them all...
We sat around the fire with them and chatted ... a good bunch of guys
On the way back to our campsite...the van next to us was having a get together with a group of wallabies..they were all enjoying the open fire...they are so tame...amazing...
Our last day at camp at happy hour we had a few visitors of our own... one randy peacock trying to get the attention of the female peacocks...
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