The Excitement is mounting

Katherine's BIG day of the year is only one sleep away. The annual horse race meeting, back to back with the Rodeo is on tomorrow and the town is abuzz. The Filipino wives are squeezing into the salon and the locals are washing their feet. The parks are full to overflowing and Ron and I think everybody is speaking in tongues. Standby because we're going too.

Now back to the real world the "Hunter and Gatherer" has a new rod, (as the old one was obviously no good, it never caught anything) and we are about to head off to that bruising gorge to catch the barra. Update later this afternoon.

Yes, that is two chooks on his head - when in rome LOL

While I was crashing down the rapids there were some friends waiting for a quick snack in the deeper water LOL.

A quick Happy Birthday to Blue and McB and welcome to the trip to Ted Chan (where are u from Ted?)

Good morning Zurich, got a couple of your country men here at the Park, must have taken a wrong turn on the way to France LOL.

Tks for the comments everyone.

D'luded goes white water rafting

Well yesterday was spent at Katherine Gorge but what they didn't tell us is that there are 3 sets of rapids that the hire canoes get to walk around, but not us, so off I went and we sailed through with flying colours. The day was great until Ron slipped on a wet rock at the entrance to the third gorge and hurt his leg. We were 6klms and the 3 rapids away from help so it was an express trip back to civilization. He is sore and sorry this morning but other than that ok.

Mataranga or Bust

Well hello from Mataranga, as you can see by the pic it's Barra capital of the north. This guy is teaching Ron how to catch Barra without all the expense of tackle etc. easy as 1, 2, 3 snatch.

We arrived here and the park is great, so we booked in for 2 nights and seriously thought about extending for 2 extra nights until we got the local serenade until 1am. they sit under the gums all day have a wee ale and at night cause hell ( or that's what it sounded like). So, we are off to Katherine tomorrow. Highlight of our quick stop here is the swim at thermal pool. Spectacular.

Just a quickie

We have finally found somewhere that has worse amenities than Warburton, really didnt think it was possible, but Daly Waters has to be seen to be believed. The park is at the back of the hotel and is packed full of overnighters like us. The meal is Steak or Barra or Barra and steak. One wine NOT Pinot Gris LOL.

Petrol $2.37 and rising.

TRAGEDY

But before I get to that, here is the latest painting called "Reborn". hope ya like it.

Tragedy, the herb garden is GONE. After four months of faithful service we crossed the Queensland/Northern Territory border today and they have a quarantine "NO PLANTS"

So, there is a very lucky lady in a bus who now has a very healthy herb garden. I think she thought we were mad when all of a sudden we pulled up next to her, Ron stuck his head out the window and yelled "Want a herb garden?" you know it's not the thing that happens every day LOL. We have arrived in the "Welfare Capital of Australia" Tennant Creek.

Tomorrow is my birthday and we are off to Daleys Creek which is another 500kms up the road and I am reliably informed that Ron is taking me to the most expensive place in town, and I know it happens to be at the pub as it's the ONLY place in town. I'm taking bets that there is no Pinot Gris on the wine list. Any takers ????

Lawn Hill National Park

We have just returned to civilization after 4 days at Lawn Hill which has been wonderful. The gorge goes for approximately 4 klms so we kayaked up and down for two days spotting crocs, turtles and lots of fish. Ron tried his hand at fishing and ended up catching two turtles, who promptly bit him as punishment. Yesterday we hiked the gorge which was about 8klms up and down the surrounding cliffs unfortunately I have had a problem with the memory card and lost all the pics. Tomorrow Northern Territory.

Ron, where's the map?

Blue said " down hoddle street, second set of lights turn right and the city is right in front of you"

I think we turned left instead ooooooops

T rex and Lunch

I kid you not. Today we went to the Lark Dinosaur Run which is approximately 110klms of horror dirt road from Winton. We are truly in the outback now, red dirt, low bushes and its 31 degrees but the local pool is closed for WINTER - spare me LOL

The Dinosaur run was fantastic, what you see above is the footprints of hundreds of small dino's having a drink on the edge of a massive lake, when all of a sudden out pops T Rex for a dino snack. The tracks in the pic tell the story, all the little ones are running from top to bottom as the water was at the top of the picture and T Rex came out of the forest behind them, so there was only one way for the little fellas to go - straight back past that nasty ol' dinosaur. You can see the big imprints from the T Rex as he is running towards the water and everyone is trying to get past him without being eaten. The big imprints are approximate 3 feet across so Rex as a very big boy. The smallest imprints are for dinos about the size of a chicken and everything upward from there. Truly amazing.

We have arrived in the Outback.

How do we know? well Fuel is now $170.9 an rising, the biggest tree on the horizion is no more than 4 mtrs and there is no water laying around.

Now for what it's like at night. The sky is BLACK very BLACK and there are millions of stars, bright and sparkling and the milky way is huge and spectacular out here. When you are tucked up in bed there are also some things you have to get used to - from about 2am the howls of dingoes in the distance, the coughing bark of the camels, the braying of donkeys, you know hee haa etc etc etc, and then there is the soft Thump thump thump of a kangaroo landing outside your van looking for something green. When you get up in the weeeee hours to go to the john you have to check just who is outside loitering, it is very easy to get a surprise in the dark !!! Sounds just like home LOL

Today we arrived at Winton, the home of Waltzing Maltida and they have a great exhibit dedicated to the story. Tomorrow we are off to the Lark Dinosaur run, which is about 100klms of dirt from here but is the only recorded imprints of a Dinosaur stampede in the world, so we are quite excited about seeing it.

We passed the fossicking test

We only had one full day to go fossicking so we signed up for a "Tag Along" tour, (this could also be a good theme night at the pub). Our guide was James and we headed off to the "Graveyard" to start digging. The sapphire is a blue with a greenish background and .9 of a carat and the zircon is wonderfully clear and is .89 of a carat. WERE RICH - LOL

Tres Butch

We have arrived at Sapphire in outback Qld and as the name suggests it is the centre of sapphires and Zircon etc. off we headed to make our fortune and as you can see fully armed with the necessary equipment. Day one we found one almost decent one and lots of bits and pieces and today we found a big zircon and some little sapphires. We have dropped two off to the gem cutter so stand by for more pics.

The weather here is HOT, HOT HOT during the day and then a 30 degree plummet of an evening to dam cold, touching on brass monkey weather. For the first time we have heaters and blankets at night and fans etc during the day.

A visit to Blackwater

Where ? you ask, well it is approximately 400klms from Rocky and the coast, and a large coal mining center. We travelled up here to see Tania, Dan and the family and had to make the emergency stop along the way, you know nature called, but apparently here nature calls in alot LOL

Yep this is in the outback of Queensland

By popular demand, 2 more on Carnavon gorge

Boowindi Gorge

If you look closely you can see Ron walking along the bottom of the Gorge. Carnavon Gorge was fantastic. The Gorge is 10klms long and has 7 off-shoots with ancient rock art, moss galleries, spectacular cliffs and wonderful palm and white gum forests.

On day one we walked the long track to the Boowindi gorge pic. above, which was a 22 klms trek, day 2 was a quiet one while we tried to get our legs to talk to us again, so we wandered off to the rock pool and read for a couple of hours. Day 3 was the moss garden, ampitheatre and bluff lookout and that was 19 klms.