Having been in bed at 9.30pm the night before we woke up at 5am, it was still dark so it was off to the bush toilet, much to Beatrice’s dislike, however we had to make do. We estimated that there would have been at least 30 caravans, tents, etc scattered over the area and who had also stayed the night. It wasn’t so cold last night and as the sun came up it was another clear blue sky and would warm up to about 23 deg. We headed for the Stuart Highway 73 klms away and then set Tom Tom for Mataranka, 557 klms ahead then turn right!
Some of the roads we travelled on were not so good with just a narrow bitumen strip and red dirt either side
As it was we only made it to Larrimah about 60 Klms short. We stopped as it was getting late and we wanted to find a place that had power, hot showers and of course toilets!
It was just on going straight roads with nothing much around, not even much road kill, just some historical markers indicating WWII sites, where a hospital, or an airfield would have been and where the troops were stationed or hidden before going further up north to Darwin. Now not much remains to be seen.
We pulled into Daly Waters which is no longer on the main highway as the new road has been re-routed around it. Driving about 8 klms off the highway we found a hive of activity, many travellers pulling up to stay overnight and enjoy the evening at this historic pub. We reacquainted ourselves with it as we have been here on two other occasions. It was still good to see it again and still very popular as it’s an oasis in a very desolate part of the country.
We headed off but not before looking at the tree that the explorer Stuart carved his initials in back in 1879 when he passed this was opening up the way to the north. The highway is named after him which runs from down south right up to Darwin.
We decided to stop at a place called Larrimah which was marked as having two caravan parks and a petrol station. However due to a bush fire earlier in the year one of the caravan parks no longer exists and garage a short time later also burnt to the ground.
We pulled into the other caravan park which also has a pub that has a great history to it. Briefly it was located at Birdham where the rail head was, but as a result of the trucks not being able to get through due to the floodway’s the railway was extended to Larrimah and the pub was abandoned. However after the rail stopped working it was decided that the old pub should be picked up and brought to here where it was put back together at Larrimah which has a population of 15. We think they were all in the pub when we had a drink there and a good chat to Len who said that he would take us on their private railway as they have cleared the old railway line and now run joy rides along it for about 9 klms with their own petrol driven motor and one carriage. We look forward to it.
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