Day 29 - Mataranka

Sunday, 27 June 2021

We emerge from the Limmens Park dust clouds like Glinda from her cloud of fairy dust. Ready for a smooth ride on a paved road. But after fuelling up in Roper Bar, the road heading west stays determinedly dusty, despite what the map says.

Eventually though it does turn into a one-lane bitumen road, crumbling at the sides. It’s pretty country, rolling hills and rocky escarpments. When my head isn’t (still) on a pillow, I’m enjoying the view.

The road ends at the Stuart Highway, just short of Mataranka. The tiny town is known for two things: it’s heavenly hot springs and home of the Australian 1908 classic We of the Never, Never, an account of life in these parts in early settlement days. Rough as guts. Territorians have bonded with their venturesome, free-swinging identity ever since.

Bitter Springs, thermal pools on the edge of Elsey National Park, has a campground nearby. Both are crawling with tourists, most of them carrying various renditions of the ubiquitous swimming noodle. We hear two pieces of bad news when we inquire at the campground for vacancies. First, no. They booked out at 11am. Second, parts of the Northern Territory have just gone into lockdown. Miners at a remote gold mine have tested positive for COVID19, Darwin is shut down, and Territorians and travelers are awaiting news of how far the current ‘outbreak’ has spread. (In Australia, a coronavirus ‘outbreak’ is always put in inverted commas because it rarely surpasses a dozen people or so. In the NT there’s currently four active cases. Good reason for a lockdown.)

That’s enough to send hypervigilant Western Australia into a frenzy and current reports show border closures. Which leaves us wondering how we’re going to get home.

In the meantime, another caravan park just down from the Bitter Springs has vacancies, unpowered sites in an open treed area. Just as we finish our set up the phone rings. It’s Kurt, neighbour in Lot 9 back in Pamelup. He flew to Darwin recently to pick up his granddaughter, 11-year-old Abby, and take her on a road trip to the centre, Uluru their destination. We’ve been keeping track of each other to see if our paths might cross. We’re just checking in to the caravan park, he says, the first on the left as you enter Maranaka. What? We’re at the Everlasting Caravan Park. Where are you? Yeah, that’s the one, he says. Unreal! You can find us along the back fence in the unpowered sites.

We spend the rest of the evening enjoying the company of our neighbours, currently 5000 kms from home. Abby makes steak sandwiches and I put together a sweet potato and black bean soup. Kurt brings a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. In the distance, a Willy Nelson singer starts up the free Sunday evening concerts the park offers during the tourist season. Good food, good company, nice music. All good.

But eventually my hacking cough gets the better of me and I trip off to bed, the cowboy rendition of a sweet Peter, Paul, and Mary ballad off in the distance lulling me to sleep.