History and Hot Springs – from Daly Waters to Bitter Springs and Mataranka

We thought we’d try something different with the next few blog posts: we’re going to try putting the map up at the top of the post, to orient you to the area we’re writing about, before getting into it. Let us know what you think if you feel strongly about it one way or the other!

This post covers the 10th of September through to the 12th of September 2018.

Here’s a map of the area in this post (in green), the red line is what we’ve covered previously:

E7F8ED04-9DEE-4D23-982F-551A416B51F4 — Our route so far, no I don’t know why that random blue flag is in Brisbane

You can also stalk us, err I mean check up on us, via our live map from our satellite device which pings this map pretty frequently with our current location!

We rolled in to Daly Waters, a small town (population: 9) in outback Northern Territory, which used to be the home of one of Australia’s major international airports in the 1930’s to 1960’s, before technology improved and the flights could depart directly from Sydney or Brisbane. The main draw today is the Daly Waters Pub, a pretty special little pub that was originally built to service the airmen and passengers passing through the airport while planes were loaded/unloaded and refuelled.

The Jeep in front of the Daly Waters pub

The Daly Waters Pub is also one of our Australian Bush Pubs from the World’s Longest Pub Crawl so woohoo for checking another one off the list!

Checking us in to the campground at “Reecepshun”

Tons of memorabilia left by previous patrons of the pub (bras, drivers licenses, and locks of hair are popular)

And of course, who can pass up a glass of wine among the palm trees on the patio at sunset

While Outback pubs are full of character and we had a great time and a few glasses of wine at Daly Waters, there’s not much to keep you there longer than a night and so the next day it was time to move on.

We first went to check out the nearby Daly Waters airport, which is still an active airstrip and has some interesting memorabilia in the old Qantas hanger.

Also nearby the Daly Waters airport is the Stuart Tree, a tree that was carved by the famous Aussie explorer John McDouall Stuart on his successful journey from Adelaide (South Australia) to Darwin (Northern Territory).

Never missing an opportunity for a gratuitous Jeep photo

Yeah, it’s only a dead tree with an “S” carved into it, but we are nothing if not thorough on our exploration of Australia, and we do love to read about this place’s crazy history.

From the Stuart Tree it was a mere 90km to our next Australian Bush Pub at Larrimah, where the proprietor was crusty and racist, and they had a sad little “petting” zoo out back with a blind crocodile and some very traumatised cockatoos who had plucked out all their feathers, needless to say this one was not a bush pub highlight for us.

Our next stop was a historic site called The Elsey which I was super excited about visiting. To back it up a bit, last year during our 2 month trip around Australia, I picked up a book on the road called Women of the Outback, which I really enjoyed reading and highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the stories of the women who were in the background, but absolutely were key in the European settlement of Australia. In the book, which features the stories of many women, I learned about Jeannie Gunn, who had also written two books of her own: “We Of The Never-Never” and “The Little Black Princess”, detailing first hand her experiences of living in the Northern Territory outback around 1900-1901 at a station called The Elsey. I bought and read her books, watched the film adaptation, and was very interested to visit the Elsey Cemetery site when I saw it was on our way from Larrimah to Mataranka.

This is a monument to Dolly Bonson, aka “The Little Black Princess” – I love that she has the biggest monument in the whole cemetery

Graves of Jeannie Gunn and her husband Aeneas Gunn (they were only married for less than 2 years before he died of Blackwater fever, she never remarried)

After all that history at the Daly Waters airport, Stuart tree, and Elsey Cemetery, it was time to cool off in the hot springs in Mataranka! I know that sounds funny, but it was something like 37C during the day, so the 34C hot springs were a welcome treat! We decided to camp at Bitter Springs near Mataranka, which is a combination natural hot springs AND lazy river, we didn’t want to ever get out of the crystal-clear turquoise waters…

And there’s also the Mataranka thermal pool, which is a little swankier than the Bitter Springs lazy river, but has the disadvantage of a bat colony living in the rainforest canopy overhead (they STINK!!)

I made a little video of all our Mataranka & Bitter Springs footage, check it out if you’re keen:

Our next two stops on the way to Darwin are Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park and Litchfield National Park, both of which certainly deserve their own blog posts, and then it’s off from Darwin to Bali (Indonesia) to celebrate my birthday, thanks to my amazingest husband ever for organising a vacation from our vacation with a little luxury mixed in <3

MVP: definitely the campground at Bitter Springs, which hired out pool noodles for a $2 refundable deposit each! Such a great idea to help tourists hang out in the springs (which are very deep) for longer (and I’m sure they hope this will incentivise you to stay at the campground for longer!) and reduce waste vs if everyone bought their own noodle…which I’m sure are NOT biodegradable in the least. Good on ya Bitter Springs Caravan Park!