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| A jumbo termite mound in Mataranka |
One of the things that has been striking are the termite hills. They first became apparent after (I think) Blackwater, give or take a few hundred kilometres, and gradually increased in frequency and number until by the time I hit NT they were a continual part of the landscape.
I've included one or two photos on previous days, but they really are a persistent feature. Unfortunately even if I had not been travelling at a magical 130 kph (no more Jess, honest, that's what the GPS is for :) it would have been impractical or unwise to stop for photos of the really good bits. Perhaps a GoPro mounted on the roof would help, but it would have to be rearward facing to avoid being splatted into gungedom by the inconsiderate insect life.
Here in NT people, presumably the locals, dress the termite mounds. Oh. I don't have a single picture to show you, but they are dressed in tee shirts, rags, towels, old dresses - and judging by their condition many were dressed some time ago. Sometimes a group of mounds will be so attired and from a distance they can look like a group of people standing around for a chat. And I'm not sure about this, but sometimes they appear to have been carved into the shape of people, usually corpulent, although I'm willing to be corrected.
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| The main street, Katherine |
I did stop in Katherine for coffee. I'd been there with Barb and her Red Hat friends in 2012 and recalled it as being a pleasant town, biggish by outback standards. And so it is. I had coffee in the same Coffee Club - why is their coffee always so bitter? - and used the same loo in the same mall. They charged me a dollar! The man said "there had been problems", implying they were keeping riff raff away. Certainly the best loo all trip!
Until Katherine traffic had been sparse for days, ever since Duaringa back in Queensland. Around the bigger towns there'd be local traffic, but it would fade rapidly with distance from the town. It was unusual to catch up with or be caught up by other vehicles. There'd be the occasional four unit road train but not much else.
After Katherine the traffic increased markedly and signs of human habitation became more frequent too. Sometimes I had to slow down for the vehicle in front. Gosh!
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| From The Lookout at Pine Creek This is a (deliberately) drowned gold mine |
I stopped briefly at Pine Creek to see what was there - a small tidy town given over to the tourist trade. It had briefly been a gold town and the open cast pit has been deliberately flooded to avoid acidification.
Then there was Adelaide River. Not an unpleasant place, but I was unable to identify the hotel where we had stopped for coffee in 2012. It was striking that now the towns were within easy distance of Darwin everything was cleaner, tidier, sharper.
I saw signs to numerous World War II airfields to the west of the Stuart Highway. Most seemed to be accessed by unsealed roads so I passed them by. Purely by chance I stopped at a broad dirt track that seemed to stretch parallel to the road for a kilometre or more. Something had begun to rattle and it was really annoying!
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| A fighter squadron |
What I didn't realise was that this was Strauss airfield, a roadside airstrip dating from WWII. Better still there was a display of three fighter planes of the time in the form of two dimensional cut outs, and they were really, really good!
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| These really were 2-D cut outs! |
A few minutes before I stopped I had driven through a torrential downpour lasting less than five minutes, but sufficient to cause a near white out. This is the receding cloud.
I was nearly there! A pause to fill up on the outskirts and then I arrived at Ailsa and Fez's place at 3:30, and was made very welcome. Fez insisted we awash the car!Ailsa was away for a week at an Aboriginal settlement so it was Fez, Khaya, Mpumi and I who went out for dinner at the sailing club.
Tomorrow - homeward bound!
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