Further North

We left Katherine not sure of our next destination.  We stopped at Edith Falls and had a couple of delightful swims in the waterfall pool there.  It was really lovely and we had planned to do the 2.5 k walk to the top falls, but it was extremely hot and humid, and we decided not a good idea at that time.  There is a National Parks campground there which was one of our options for the night.  However, many of the NP campgrounds have had massive price increases from last year, and this one had jumped from $6.60 a person to $10.00.  We walked through the camp, and the majority of sites were bollarded off and would not have fitted the van.  The area where there was a van camped was really just a widened area of the road, and they were literally camped on the side of the road.  

Lovely plunge pool at Edith Falls

So, consulting my trusted Wikicamps again, I spotted what sounded like a little treasure further up the road at Hayes Creek.  And a treasure it was.  Not sure how it is a Big 4 park, but we took our ten percent discount and paid the princely sum of $22.50 for a powered site.  Heaps of lush lawn and huge amounts of shade.  We found it very comfortable indeed.  Not only did it have a swimming pool, but a short walk away was a divine freshwater swimming hole.  Seven hundred metres from the swimming hole is Butterfly Gap.  A magical place where thousands of butterflies hang in the crevices.

Our little oasis at Hayes Creek.  Lots of green grass and shade

Butterfly Gap.  Hundreds in the air but might be hard to see in the photo

The lovely little swimming hole

We were sitting outside having breakfast the next morning, and decided it was so tranquil, we would stay another day.  From here we did a circuit to the Grove Hotel, an historic pub made from leftovers from the mining days and full of antiquities and dust.  Not too sure I would want a meal from there, but they did have a menu and there was quite nice camping out the back.  This circuit brought us out opposite the road to Douglas Hot Springs.  We had initially planned to camp here, but as we were only half an hour away and bathers were in the car, we decided to head there for lunch.  The camping area here was nice and flat, but not a great deal of shade.  We decided we had made a good decision as our campsite at Hayes Creek was so much better.  We changed and headed down to the springs.  We found these a little disappointing, as they are quite shallow in most places.  Some areas were very hot, almost scalding, so you needed to be careful.  It was a very hot day, so we really opted for the river rather than the hot springs. 

Historic Grove Hotel

Douglas Hot Springs

Back to Hayes Creek, where we discovered we were now the only campers.  After dark a chap on a pushbike came in and set his tent up.  We have seen a lot of these riders on the highway, and it really didn’t look like our idea of fun.  The biggest problem is the huge distances between anywhere reasonable to stay, which could explain his late arrival after 8.00 pm.

The plan for our travels has always been not to have a plan.  So we pretty much decided only the day before that our next port of call would be Daly River.  We knew this was a very isolated place and famous for its barra fishing.  We figured it couldn’t be too hard to get to as there are at least 8 caravan parks, and we were right, as the road was surprisingly good through to there.  Our destination was the Daly River Mango Farm, and we were very happy with our large shaded site.  Many come here for three months staying over the southern winter.  It wasn’t long before we discovered that without a boat, barra fishing is quite difficult.  Apart from barra, the other plentiful thing are crocodiles, and there are few places that are safe to fish.  The park lady pointed out a couple but all Jim could catch was cat fish. 

Apart from quite a few caravan parks for fisherman, the only other thing in Daly River is the aboriginal settlement.  We drove in and were very surprised at what a lovely clean and neat town it is.  Everywhere was lush, green and mowed.  It has a supermarket which we didn’t go into, a garage and a health clinic.

Daly River where even the GPS got lost.  Should have been only 5 k's back but it came up at nearly 6000, and criss crossed everywhere