WEEK 6 - LAST STOP QLD, HIT N.T

Hi from the weary travellers!

Before I tell you about us breaking through N.T border - the kids wanted me to mention what a fun place the Barramundi Farm in Kurumba was.  Michael took a trip there with the big kids and they were all excited about feeding the barra and came out with a wealth of knowledge about our favourite fish to eat.  This is a volunteer based organisation that breed only certain types of barra for the Norman River and the Gulf area. They've put more than 600 000 barra back into the Norman River alone for all those fisherman. The kids thought it was cool that all barra are actually born male, then all turn into females, and they are also the top of their food chain. There only predators are crocs and humans!  The kids do talks (Super Speaker) each week and this was Phoebe's topic this week, she did a great job.

So we are getting closer and closer to the border, the last stop in Qld is Lawn Hill.  Some of the roads are still closed up here due to a late wet season, but we heard that the road to Lawn Hill had just opened, which meant we didn't have to go through Mt Isa, and took 2 days off our trip! The National Parks can't resurface their roads here until the local government have done theirs first.  Now when I say road I use it very loosely - we hit some pretty big, sharp rocks and went over some deep streams. So the road is unsealed and a lot of RED DIRT.

But what an oasis - we pulled the van up to a freshwater stream and I don't think you can get much better than this.  Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) is in remote north west Qld and has a spectacular gorge with its huge sandstone cliffs. The aboriginal people believe that if you pollute or misuse the water the Rainbow Serpent will go away and the water will dry up. It is so pretty here, we had a fire and did bush school and made damper. Yes I made damper and it was pretty good too!

We hired canoes and paddled all the way down the gorge to the waterfalls where we had lunch and a swim.

There was no way there were any crocs because I think Scarlett screamed the whole way down and scared all the wildlife away. The water here is a deep turquoise from the limestone underneath and the cliffs are a deep ochre colour from being burnt by the sun, what a beautiful place.

This would have to be in my top 3 at the moment, it's very peaceful and almost has a spiritual element to it. We came across a researcher that was collecting a rare type of turtles and tagging them for monitoring, it seems the wild pigs out here like to have them for dinner.

So we leave Lawn Hill after a relaxing couple of days to hit more red dirt and even more flies if you can believe it. The car was pretty excited about that. Not!  I have attempted to patch every hole in the van and we actually travelled pretty well until Michael decided to leave the hatch up after our last stop and the shower and toilet were painted a nice red dirt colour.  So I was impressed with that clean up!!  The drives are getting increasingly longer now that we are really in the outback.  Lots of lollies later and we hit N.T, woohoo.

We all run out of the car and to get that "we made it to Northern Territory photo" and come back to a..........

flat tyre. Our first one, so Michael shows his red undies off to the travellers on the highway  and changes the tyre in 50 degree heat.

 The landscape has changed almost immediately to what you would assume the outback would be, dry and dusty and miles and miles of bitumen. The drives are heading into the 8hr mark so we've been taking advantage of some of the free camp sites by the highway which are safe if there are a load of people there.
You can't beat the sunsets and sunrises here, we have been leaving the fly off and this is the view from our bedroom. Yes life is tough!

We kept seeing this sign for a cheap campsite with grass, I never thought I would get so excited about grass but after so many days of dirt we pulled into Banka Banka.  We were allowed to use a generator here so the boys were pretty pleased about putting the TV on for the broncos game, until we ran out of fuel half way through the game, yes there were a few unsavoury words. After no TV for a month I think they probably get their fill.

It is so remote out here and if you haven't been out here before I don't think you really grasp that concept, we didn't.  There are no grocery shops and a lot of the petrol stations we pulled into that don't sell fuel or the fuel is $1.80+?  I have to say hitting Tennant Creek was an eye opener and will stay with me forever.  I was breath tested as soon as you hit Tennant Creek, this is an alcohol prohibited zone.  The police up here look like park rangers in their brown uniforms, but are conforming to blue by the end of the year. The aboriginals were all sitting in the gutter on the medium strip drinking, kids running around everywhere not in school, no one wears shoes, the kids are going through lifeline bins for clothes, all the white people have barbed fences around their property. You can't help but feel responsible for what is going on here. Throwing money at them obviously does not help. It was a really sad moment.

We were off to have a good old aussie lunch at the Daly Waters Pub for my birthday. What a lot of character this place has with everybody's undies hanging up in the entrance, thongs,money, bras you name it, it's stuck onto everything and no I didn't contribute, maybe if I was 40 maybe...... no not even then!  We had yummy barra burgers and chips for lunch!  We also came across one of the original airstrips used for the war up here, how amazing.  Next was one of those disappointing moments, Mataranka Springs.  Dirty, dusty, stinky springs. Stayed 1 night and it just wasn't safe.  The first place we have felt unsafe on the whole trip.  I think that was the fastest pack down.

After Mataranka we hit civilisation - thank you Katherine, I really like this place the people are friendly and we stayed at the national park, with a bar and restaurant at the pool it was a bit of light relief for the arvo. We did the 3 gorge cruise where you travel up the gorges through the sandstone cliffs onto the waterfalls and swimming holes. They have about 50 freshwater crocs here at the moment and constantly setting traps for the saltys, they caught one last week so we were lucky to be able to swim.  Our tour guide was very informative and talked a lot about the indigenous people here. The Jawoyn people have recently taken back this land and they have many aboriginal elders on the board here who are passionate about preserving the land and its beliefs, so the park is run with that in mind and what a great job they are doing.  All the money they make here goes into a trust for the Jawoyn community and they have to apply for funds so no individual gets money here which is the way I think it should be run.

We did some schoolwork the next day and I thought it might be good at morning tea time to take the kids to the museum at the info center.  Phoebe was asking lots of questions about burning off and how the gorge was formed and aboriginal history.  The kids are really growing up.  The national park have just started to do burn off the last couple of weeks and the reason for this is to rejuvenate the vegetation so the animals have a new food source.

The kids and I were lucky enough to meet Long John the in house artist and buy some artwork, I later got to talk to him at dinner, what a sweet old man.  His parents have passed on, his brothers and sisters live out at Arnhem Land and he lives in a donga just behind the campsite. It was one of those incredible moments for me, I felt really privileged.  So now every chance I get I'm hunting down our lost history. I tried to organise a day in an aboriginal community but it was going to cost about $800 so maybe next time.

I hope I'm not boring all of you but I am loving the spirit of N.T it is nothing like I have experienced and am throwing myself into our culture. We visited the Katherine School of Air and I was so impressed I could honestly send the kids here, if it wasn't that hot!  We got to sit in on the lessons.  All the kids get one on one and are so happy.  Would you believe they are all above average on their Naplan tests?  What an inspiring passionate place, no bullying, peer group pressure, just happy well adjusted kids. We donated the first book here to be given to one of the families.

So a quick stopover in Edith Falls, and off for another day! That's all for now, we are off to cool down with a bottle of wine it's so STINKING HOT UP HERE!

TAM'S TIPS
Go the free camping in N.T
Buy some crocs (shoes) for those gorge swims even though they are ugly
If you see a dump point (toilet drop off), use it, you never know where the next one might be

GREAT READS
An Awkward Truth - The bombing of Darwin Feb 1942 (Peter Grose)
My Place - (Sally Morgan) - An aboriginal girl uncovers her heritage.
An Introduction to the Dreamtime (R.Lewis)
A Beginners Guide to Australian Aboriginal Words (R.Lewis)