It was a sad day today as we bid farewell to Mataranka and the caravan park we’ve been calling home for the last few days. It is quite odd how some places you stay, you just feel at home. It helped that we had a lovely shaded site here, close to all of the amenities, and had good neighbours throughout, that weren’t parked right in your pocket. It also helps if the dogs like the park, and they certainly seemed to enjoy this place, mainly due to the long walks we could take about the place. A final walk this morning, Bethany strode about proudly, her chest puffed out and tail happily wagging side to side. Alvin, like a naughty little teenager scrawling “Alvin was ‘ere, 2013”, wanted to stop and pee on every single tree, rock, sign and little tuft of grass. Nonetheless, it was time to move on, making tracks for our next destination along the path.

Thankfully it wasn’t going to be a big day on the road, so we didn’t have to leave too early. And in an effort to rein in our ETA back in Melbourne, I gave us a half an hour window in which to get underway today. I was happy with any time between 9:00AM and 9:30AM, and we pretty much hit it right smack bang in the middle.

Although we did get held up a few minutes at the communal dump point in town, emptying our toilet cassette. There was a bit of queue, and being that it’s been a while since we last poured out the contents, I didn’t want to be travelling with it full. A necessary evil, it’s still not a job I look forward to.

Once on the road, it was only a matter of 100 kilometres and an hour or so that we were pulling in at Katherine. A reasonably large town, we were pleased to find a well stocked Woolworths supermarket. Despite our best intentions to gather enough groceries way back in Mt Isa to last us through to Darwin, we were running low on some of our little luxury items. Like reasonably priced bread and milk for instance.

Katherine was well set up for the grey nomad type crowd, a large caravan parking area nestled right behind the information centre and across the road from the supermarket. Given that Katherine is the junction for west, south and north bound itineraries, as well as a destination of note in itself, it can only be expected to cater for the caravanning community quite well. We’re only passing through today though, as we will be stopping in here for a few days on our way back through.

That said the car park was full when we first pulled in, and we had to wait a few minutes for a space to open up before we could park the van, and in turn the dogs in the van. With them happily lying about inside the, we went off to check out the information centre, relieving them of a pile of brochures for things to do as we continue north. Our grocery shopping was next, where we found a supermarket stocked as well as any city grocery store, and prices to match. As travellers, it’s a boon to be able to get cheap supplies, but you can see how these chains could decimate a local economy, being able to provide city prices to outpost type towns. Smaller, family run stores just wouldn’t be able to compete. Imagine trying to sell a loaf of frozen bread for $5.00 when you can get a fresh loaf for only a dollar.

I worked it out, and even in ‘The Beast’ I could make a return trip from Mataranka to Katherine and back for about $45.00 worth of fuel. Less than an hour each way, you would probably save at least that much money by doing a weekly shop here rather than using the local Mataranka store. Is it no wonder that all these pretty little country towns are dying out, or resorting to allowing the big chain stores to take over.

Before leaving Katherine, we also made sure to take advantage of the cheap fuel. It’s scary when you start calling fuel priced at a bit over $1.60 per litre cheap, but that’s only a matter of 10cents more than what we were paying over on the east coast, and we’re still 500 kilometres from anywhere.

Motoring out of Katherine, having negotiated the small servo, which obviously wasn’t designed with caravans in mind, we continued on our north bound tack. We had two choices today, relative to where we intended laying our heads for the night. After our oppressively hot night of free camping the other night, we decided that if it was again that warm, we would pull in at a caravan park just outside of the little town of Pine Creek. If it was a little more temperate, we would brave another night of free camping.

As it turned out, it was hot, but not as blistering as the other day, so we proceeded past the caravan park option, and headed for a free camp ground on the road to Kakadu National Park. Only a matter of 30Km from the park entrance, we rolled into a nice little camp ground that was well hidden from the road, and situated close to an almost dried up creek. Even at just a bit past 2:00PM, there was already another van here, which we took to be either a good sign (they’re nice people) or a bad sign (they’re mass murderers lying in wait for their next victims). We crossed our fingers and hoped for the former as we set up camp across the grounds from them.

After a hard day on the road, my three pretties.

They did end up coming over to say G’day, maybe to judge their own luck, and following a quick bite to eat, we found ourselves, and another lady who had turned up in a campervan, sitting around a picnic table having a great old natter, with an open invitation to join them later by the camp fire.

We cooked and ate outside tonight, finally putting our barbeque to good use, as despite the cooler temperature this evening, the inside of the van was still pretty warm. We even chained the dogs up alongside the van, so that they could relax in the shade. Right towards the end of our meal it took a ‘B’ grade horror movie like turn though, when in the scrub only metres from our camp, a rustling of long grass caught my attention. Alvin sat up and took note too, his shackles rising, ears standing on end and tail drooped low. He let out a long, low pitched growl, as the grass continued to ruffle, despite the lack of a breeze to push it about. I was standing, rooted to the spot, trying hard to see or hear the object of Alvins displeasure. I could see nothing apart from the occasional waving long blades of weed, until I caught a glimpse of a dark shadow darting about. Dingo? Feral cat? Pig? Who knows, but I wasn’t leaving the dogs out as bait, to find out and they were swiftly bundled back into the van.

Wit the dogs secure inside, we locked up and went over to enjoy an hour or so by the camp fire. Isn’t it strange. We’ve spent the better part of the afternoon with these good folks, know where they’re from, where they’re going to and where they’ve come from, and yet names didn’t even rate a mention. What an enjoyable evening though, the stars bright in the dark sky overhead, the fire flickering, throwing a mesmerising light across the ground. If only it could always be so easy.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.