The further north we travelled the red dirt desert and low lying scrub bushland progressively transitioned towards ‘Savannah’ grassland with its short trees and tall grasses. In amongst the grasses were ever more termite mounds that seem to establish themselves around, and eventually consume, these short trees. As you continue to move north, the trees get bigger and so too do the termite mounds.
 |
| That is one BIG termite mound! |
Do you remember that in a blog or two previous to this one that I stated there wouldn’t be much more blogging about Bush Pubs following the completion of our ‘Pub Crawl thru Queensland’? Well, while I wasn’t lying to you, there are still over 20 of them for us to visit and for me to tell you about but they are spaced out quite a bit more than the 'one every day or two' that was the case while we were ‘on the crawl’. It just so happens that we have already come across the first of those 20 or so pubs - the Larrimah Hotel in the roadside town of Larrimah (where everybody knows your name because the population is just 10). The Larrimah is famous for one thing and has recently become infamous, for another.
 |
| Why is it called the Pink Panther Pub? you ask... |
The Larrimah Hotel is ‘famously known’ (perhaps that is a bit of a stretch), as ‘The Pink Panther Pub’ on account of it being painted pink and having many Pink Panthers located both inside and on the grounds outside of the pub.
 |
| Pink Panthers are everywhere making this pub a bit of a Roadside Attraction! |
It has also recently become somewhat ‘infamous’ due to the mysterious and unsolved disappearance of one of the towns 10 residents. A local, and daily drinker at the pub, who, after finishing his ‘customary 8 - 10 beers’, left to go home with his dog on December 16, 2017, has not been seen since.
Police investigations have uncovered ‘bad blood’ existed amongst the residents but, as yet, no charges have been laid. The ‘surviving’ locals acknowledge that there is a good chance that one of the 10 (or is that now 9?) residents in town is a killer living amongst them! The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has even made an investigative TV report about it. For anyone that may be interested in watching, just click on the link below that will take you to YouTube where you can watch the show.
After NOT going missing as we walked from the Pink Panther Pub in Larrimah to our caravan parked out the back of the pub, the following morning we made our escape from the ‘Larrimah Killer’ to our next stop in the Elsey National Park on the bank of the Roper River near the town of Mataranka. Mataranka now markets itself as the ‘Capital of the Never Never’ - more on that later.
 |
| MATARANKA - apital of the Never Never |
The first thing we saw upon entering the National Park was a sign warning of the dangers of crocodiles!
 |
| Did we escape one killer just to move straight into the territory of another? |
Although Mataranka is well over 200 kilometres from the coast, the Roper River does drain into the ocean and as such, crocodiles can make their way this far inland so it is wise to be ‘Croc Wise’ as the sign suggests. Which brings me to the next part of our story…
Mataranka is the location of the first natural ‘hot springs’ in the NT that we were to come across during our travels. These springs are not only warm (about 34C all year round) but they are crystal clear and make for a very nice place to have a swim… if you dare!
The park rangers in the area assure everyone that there are no crocs in the springs but do ask that you ‘please report any sightings you my make’!
The waters were so inviting that we decided to ‘take a chance’ and take a dip.
 |
| Hey, there is nobody in there! Where did everybody go all of a sudden? |
Anyway, there were plenty of older folks already in the water and surely we could swim faster than them… (just joking - or am I?).
Elsey National Park is named after Elsey Station that was established in the area during the 1880’s. An autobiographical book titled ‘We of the Never Never’, written by Jeanie Gunn, is an account of the authors experiences in 1902 living at Elsey Station as the Station Manager’s wife. Despite being discouraged to ‘go out there’, she was the first white woman to settle in the area. The book describes her and her husband's journey to the station and settling in. The book was also made into a film in 1982 and was shot on the location of the former homestead. We visited a replica of the house that was built for the film.
 |
| 40C for 6 months of the year and brutal wet season humidity for 3 of the other 6 months! Why would you do it? |
It would be tough country to live in even now and would have been brutal without any modern conveniences that we take for granted today, e.g.: electricity, refrigeration, communications, vehicles. The manners and language of the day would have prevented it but I am sure that Jeanie Gunn may have muttered to herself WTF am I doing out here? just once or twice!
No comments:
Post a Comment