We of the Never Never - Mataranka

“We of the Never Never”  is the famous Australian book written by Jeannie Gunn the first white woman in the Mataranka area. She lived at Elsey Station which is now a tourist park and the movie version of her book runs every day at midday at the bar – must drive the bar staff crazy by the end of the dry season.

Nice but too much concrete

However I digress – we  never never stay at the Elsey Homestead as it’s a little too commercialised and the hot springs area  now looks like the local swimming pool – all concrete and too many kids!

Roper River - no swimming here!

We have always stayed at the Bitter Springs Caravan Park (just outside of the township of Mataranka)  – it’s just a 500m bike ride down to the thermal pools that despite the 1000’s visiting during the dry the area still retains its natural beauty with lots of fishes, turtles, water lily’s and palm trees.

Bitter Springs Thermal pool

There is a strong constant current flowing from the hot spring and the trick is to jump in with a “noodle” at the top end of the stream and float gently down steam in the crystal clear 34C water to the other end.

Have to get up early to get a photo with no one in the water!

We kept doing this till we had wrinkles on our wrinkles! Don’t forget to stick your things over the end of your noodle as the track back to the start is hard on old people’s feet.

When we got to Mataranka I was suffering from a pretty sore back – after a couple of soaks in the thermal pools all was cured.

There is a small creek behind the Caravan Park and last time I was here in 2011 I caught cheribin (large fresh water prawns) here in my nets – this time nothing – I was told it was a very poor wet season this year and none of the creeks got their annual flush out. The whole area is certainly much drier than last time we were here. Check out my YouTube video at this link  https://youtu.be/5uxa_iU0U0U

We will certainly be stopping for a soak next time we are here.