We are on holiday!

Thursday 21st July

The benefit of arriving relatively early yesterday is that we feel like we have already done a bit, and couldn’t quite believe we didn’t have to just pack up and go this morning! Richie cooked crepes so we had a nice relaxed breakfast. We spent a little bit of time trying to organise the car and trailer while the kids played in the palms. Otis’ eye has thankfully recovered, looking perhaps a little swollen still, probably from all the rubbing, but no longer bothering him. Such a relief!

We headed to Mataranka pools mid-morning – another place I visited with my family as a 10 year old, and remember fondly. Of course 32 years on and things have changed quite a bit! Mataranka pools have been turned into a swimming pool, to try to control the damage the high visitation was causing to the natural environment. The pool has been formally edged, and the vicinity paved. This does make sense – the pools must get many thousands of visitors every year, it would put enormous pressure on the banks and vegetation. I can see the same issues arising at Bitter Springs, and I wonder if a similar approach will end up being used there eventually. Though that would be sad, it is so beautiful to swim amongst the natural vegetation.

We had a long swim there – Bonnie has quickly gained confidence and was happy to spend the whole time snorkeling without a floatation device. The formalised edges also meant she always had somewhere to go and hang on if needed. Richie and I continued to exhaust ourselves chasing after them!

We took a break from swimming and walked to rainbow springs and Stevie’s Hole, the latter being a bit hotter and further than we anticipated! Swimming is not allowed at either, though the threat of crocodiles was not enough to keep Richie out, after walking 1.2km in the sun, barefoot!

We returned to the pool and jumped back in for another swim – a departing family kindly donated some pool noodles to us (we looked for some to buy in the morning but they are sold out everywhere 😂), so we had a more relaxing swim this time! We somehow managed to convince the kids out of the water – by then it was 2pm, and we  had planned to lunch back at camp – dangerous territory with two hungry, tired kids! Thankfully there were no hangry mishaps, probably because we could promise the packet of emergency french fries in the car (thanks Grandpa for introducing those to the kids! 😆).

We had lunch back at camp, then again did nothing else, feeling totally exhausted by our walking and swimming efforts! We had half planned to go see a whip-cracking show at Mataranka homestead at 8:45pm, but the thought of keeping the kids up that late, and driving somewhere, meant it quickly lost appeal!