Three days out of Alice Springs and we are in Katherine.  Living it up in 30 degree heat with shorts on in a Big Four caravan park, the Ritz if you are on the road.  We left the Alice on Sunday and drove out into blue stretched skies.  Beautiful country of Mulga,Spinifex, Wattle, Desert Oak. Central Australian Mallee and Ghost gums marking the creeks and waterways from a long way away. The road was hedged by this vegetation all the way to the Devils Marbles and until Dunmarra.  We saw eagles feasting on roadkill and after the Marbles, we saw only Kites circling in the skies.  For the first time, we are seeing roadkill, mostly cattle, until today from Dunmarra, we saw lots of wallabies killed.  The vegetation after Dunmarra, became taller and the forest more dense with the termite mounds increasing in number and size since the Marbles, they look like headstones in the bush from a long forgotten graveyard in the bush.  The marbles were right beside the road and were piled up like a giant playground. Left. Scattered.

Today we drove through Dalys Waters, best forgotten actually.  The service station had a helicopter on the roof, which had collapsed under the weight.  Says it all really!  We made a quick trip into the Mataranka Thermal Springs and wished we could have stayed there.  These springs occur naturally in the bush and run underground all the way to Mt Isa. There was a strong smell of sulphur in the air and the water temperature was 30 degrees.  It was not a commercialised site which made it all the more appealing.  There were pineapple palms and cycads in amongst the gumtrees. It was a heavily shaded site.

 We stopped briefly at Barrow creek. Another forget it site.  This is the old telegraph station, which had a jail out the back and stables from the old days.  This building was in better nick than the roadhouse.