A little bit of paradise found

Well we have departed the dirt roads for a bit and made the trip east through Roper Bar to Mataranka. The tar starts about 50 kms out of town and the boys were most certainly pleased. We couldn't forget a photo of Charlie and Ernie after over a 1000km on some pretty horrid dirt roads. 

Overall we did pretty well for the distance and compared to the experiences we had very few issues.  There is a separate blog coming that sums up our Savanna Way experience. 

Just after leaving Lorella there's a side road to the southern lost city campsite. We were looking to do the walk around he city which includes a lookout point. Glad we did as it was stunning. 

Some amazing scenery and helped. Urn off some of the pent up energy. 

The rest of the day was spent going through seemingly endless k's of dirt making our way through Roper Bar before heading due west for Mataranka. The boys were awesome in the car with not too much bickering. They knew the prize of getting of the dirt meant!

So we hit the tar thinking we will make Mataranka before sub down and skip a proposed overnight stop that we had planned, based on our experience getting to Lorella. It was all going swimmingly until we hit some road works, easy enough. They have a single strip of tar for many of these roads up north and they in the process of increasing the dual lane highway. The trick was that we timed driving on the detour just after the water truck. Now why the truck had to be there on a Saturday evening water down the roads is beyond me, but nonetheless we trueness Ernie from a red devil to a muddy red devil, just what we needed. 

Insert picture of muddy Ernie

So we dropped an overnight stay and swung into Bittr Springs park with only 3 sites left. It's a first come first serve basis.  We initially thought we would stay for 4 nights but the itch of the north has bitten and we might move in at three, not sure yet 

Our camp at Bitter Springs camp ground

You may ask why Bitter Springs when we are staying at Matarabka? Well the springs occur in a number of spy's in the area. We were informed by many that Mataranka was much more commercialised. These springs are far more natural and closer to the caravan park we are in. A little 600 metre walk and you can plunge into a 27 degree crystal clear stream and drift down to a set of stairs some 150 metres down stream!

This water is about 3 or 4 metres deep!

Clearly we not the only ones that know about it so the crowds to come and go. But we tend to hang for a few hours with the boys madly ducking and diving, spend more time below to the water than above. 

The water is hard to describe, even without goggles it is clear enough to see the distant blue and green hues of a crystal clear stream. 

We heading to Mataranka Springs tomorrow so we will be able to compare notes.   I didn't realise that it was part of the great Elsey NP, we will have to check out that as a place to stay on the way to WA in 2018!  Philpots, this will be a place to refresh for a day or so in our trip west for sure.