Good-bye to brother Peter and Rob in the morning. They headed off to get the Toyota’s fuel line cleaned before heading home to Longreach via the Boroloola Road that we had just come up. At the end it turned out their ten days from home had taken them over 5000 km. The hardest part was the track in to the Western Lost City in Limmen National Park. The 25 km took the experienced farm bush driver 2 hours because it was seriously rough.

The rest of us packed up and set off up the Stuart Highway to Pine Creek. From here we would turn right (east) to Kakadu National Park.

The ride to Pine Creek was warm and without the tailwind that had blown us halfway from Mataranka to Katherine. The usual Stuart Highway hassle from grey nomads and 4WD not giving us as much room as we would like. Thankfully the trucks and road trains had more room and better sight lines which meant that they could give us the wide berth that they normally do.

Bruce came out of Emily Falls late but caught up to us at the information bay on the way into Pine Creek. He rose in our estimation when he produced a mandarine (tsatsuma) for each of us on the hot afternoon.

At the Pine Creek campground (there are three, one is a dusty dry bare block and was closed, the second was green, very luxurious, expensive and fully booked, the third at the pub had lots of room, green grass, a camp kitchen and was cheap. Deal done).  

While having our celebratory ice creams a French/(or German) cycle tourist appeared and did his last shopping before heading off to Katherine. He asked our opinion of riding to Uluru and then down to Adelaide or to keep going through the Great Central Road via Warburton and Laverton and Perth. Our general thoughts were that both were possible but he had better get the pedals moving and get it over quickly. It was already August and starting to warm up. I would want to be off the Great Central Road by mid-September, just to be comfortable. Riding in 30C+ is possible but makes water management more difficult.

We tried to convince this intrepid 40+ year old cyclist that riding in and out of shadows at dusk, on a major busy highway used by hundreds of road trains a day, WHILE WEARING BLACK LYCRA was BAD IDEA. Anyway we were unable to change his mind or his clothes and wished him luck as he headed out.

Chris O’B surprised us when he got off the bus from Katherine! He had been late back from Ntmiluk Gorge so dismantled his bike and caught the Greyhound bus up from Katherine. We kept his dinner warm while he re-assembled his bike on the servo forecourt.

At dinner we were ‘asked’ to move up the table so that a commerci

al camping tour group could eat together. Once settled the tour leader told us about a beautiful little known waterfall, the Moline waterhole,  just inside Kakadu National Park. ‘You’ll see a little grey mailbox on a small track on the north side of the road. Follow the track in for a kilometre and you’ll love it.’ Thanks mate. C U.

 

And he went off to read the riot act to his young campers. Basically ‘party all you like tonight but if your swag and you are not on the bus at 6 am in the morning, you will be staying here.’

To bed.