As we drive along the Barkly Highway, at the new found speed limit of 130 in the Northern Territory, it hits us that today’s drive will be much quicker than expected. Despite the occasional road train to overtake, we find it easy driving and surprisingly comfortable to cruise at 130km/h after only a few minutes of getting used to.
We stop for lunch at Barkly Homestead, literally in the middle of nowhere, and fill our stomachs and our fuel tank.
From here to Daly Waters is nothing but road, with very little worth stopping for, so we make the trip in record time and make up for the slower travel on dirt roads yesterday. In fact, we arrive with so much time that we decide to take a short detour to the "Stuart Tree", a signposted point of interest just prior to Daly Waters. As the tree itself is dead, and has been for over 40 years, this turns out to be a rather uninteresting point of interest, however it is well worth the detour to watch Doug literally lose it over how ridiculous dumb this "tourist attraction" really is.
Daly Waters is home of an iconic Australian outback pub, and our campsite for the night, but as soon as we check in we realise that the pub has a pool, so first things first- time for a pool beer!
The water is beautiful and refreshing and the pub is quirky in all the right ways.
The next morning we head into Katherine, eager to get our spare tyre replaced and stock up on supplies before our next segment of driving, but first we stop at the Mataranka Thermal Pools in Elsey National Park.
After a short walk through the caravan park we come to the crystal clear water of the natural thermal pools which have since been concreted in to enable access for tourists.
It is early the morning and we are the only ones here, so we decide to have a cheeky skinny dip before getting back on the road feeling very refreshed…
…and just a little bit smug about getting away with it.
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