Friday August 14

Now today was a day was a day!

It started well enough, I went for my walk unsuccessfully looking for the Limestone Creek that the camp ground was named after. Then we cleaned up showered and headed for Katherine. Now when we got to Katherine Elaine had to pick up her pain patches and thereby lies a tale, she had arranged to have her doctor fax the scripts,but here in the illustrious NT it is necessary to get the script for a local doctor. There are 3 in town, one had no appointments for 2 weeks, the other sometime next week maybe but the Aborigine Medical Service takes walk ins! So Elaine walked in waited 1 hour to see the triage nurse then another hour to see the doctor who took another hour to give her the script. The doctor had to phone our GP then Charlie's pain clinic, then Canberra to get permission to do the script. Does this or does this not sound like a well organised and efficient system?

Anyway while that was happening I fueled, watered and made some phone calls and waited and waited. Eventually it was all over and we shopped which included showing our ID to be able to buy grog. Heading south we have stopped for the night at the King River rest area which is literally next to the highway and nowhere near a river, but is quite a nice spot

Saturday August 15

Today was better after we made a leisurely start heading south, it feels good to say that because it means that we are entering virgin territory. After a short drive of about 70 kms we reached Mataranka and turned left to go to Bitter Springs, so named by an early explorer for the taste of the water. This is a thermal pool and we enjoyed our first swim in ages. There were a lot of people there and it is a well set up area. Then on to, wait for it, the Julmurak campground which is quite large, well set up and organised in a very nice setting on the banks of the Roper River. After setting up and having a rest we headed down to the river. A sign on the way said no swimming due to the possibility of crocs but it is a rather pretty river and for those who enjoy fishing is supposed to be full of barramundi. Unfortunately the walk tracks are soft sand so we didn't go far before retuning to our van. Pity about the crocs, a swim in the river would have been nice.