#25: Pub Crawling Down The Track - Northern Territory, Australia ...

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In the end I spent eight days in Darwin. I woke up to leave on Sunday, 6 October 2002. I had just had the best night of my stay in Darwin and staggered to the Mitchell Street Bus depot very hungover, having had only two hours sleep. The Wayward Bus arrived promptly at 7am and out spilled our guide for the next four days. Lee was dominative in stature with ferret-like features, so it came as no surprise to find he has a nickname of Rat. He was dressed in khaki shorts, olive green bush shirt emblazoned with his company's logo, typical attire for guides working on these types of tours. At the end of Rat's skinny legs were the inevitable dusty pair of Chelsea boots. Worn with shorts and heavy socks these elasticized boots are preferred by the local guides.

The trailer was quickly overloaded with the packs of my 17 co-passengers and the rear seat of the coaster bus given over to the excess boxes and bubble wrapped didgeridoo's. We said farewell to Darwin and made our way through the town's outer suburbs with neat white houses and tidy gardens. I noticed a sign that said 'Alice Springs - 1470 km' - man, now that is a long, long way away. Almost immediately we picked up the Stuart Highway, "the Track" as it is referred to by Territorians; there is not much else heading out of Darwin.

The Track was named after a slight (he was just over five feet tall), Scottish soldier, John McDowell Stuart who in the mid-1800's pioneered a telegraph route through the continent's interior. After two abortive attempts when Stuart was effectively blinded by the harsh bright sunlight and crippled by bouts of scurvy you would think that his confidence would have been a bit bashed. Not Mr Stuart, in 1861-2 with delirious horses, distressed men and a extreme stroke of luck by finding some brackish water at Daly Waters they finally made it to the Timor Sea. Within a decade a telegraph line was strung up and the young town of Darwin founded, putting Australia at last in contact with the rest of the world. During WWII the track was sealed to facilitate the transport of soldiers and supplies to Darwin. Today the road is well maintained and fully paved all the way down to Adelaide, even though most Sydneysiders are ignorantly blissful of this fact.

All the passengers on this trip had quickly and inevitably polarised into our rough national groups. At the back there were the Scandinavians, consisting a young Danish couple, a single Danish guy and a weird looking Finnish couple who looked like they had been reading a book called 'How to dress for the harsh outback and still look like complete tossers'. The middle seats had been commandeered by the British contingent of two guys and a couple from England and surprisingly three Scotsmen - actually one man and two women. There was a pair of Germans (not a couple) near the front, a Japanese and a Canadian, both girls. As a South African I was immediately accepted into the Pom contingent but felt I had more affinity with our Australian guide.

Before taking the long road down to Alice Springs we had a detour to make into the Litchfield National Park. About 25 km out of Darwin our bus took a south west right turn off the Track onto the Cox Peninsula Road. We entered the park on an unpaved back road, nearly colliding with a couple of bounding wallabies as they crossed the road a few feet from the front of the bus and certain death. Once in the park proper we soon arrived at the Wangi Falls for a refreshing early morning swim. These falls are Litchfield's most popular site for weekend day trippers from Darwin. Although still a bit early already at the pools was one other tour bus and a few couples. This is a beautiful tranquil spot surrounded by tropical rainforest, two waterfalls tumbling down the edge of the Tabletop Range, a plateau which runs through Litchfield. Off to the right hand side is a boardwalk through to trees with a platform overlooking the picturesque falls and hundreds of fruit bats hanging from the tall eucalyptus trees.

Refreshed and fully awake we continued on a loop through the park. Now the excitement really hotted up. Although I had seen a frill-necked lizard from afar whilst on my tour in Kakadu, this time we were in for a close encounter with one of these tiny, beastly looking reptiles. Rat spotted the lizard hanging from a tree and with screeching brakes hopped from the bus and used the trunk of the tree to shield himself from the 'frilly' as he approached. A sudden lurch and Rat caught the lizard by the tail and in no time had him safely pinned with both hands. Back on the bus we inspected this miniature dinosaur-like creature close up with its long claws and Elizabethan frilly cuff around its neck. When threatened this cuff can be flared, like it's beastly giant cousins ala Jurassic Park, to scare off impending danger. After posing for many photos on a nearby tree trunk, and without impressing us with its frill-neck the animal had had enough and took off, sprinting on its hind legs.

Then it was off to the equally stunning Florence Falls for more swimming. This time a platform overlooks from a dizzying height a panoramic view of the creek over the edge of the escarpment into the pool below. Again there are two waterfalls at Florence Falls that dump into a relatively shallow and rocky plunge pool. After the obligatory photos and the appearance of another lizard we made our way down the 140 steps for another swim and relief from the ever increasing heat of the day.

A short ride upstream brought us to our lunch stop at Buley Rockhole, a series of swimming holes connected by mini rapids. Whilst Rat prepared our lunch we made our way down to the pretty waterfalls and found our own spot amongst the rockholes to swim and relax. Now, at last the group was beginning to relax with one another whilst soaking and the subsequent eating of our chicken lunch. Even the national barriers were broken down as the various groups started to intermingle.

Still there was more to do in Litchfield Park. After lunch we stopped at a spot where we could view the Termite Mounds. Imagine thousands of termite mounds standing up to two metres high. The mounds' thin edges point north-south while their broad backs and fronts face east-west. It's really a built-in temperature control mechanism, the blind and silent termite architects design allow only the smallest possible area to ever be exposed to the sun. We were now deep in the park and looking across these fields of eerie-looking, grey headstone-like mounds gives the impression of being in some tropical jungle cemetery.

Nearby we found giant mounds built by cathedral termites, so named because of these cathedral-style mounds. Seriously, these things are huge, and tough - a swift kick will more likely result in a broken toe than a squashed termite. The termites build them up, about one meter every ten years, with the local dirt and saliva. They compliment the underground termite tunnels, which fan out for up to 80 meters creating an interconnecting network between the mounds. During the Wet (the rainy season) the ground is often saturated, the little termites are safe and dry at the top of their mound. So, the bigger, the better.

The type of termites found here are the wood termites, which build their mounds on and through the Woollybutt (a eucalyptus, of course) tree. The whole tree is eaten out by these termites. These termites can be quite destructive if they find their way into the rafters and beams of houses. But these busy little 'mites are responsible for Australia's most characteristic musical sounds because it is from the hollowed trunks and branches of the woollybut tree that most didgeridoos are made.

Finally our loop through the park took us out through another gate at Batchelor and back onto the Stuart Highway where we turned right for the long journey south down the track. I was getting worried and a bit thirsty by this stage. It was mid-afternoon and we were now in for a long haul to reach our final destination for the day. We still had no beers or ice on the bus and we had a long night of camping ahead of us. As if reading my mind, a short drive down the Track Rat stopped to fuel up the bus at Adelaide River, explaining this was the perfect opportunity to stock up with refreshments for the evening. There was an interesting pub at the Shady River Caravan Park with a large stuffed buffalo, a film star from the Crocodile Dundee movie.

We put some serious mileage in before arriving at the Edith Falls, just before the town of Katherine. The prospect of long stretches of travel didn't seem so daunting. Chatting to the new found friends on the bus, or reading, made the trip pass most pleasantly. It was dusk and with darkening skies most people scrambled up a small rocky hill to witness the sunset. I chose to photograph the agile wallabies that hopped around digging for roots. That evening after a hearty campfire meal and a few thankfully cold beers I turned into my swag exhausted and fell asleep under the spectacular southern night sky. At around 4am I awoke and saw the Southern Cross (it rises at around 3am this time of year). It was so familiar and comforting to see after so travelling so long in the north of the equator.

Next morning we were up with the sun and soon on our way into the town of Katherine. We entered the town over a tall bridge spanning the Katherine River and glancing across to an old railway bridge I noticed the markings up the pylons reaching a height of 18m. In January 1998 this river burst its banks and not for the first time flooded the town and surrounding areas. The water was so high (up to 2m) down the main Katherine Terrace it was reaching the overhanging eves of the shopfronts around town.

We headed east out of the town for about 12km until we came to the Nitmiluk National Park, which encompasses one of the Northern Territories big three, Katherine Gorge (the other two being Uluru and Kakadu). Andy, one of the English guys, and I chose to team up for a morning of canoeing up and down this impressive river. After a brief safety talk explaining the rules of this waterway - there are tourist boats which ply up and down the gorge which tend to ignore canoeists frantically trying to paddle out of their path - we secured our paddles, waterproof barrel and life jackets, which were never to be worn. At the river bank we were assigned our small yellow plastic canoe. As we headed off upstream at a mean pace, Andy and I being the largest guys from our tour, the testosterone levels in our boat were at an all time high.

Paddling upstream the riverbanks are covered with freshwater mangroves and river pandanus palms. These are interspersed with high sandy riverbanks where signs warned us off because of nesting freshwater crocodiles. Very soon the cliffs of the gorge rose high above our heads and the terrain became very rugged. Katherine Gorge is actually a series of 13 gorges separated by rockbars, the difference between the wet and dry seasons is staggering, the river is placid and calm during the Dry, becoming a raging torrent during the Wet. Swimming in the gorge is safe, freshies don't attack people and will only give you a nasty bite when aggravated or annoyed.

The sun was by this time getting hot so it was with relief after about an hour of paddling we came to the first rockbar blocking our path. Here we had to portage the canoes about 40-50m across smooth, slippery boulders and shallow pools. Working as a highly efficient team we soon had all the canoes of our group, and one or two boats from other friendly tourists into the second gorge. This was the most spectacular gorge, the one most featured in postcards and brochures. The sheer cliffs rise straight up and the river has carved a narrow band between these monoliths. Our half day canoe hire could only allow us to explore as far as this gorge, so after taking photos of our impressive surroundings Andy and I swam and relaxed along a rocky ledge whilst others exerted themselves by paddling to the next rockbar.

Canoeing was a great way of exploring this remote and beautiful place. For the more adventurous, and with heaps of time on their hands, the canoes can be hired for overnight trips into the fifth, sixth or even eighth gorge. The journey back was pretty tiring with the portage section being particularly difficult in the midday sun and the last long flat river seemed to carry on forever through the mangroves. As ever, Rat, our guide had prepared a lovely lunch which we ate amongst the shady trees in a picnic area at the Park's visitor centre. Luckily, we had some beers left over from the previous evening and still ice cold, they really went down well after the excursions of the morning.

After lunch we only had a relatively short 100km drive down the Stuart Highway to reach the town of Mataranka - pronounced Mad Wanker, oops, I misheard Rat's strong Australian accent. We camped about 7km off the main road at the Mataranka Homestead Resort. Here we found at the junction of the Roper and Waterhouse rivers a thermal spring which feeds water at a constant 34°C into a crystal clear pool surrounded by a tropical rainforest of luxuriant pandanus trees. This certainly was a veritable oasis, a perfect place for weary travellers to rest for the night. Some years back the vegetation around this tranquil place was indiscriminately and stupidly burned to alleviate the problem caused by the overpopulating fruit bats. The ineffectiveness of this exercise was borne out at dusk when thousands upon thousands of fruit bats took to the air for an evening of foraging and feeding. The air was thick with the mass exodus of these 'flying foxes' creating an eerie but very engrossing spectacle.

With camp set up, Rat surprised us by producing a feast for dinner. Kangaroo burgers and beef sausages which I immediately offered to cook over the fire coals. Also, camp bread baked in a pot over the fire and Ratascuny - creamy potatoes with paprika and grated cheese heated though so the cheese melts. The ooh's and aah's of appreciation from us hungry passengers were heard long into the night. Being well fed, a large group of us made our way to the resort's pub where a Country and Western theme night was underway. These outback locals certainly know how to throw a party on a Monday night. Dress code seems to be dirty vests, tight denim shorts and flip flops. Of course, this wouldn't be outback Australia if the males didn't all sport some hideously dodgy hairstyles, mullets, wiry ponytails and a wrinkly old Rod Stewart look-alike sported God-awful dreadlocks.

We were eventually thrown out of the pub at 11 pm which was closing time. Undeterred, Rat lead us down to the thermal pools for a midnight swim in the warm waters. Matt, one of the Scots, even kindly offered to fetch some cold beer. Much jollying and drinking was had well into the wee hours of the morning. I spent a restless night in my swag, an overhead light kept on randomly illuminating the campground, the mosquitoes were carnivorous, and as if things couldn't get worse, just before dawn a few drops of rain started to fall.

Getting up with a heavy head - again - is not an ideal way so start the morning, especially at the crack of dawn. Today was going to be a day when we were to put some heavy mileage down the Track. Breaking camp we were soon on our way. Now we were moving from the tropical region in the north of the Territory to the more arid region in the red centre. The road becomes a taut, thin line stretching to the horizon and the surrounding landscape slowly changes to a boundless nothing, punctuated by low bush or small trees. The sky was so blue and huge. This journey would for normal people be endlessly long, mindless and boring. But Rat and his friends at Wayward Bus have come up with the perfect marketing ploy for us backpackers, because we were, of course not, normal. At still impossible distances along the road the monotony is broken by the odd settlement or roadhouse. At these clumps of sunbaked building you will invariably find a hotel with an attached pub. Today we were going pub crawling down the Track. So with a feeling of anticipation we set off with the bus stereo blaring, appropriately settling with an Aussie theme, 'Beds are Burning' by Midnight Oil and Men at Work's 'Down Under'.

First stop, Larrimah, where the tallest bar in the Northern Territory is located. I suppose it makes sense that the pubs along the way have to have some angle to attract prospective customers, claiming to be the longest, fattest, dirtiest, or just plain pub with no feature whatsoever. At one time the train line from Darwin ended just south of here but it was abandoned after the devastation of Cyclone Tracy. All that remains is a dusty museum, old abandoned WWII machine parts and this pub run by volunteers. The beer here seemed to have lumps in it and didn't go down well, or maybe it was because it was before 9am and I was still feeling the effect of last night's overindulgence.

One and half hours further down the Track we rolled into Daly Waters, population 13. Interestingly, this backwater has pride and place on every world map. This is due to the fact that in the early days of commercial aviation the airfield at Daly Waters was used by the infant Qantas (interestingly it was here I found out that Qantas stands for Queensland And Northern Territory Air Services) airline for refuelling and overnight stopovers. These days Daly Waters is most famous for its outback pub, which despite its remoteness is packed to the rafters every evening. It was only mid-morning but the pub was full of tourists, like us, who had come to take refreshment at this phenomenal place.

Inside the staff were all ageing, rugged Australians typical of this area. They were all dressed similarly as if in some type of outback uniform: flip-flops, skin hugging faded singlets and tight cut-off denim shots. The walls of most outback pubs are adorned with mementos left by previous travellers. But every inch - walls, rafters, posts - of the interior of this pub was covered with various trinkets. Bank notes, driving licences, bumper stickers, cloth badges, etc. were everywhere. Even many articles of underwear, male and female, hung from the rafters. I was later told the only way to leave this pub after loosing a game of pool by 7 balls is to shout the bar a round of drinks or leave an article of underwear. In the spirit of the moment I left a R20 (about $2) note scribbled with some message for future passing South Africans and also attached my ugly photo. It's on the beam between the pool table and the bar.

After (too) many beers it became time for us to reluctantly leave. In a fit of co-solidarity, six of us lads of the bus decided to buy us each one of the skin tight Daly Waters singlets. This caused much amusement and photo taking and delayed our departure somewhat from this most wonderful watering hole.

Pushing further on we had lunch at a little truck stop town called Elliot and stopped again for more beers at Renner Spring. It is generally accepted that this is where the imaginary dividing line between the tropical north and the arid centre is crossed. We were really burning off the kilometres now, at Attack Creek, where Stuart was attacked by Aborigines and turned back during one of his attempts to cross the interior, this did not even warrant a stop. We breezed into and through Tennant Creek, along with Katherine one of only two places worthy of the name town.

An interesting story here is that the settlements, and subsequent pubs, along the Stuart highway were established approx. every 200km, around the old repeater telegraph stations. At Tennant Creek the town is 20km short of the telegraph station. This is reportedly because the truck carrying the beer up the Track broke down beyond repair, so this is where the drivers decided to make themselves comfortable, consuming the freight, and so the town was born. Tennant Creek prospered when a minor gold rush brought rapid development. The open-cut mine was closed in 1985 but the refinery still processes ore from smaller operations around the area.

By late afternoon we were still bombing down the Track, by this stage most of the inhabitants of the bus were dozing from a hard day's pub crawling. We had to stop to collect firewood and witnessed a most spectacularly red sunset. It was as if the sun had given up on its toiling across the sky heating the earth to an almost unbearable temperature and now just dropped to the ground, whilst the horizon just extended far out in the background. That's how big and vast the land seems out here.

Our last night out in the Outback was spent at the Devil's Marbles. As we drove in through the pitch darkness I could barely make out shadowy large boulders looming along the side of the dust track. The campsite was very popular with campervans and other tour buses. A chill wind had picked up, making conditions just a tad uncomfortable but not unpleasant. Nevertheless our group all worked together to set up camp, start the camp fire and prepare the supper of chicken burritos. It was as if no one wanted this thoroughly enjoyable trip to come to an end. After supper we sad around chatting, drinking more beer, playing someone's souvenir didgeridoo and some of the girls, along with one English lid (sic) even started singing camp songs.

At the crack of dawn, even before sunrise I was woken by scurrying Spinifex and Crested pigeons. I got up to climb some of the larger nearby boulders to witness the red dawn. This morning we were luckily treated to a double dose as the sun rose above the horizon then disappeared behind a solitary cloud before 'rising' a second time. In the daylight I could see why this place is called the Devil's Marbles. Stretching out across the plain below were haphazard piles of giant spherical boulders of all sizes. These monolith granite stones, some as big as houses are not a result of some immense building project but rather the breaking down, by wind and water erosion, of a layer of granite rock deposited here millions of years ago. The whole 1800 hectare area was covered with these rock shapes, some balanced impossibly on top of one another. The place was fabulous as we wandered about discovering (and photographing) a new rounded shape around every corner.

With our camp packed up for the last time we had one last push down the Stuart Highway to make before we hit Alice Springs. As we drove I daydreamed. The landscape around me with its brown grass and low scrub and small trees was reminiscent of the African bush. Surely this would be perfect habitat for similarly large grazing herds like we have across the African plains. Where were the herds of Australian Bovine or Outback Buck? In turn these would become food for large predatory cats like the Central Desert Jaguar. Then it dawned on me, the reason none of these fictitious animals had evolved on this seemingly vast and fertile land was simple. Spinifex. This grass grows in closely packed clumps across the whole of the Australian outback and although it gives the impression of good grazing land this grass is useless.

Spinifex is probably the world's only wholly non-edible grass. It can also torment men and animals with its needle-like points that are tipped with silica. When brushed up against, these tips break off and work their way into the skin and can fester into irritating sores. I was gathering some of this tinder dry grass to start a fire and felt the irritating pin pricks in the palm of my hand.

As we drove, the land took on a red Martian-like appearance. The trees got even smaller or non-existent. The red earth was evident on the now stunted termite mounds, the clever blighters preferring to build their nests mostly under the cool earth away from the harsh heat of the sun.

Continuing with the pub crawling theme of the previous day we made an early stop at Wycliffe Well, using an unusual angle of claiming to be the UFO capital of Australia. This is due to the uncanny number of UFO sightings made in the area.

Then it was another 100km before we got our next beer at Barrow Creek. Here we found another quaint outback pub full of memorabilia and a couple of locals having an early morning tipple. Barrow Creek has also been very much in the news this past year. In July 2001 Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees were abducted on an isolated stretch of road near here. Bound in makeshift handcuffs, Joanne miraculously escaped. But despite one of Australia's biggest manhunts, to this day no-one knows what knows what has happened to her boyfriend or, for that matter, his killer.

Joanne Lees found herself the subject of numerous rumours suggesting that she was responsible for the crime. She was subjected to intense interrogations and the Australian police were unwilling to allow her to return home. Her remarkable escape from the back of her attacker's pickup truck and hiding in the bush just metres from where the killer was searching for her plus the lack of definite tracks around the crime scene was used to discredit her story. Miss Lees was later exonerated of any involvement in the crime and returned home to England. The latest news is that a suspect has been arrested, for another unrelated murder, in far off New South Wales.

Traffic on the Track is sparse at the best of times, maybe one car or truck approaches from the other direction every 30 minutes. The irony is that the empty monotony of travel down this road causes driver fatigue so two cars approaching one another can be the only two cars for hundreds of km and there is a real chance of a collision as one tired driver veers into the oncoming lane. We did often see huge multi-trailered road trains. These beasts are impressively long, up to 50m is legal. They travel easily at speeds in access of 100km/h. Now that is a lot of metal hurtling towards you, the air is sucked from your lungs as the road trains passes and you hit the displaced air that follows. If you get hit by one of these machines you stay hit. The number of dead kangaroo carcasses that litter the roadside attest to this fact.

With one last fuel stop in Ti Tree we had just 200km remaining of our epic journey down the Track. Eventually the low McDonnell Ranges loomed up on the horizon and just after 2pm our little tour bus rolled into Alice Springs. I don't mean to harp on a point but the distances that we covered between Darwin and Alice are huge, across some of the most desolate and harshest land. Our guide, Rat was wonderful and the group I travelled with perfect companions. A most enjoyable, albeit long, trip.

Questions? If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our Australia Insiders page.

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