It wasn’t far out of Mataranka that our bitumen road narrowed to one lane with the obligatory sign warning us to get off of the road when we saw a bigger truck coming the opposite direction! I am not quite sure what else anyone would ever do other than get out of the way but I guess enough people have opted for a game of chicken with a 50m long truck in the past to warrant the sign. Not a game I fancy playing but luckily we would have only passed a dozen of other travellers all of whom slowed and waved as we passed throughout the day.
Our first 100km was on bitumen but after that our route was to be on dirt and while we thought we might get away with not deflating our tyres we soon realised that the sensible thing to do would be to stop and deflate to lessen the risk of a puncture. In order to avoid rummaging around and pulling out our compressor and then parking at an angle so we can reach our trailer tyres we have a nifty little gadget that lets the air out of the tyres to your preferred level. Easy. Well it should have been.
There is a definite order of screwing and pulling out valves that must be followed and I must admit that I didn’t. The result of which was me pulling off the nifty gadget to discover that I had unscrewed the valve which was nowhere to be seen and instead air was rapidly exiting the tyre. Needless to say there followed a fair amount of rummaging around the ute while tyres were changed and re inflated before the valve was miraculously found and put back in then tyres re inflated and replaced before all were deflated. If it’s exhausting reading this I apologise but it was a little more tiring in the heat and the dust on the side of a road near the middle of nowhere!
The last bit of the journey went without a hitch.
We arrived at our proposed campground just as another couple were leaving. They had decided that it was too un safe and the toilets were too dirty. They suggested we didn’t stay and went on with them to the next place but we said we would stay as our standards were probably a little lower. To be fair the place looked great. Plenty of space and the whole campground to ourselves!
We had to check in at the Roper Bar store which we set off to do. It was a one stop shop run by a great guy called Robbo. We had a great chat checking in and he certainly had some stories to tell. The store itself had a lot of frozen meat and canned goods for sale and he informed us that last year (as often happens) that the rains and floods mean that the store is completely cut off for months on end and that whoever is manning the store has to survive on what is here! He jovially told us that his business partner drew the short straw last year and was isolated for 4 months!
To be fair we were the only people camping the first night and this is the busy season!
Our first evening was spent eating dinner cooked over the coals stargazing all by ourselves. Perfect.
The next day we decided to take a walk to the Roper Bar which is a river crossing. While the river looked absolutely inviting for a swim there was no way we would be due to the crocs. We instead took our chairs and thought we would find a spot to sit on the bank and watch the wildlife in our splendid isolation.
No sooner had we sat down when another couple arrived with their huge setup. Massive ute, massive caravan, boat on top, matching paintwork and to top it off a personalised logo which adorned the ute, the caravan and the boat. Out stepped the couple wearing (and I am not joking) matching T-shirts with the logo too!
Now just at this time up pulls another monstrous tour truck out of which descended 20 people on a trip from Darwin! I am not sure if they were employed by the first couple to provide a crowd of onlookers but it was suddenly very busy down at the Roper Bar in the middle of nowhere.
We sat just away on the bank watching and eating nuts.
The logo couple proceeded to get out their drone and video themselves crossing the bar back and forth before hurrying off in a cloud of dust. The tour bus also did four crossings to ensure everyone got to take photos from both sides and then too left back towards civilisation.
That just left us sat on the bank laughing as to how we were just feeling so isolated when we were reminded that we really are not far from the beaten track at all.
We walked back to camp where we found another couple had decided to stay the night and after a nice chat with them we relaxed once again to enjoy the beauty of the Northern Territory nights. T