A long, boring driving day yesterday. We were going well so decided to push through from Tennant Creek all the way to Mataranka – 560k in all. We arrived late in the afternoon into Bitter Springs/Mataranka, set up quickly and walked down to the thermal springs which were fantastic. The water gushes out of the ground at quite a speed (and warm) so there’s a current which pulls you along from where you hop in, to where you hop out, walk back around and do it all again. We brought goggles/snorkels so could see the little fishes in the water and I even spotted a couple of turtles. Daniel wasn’t so keen on all the green slimy weed everywhere, but it most places it was so deep that I couldn’t stand up and the water was crystal clear so it was a great way to end the day – we haven’t had showers for a little while and the weather’s pretty warm so it was badly needed.
It turns out that the drive yesterday might have been a bit too much for the car – we got all packed up this morning to find the battery flat. Not from leaving any lights on or anything like that, just flat. We tried jumping it off our second car battery, off our trailer battery, and even off another traveller’s battery but nothing. So now we’re testing out our upgraded super dooper covering all contingencies NRMA membership and waiting for someone to come and help. Luckily Mataranka is only 5k away (good thing we’re not in the middle of nowhere) and it only really needs to get us 100k to Katherine. I’m kind of glad that it all happened before going into Litchfield NP or Kakadu, which might have been harder to get out of. We have the trailer booked in in Katherine for new suspension which was supposed to happen today, maybe tomorrow now, so this could be an expensive couple of days!
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