Day 24 - 22 June - Larrimah Pub to Mataranka - 76 km

On our way before 7:30.  Covered the first 40 in under 2 hours.  Stopped at Warloch rest stop at the 40 km mark.  Good spot for overnight camping and cleaner dunnies than Larrimah pub.  Had a short break at 60 km and then pushed on to Mataranka.

We did pass the turn off we would have come out if we had of gone the Roper Bar route.

Nothing much open here because it is Sunday, but we got a good pork roll from a servo for lunch.  Lots of people in bathers who have obviously come from the springs.

We decided not to go out to the Mataranka Thermal Springs as it was 9 km out of town, but went to a caravan park that was next to Bitter Springs.

As we were going to the caravan park we saw another cyclist and caught up to him so say Gidday.  He was Carlo from Italy near Venice.  He is travelling around Australia and had started in Melbourne and had already done a lot of the east coast.  He looked very fit.

If you are confused about which is Carlo, he is the one in the flesh coloured shirt.

Set up camp beside the Little Roper River and then went to Bitter Springs to soak our aching muscles.  Caught up with Carlo again as he was leaving.










 The water was great, hot and clear. We sat around in the water and then floated downstream.  Lots of wrinklies and quite a few backpackers.

We went back to Mataranka and ordered some sandwiches for our lunch tomorrow as we will be doing a 120 km day to Katherine and will need heaps of energy.

 We had dinner at Territory Manor caravan park just down the road from where we are staying.  They have a restaurant and a 60s rock show.  Show was good but I cannot believe I was sitting there listening to Kenny Rogers and Neil Diamond covers with a bunch of 70+ year olds.  Not a bad show though and I knew all the words.

We had met a lady Maureen at the Daly Waters pool and had a few chats with her.  She got the singer to mention our names and the ride.  Good of her to embarrass us like that.  Here is Maureen and I doing a bad selfie.

Headed back to our campsite in the dark and managed not to run into any thing.  It was freezing riding on the bike so we are in for a cold night.