DAY 55 ON THE MOVE TODAY – EDITH FALLS AND BACK TO KATHERINE…

An early start this morning as we had over 300kms to travel today and we wanted to have a stop in at Edith Falls for a swim.

We stopped at Batchelor to take some photos of the Castle that was built on the rock in the main part of town, and read all about Bernie Havlik, who had built the castle, as a replica of Karlstejn Castle from his home country of Czechoslovakia.   

 Whilst working with the town gardening crew, Bernie was frustrated by the large rocky outcrop located under the castle replica.  It was too large to move and difficult to maintain in a tidy condition.

His retirement in 1977 did not mean the end of his work.  In 1978, he commenced construction of the unique construction.  The construction of the replica Karlstejn Castle solved the problem of the exposed rock outcrop in the park.  Havlik worked on the construction for five years.   He continued to add finishing touches, and carry out repairs until his death in 1990.  

By the time we got to Pine Creek, we were all ready to stretch our legs and have a toilet break, so we stopped at the local park there.

  Steve was still bitterly disappointed that he missed the hot made pies the last time we had passed through Pine Creek a couple of weeks previously.  He thought he would give it one last shot at locating these illusive pies, and was successful this time.  He found them at the old railway carriage hotel, and they were picked up from the Post Office there.  Unusual thing to come out of a post office.  

The pies were expensive at $7.50 each.  They would want to have been good.  Fortunately they were, large chucks of meat no mush, so he was at least feeling a little justified at spending so much on a homemade pie.  Were they really worth that much, not so sure…

You see lots of road trains like this in the NT.

From Pine Creek, we pushed on to Edith Falls arriving there around lunchtime. 

We only had time for a quick dip, as we still had a good hour to get to Katherine, and we needed to do a very quick shop, find our accommodation at Manbulloo and get some washing done all before the end of the day.

Edith Falls

The falls are no where near as impressive as those in Litchfield NP.

Great swimming here though

Edith Falls, was lovely, the swimming area was much bigger than Wangi Falls, but I still think I prepared the actually setting of Wangi Falls.  The waterfalls at Edith Falls was not a large waterfall at all.  Apparently, the rock pools at the top of Edith Falls are quite spectacular, but we just didn’t have the time to do the walk up to them, and especially not in the heat of the day.

Edith Falls and the bottom pool

Steve and I at Edith Falls.

The camping area looked good, similar to Wangi Falls, with hot and cold showers, and flushing toilets and it didn’t appear to be full, which must mean that the season up here is coming to an end, as we were told to be there by 8.30am if we wanted to camp there as the park fills quickly.

When we left Katherine to head north we came across these amazing rock formations not far out of Katherine but we had passed them before we got a photo.  We didn't worry too much as we knew we had to come back to Katherine so decided to stop and photograph them then.  They were really quite different as they were almost black,  certainly a different colour to all the other rock formations we had seen around here....

 
It was after 1.30pm by the time we left Edith Falls.  We had heard about a caravan park situated  on a cattle station about 9kms out of Katherine on the Victoria Highway called Manbulloo, which was also considerably cheaper than any of the caravan parks in Katherine. 

 We had stayed previously at the Shady Lane Caravan Park, and whilst it was lovely, it was also about 13 kms out of Katherine and had cost us $46 a night. 

 Manbulloo Homestead was only $35 a night and set right on the banks of the Katherine River.  Whilst the amenities weren’t as new as the Shady Lane Caravan Park, they were still pretty good and very clean and tidy.    We loved our stay here.

We also met some lovely folk who had more suggests of places to stay as we headed west. 

Before heading out to Manbulloo, we stopped in Katherine, and whilst Steve and Ian fuelled up, Kathy and I headed to Woolies to stock up on the essentials, like bread and milk.  We didn’t want to buy too much, especially fruit and vegetables as we would have to surrend it at the border.  

We arrived at Manbulloo just after 4pm, and it was a race to set up and get to the Laundry.  By the time we got the washing on the line it was 5pm, and I felt pretty confident that we would be using the dryers to get it all dry that night….

Whilst Kathy and I got the washing done, the boys walked down to the river to see the Cassades.   

By the time we had cooked and eaten our dinner,  it was 7pm, and I went and grabbed some coins to use to dry our clothes, but when I went to take them off the line, they were actually all dry anyway.

We were able to remain hitched to our vehicles which was good because it meant that we could get away pretty early in the morning.