Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

18^th of September

We left the Nitmiluku national park and headed into Katherine to fill our Diesel tanks. Then we took the Stuart Highway north towards the Daly River road turn off. We wanted to enter the Litchfield National Park from the south. It’s a 4wd track that is about 32km long and hooks into the main bitumen road that runs through Litchfield. On the way we stopped for lunch at Pine Creek. There we went up to a Miners Lookout, which is above the town. It looks over a large lake, which is actually a filled open cut mine. It’s 135 meters deep and it took them 14 months to fill it!

Not far past Pine Creek we turned off the Stuart hwy onto the Daly Rivers area. Along the way we encountered some road works and had to wait about 15 minutes while they ironed out the new bitumen. We chatted to the girl with the lollipop stop sign and she told us she was making up to two grands a week, just standing there with the lollipop sign (Stop or Go Slow) and a UHF radio!! Sibba and I are in the wrong job!! Although she did say it was mentally quite boring!!

Once we got to the turn off for the 4wd track, I stopped and reduced the tyre pressure in preparation for the gravel track. While I was doing that, Sibba went and talked to the folks in another car that had just come off the track and they were airing up their tyres. They told Sibba that the track was fine, only one crossing at the Reynolds river that was a bit long and deep. So, something to watch our for when we get there!!

We then headed up the track. The first attraction along this track is called Surprise Creek. We stopped at the visitor car park and walked the short walk to it. It’s a very small waterfall but it has a very deep pool. We didn’t have time for a swim, so we went back and headed onwards.

We then drove through these magnetic termite mounds. They call them magnetic as they all seem to align themselves North to South. They are also very thin, but very tall, even taller than I! From a distance at the right angle, it looks like a cemetery with lots of tombstones!!

We then came to the Reynolds river crossing we had been warned about. There was another car coming the opposite way and initially I thought we had to wait for them to cross, but when they didn’t come I went out to check. As it turned out the two guys travelling were stuck in the middle of the river. They were towing a boat on a trailer and had hit a hole in the river bed. Thus they couldn’t move forward or backwards.
After some discussions I offered to winch them loose. However, when I checked my winch it didn’t work properly. I could spool in, but not out. Also, the free coupling didn’t free the drum. So there was no way to get that working in a short time. Thus I got one of my brand new ARB snatch straps and they had one as well. With those two, I reversed into the river and then snatched them free!. Once they were across, they waited for me to cross over before forging ahead. I had no problems crossing the river so onwards we went!.
We had decided to camp one night at a bush campsite called Sandy Creek. This is where one walks to a waterfall called Tjaynera Falls. After setting up camp, I proceeded to investigate the winch. I was keen to work out why it didn’t unspool. After ripping the solenoid apart, I found that one of the ground wires to one of the two solenoid coils was broken. This was the solenoid coil that is actuated when you spool out. I managed to take it apart and re-solder it back again!. Then it took a bit of logistics to re-assemble everything back again, working with a torch as it was pretty dark! In the end it all came together so I was quite happy. I un-spooled the whole rope (30 meters long!) around 9pm. Later on, I didn’t want to spool it in again as I didn't want to wake everyone up, plus I needed to have some load on the end of it. Thus I left it for the following morning. Although there were only three cars in the camping site, we could hear some other folks having a party. A very loud party that went on and on into the early morning. They had a guitar player, plus a didgeridoo that was being abused!! I don't think anyone in our camp was a happy camper that night.