14. The one with Josh's birthday

Current weather: 34/18°C, sunny
Total distance travelled: 7827km (+288km)

We could have stayed in the overflow area at the Homestead, but the stories we'd heard about Little Roper Stock Camp convinced us to pack-up and relocate barely 1km down the road on our first morning in Mataranka. Despite feeling somewhat under the weather, we were not to be disappointed!

Little Roper was much smaller and quieter than the Homestead, but caters perfectly to families. Acacia and Josh were thrilled to finally see some other kids and quickly met some great playmates who they spent every spare minute with.

Des, our host is a busy man with an obvious love for his guests and his animals. An ex school principal, he is also the camp cook and town fire captain in the dry season, while serving as the ferry man and school teacher in the wet season. He provides endless entertainment at the farm, with a playground made from hay bales and slides, cattle, pigs, hens, a rooster whose internal body clock

needed some adjustment (crowing regularly from 3am onwards some nights), reptiles and sugar gliders. He also bakes bread daily and hosts campfire dinners about 4 nights a week!

Unfortunately, we'd picked up colds somewhere along the way and were unable to get COVID tested in Mataranka due to a lack of testing facilities (things are all a bit different in the NT!) so we very quickly settled into a relaxing daily routine that gave our bodies a chance to recover.

A typical day at the stock camp started at 8am with Billy Tea and Jonny cakes (cross between damper and doughnuts = delicious!) and chat with the other guests. At 9am, Des hosts a reptile show. (Or perhaps ‘Pass the Reptile’ would be a more accurate name?!) Des has a vast array of reptiles, ranging from a baby saltwater croc to pythons and blue tongue lizards that he gets out each morning. To our surprise, he would pull out a huge 2.8m long python and pop it around a kid’s shoulders and then disappear! One morning, Matt ended up facilitating the process of passing the snake around because Des was nowhere to be seen! All I could think of was the lack of safety briefing prior to the snake handling and the risk

assessment I would have to write to run such an activity with a school group back at home! Things are certainly relaxed here in the NT.The remainder of each morning was then spent riding bikes, playing on the hay bail playground or playing card and board games with fellow campers.

Afternoons were typically spent splashing around in one of the thermal springs in the area. Josh preferred Rainbow Springs, being more pool-like with its man made edges, as he could dive for sinky toys. The rest of us preferred Bitter Springs, which is longer, larger, more natural and suited to those who enjoy floating with the current on a pool noodle! It was a little unnerving that Bitter Springs had been closed a few weeks prior due to the presence of a croc, but we tried not to dwell on that fact!

Around 7:30pm, Des would ring the camp bell and campers would congregate by the squirrel glider enclosure, where we could hand feed them live worms and crickets, as well as fruit, although they preferred the live delicacies. Acacia immersed herself fully in this activity, however, Josh had pity on the worms and crickets and was therefore not so keen to participate!

We celebrated Josh's 8th birthday while staying here, adding a dinner visit to the Homestead to our daily routine. Entertainment was provided by The Repeat Offenders, a country, rock and

blues band with its lead guitarist of Australian Crawl fame. After the band, Nathan ‘Whippy’ Griggs performed one of his famous whip cracking demonstrations, complete with lots of ‘crack’ jokes, dancing, music and some seriously impressive skills, including cracking a whip that was on fire! It was a late night for the kids, but a fantastic and fun way to celebrate our special boy’s day.

Just when we thought our stay in Mataranka couldn't get any better, some friends who have been travelling on the road for 19 months with their 5 kids (1 of whom was one of Josh's best mates in kinder) rolled into camp, completely unplanned! We didn’t even know they were in the NT! We thoroughly enjoyed catching up with the Macreadie family and made plans to catch up with them again in Darwin.

All good things must come to an end, and we eventually pulled out of Mataranka just in time for a pre-booked tour of the Cutta Cutta Caves, which we'd almost forgotten about. These caves were very different to the lava tubes we'd seen previously - no smooth archways here, but plenty of stellagtites and stellagmites.

We arrived at Manbulloo Homestead in Katherine later that same day. It has buffalo, horses and cattle that the kids can feed. Acacia participated in the feeding of the cattle on the back of a ute one morning, where the kids all stand on the tray of the ute and the feed is spread around their feet for the cattle to eat. Again, thoughts of safety briefings and risk assessments filled my mind, but all who participated had a great time and none lost any toes that I know of!

Due to our symptoms, our stay in Katherine was not quite what we had planned. We booked the earliest available COVID tests and spent most of our time there in isolation in the van. While it was disappointing not to see Nitmiluk Gorge, we made the most of our time in by cleaning the van and car and doing some necessary school work with the kids.