Mataranka Springs - April 2021

We left Daly Waters about 10am - check out time, and our first stop was Larrimah not very far up the road. 

There was a WWII airstrip, and we were to discover that there were many WWII airstrips along the highway.

There was a pink pub with a caravan park attached, that was fairly empty, so we read the Wiki Camp reviews and they were pretty bad and the prices seemed so expensive. 

Our aim for the day was to get to Mataranka Springs, 175 km north, and home of the Never Never fame.

The caravan park at the springs doesn't take booking for caravan sites, which is good for us as we don't like to book ahead - we don't always know where we will be each night - the beauty of being retired. We found a good site, one of the few that could get a satellite signal, settled in and headed to the hot springs. A short walk on a cleared path through the bush down to the most beautiful spring.

There were baby turtles on one side and some spiders, and the water was warm and yet refreshing.

The first pastoral claim in the area was Abraham Wallace, who in 1879 travelled from the Darling Downs in Queensland (like we did!) with a herd of cattle to his claim which he had named Elsey Station. Sadly Wallace committed suicide 8 years later and the property had a number of owners. In 1902, Aeneas Gunn and his wife Jeannie arrived. In March the following year, 1903, Aeneas died of dysentery and is buried close to the old homestead. Jeannie returned to Victoria and wrote her novel, "We of the Never Never", telling stories about the locals who lived there. A replica of the Elsey Homestead, built for the movie, is located at the entrance of the caravan park.

The caravan park has a cafe / bar that is open to the public and each day at midday they screen the movie We of the Never Never. The food was a bit expensive, drinks about normal for beer.

 The town of Mataranka is not far from the caravan park, about a 5 min drive, and consists of a pub, a food store, an oval, a park, and a government building with information centre and Never Never museum. Across the road from the info centre is a replica of an ant hill ....

..... and some interesting art works.

 

During WWII, over 100 units were stationed in and around Mataranka. The thermal springs were a good recreation activity the men and women stationed there. In 1946 Victor Smith saw the potential for a tourist attraction and started to build a resort to serve travellers. There are a few other hot springs in the area, we visited Bitter Springs, 

 

 which was a lot larger, but we preferred Mataranka Springs.