Did I tell you the weather is nice (although the wind is blowing hard most days) and it's good to be spending time with the kids, oh and the rivers and fishing holes are just beautiful, we have had picnics on the river banks and did lots of fishing but so far no luck.
On our way here we mostly free camped along the way but did have a few days stop over at Mt Isa and Katherine where we met up with Stuart and Alex, they had been in Melbourne for a week with sixteen school kids and a few other teachers and flew back to Darwin then drove their school bus down to Katherine, had a night there and then home to Kalkaringi last Monday with us following along, the roads pretty good, turned south off the Victoria Highway onto the Buntine, dual lane till we got to Top Springs, didn't see any springs but there was a roadhouse/pub and diesel for $2.20!
The next 170k's was single lane and pretty ordinary but the scenery was very good and in places we could see for miles, light scrub and grass everywhere, this is cattle country at it best.
We did not expect to much of Kalkaringi and we were not dissappointed, lots of dust, lots of rubbish everywhere, lots of unkept houses and as mentioned earlier, dogs on the roads, there is one shop that sells basis supplies and fuel, $2.30 here, a Health Centre, School, Arts Centre, Police Station, Council Chambers and Depot, Solar operated Power Station, Airport for light arcraft (a one way ticket to Katherine is $2,000.00) and a "Club" that opens nightly at 5.00pm, dress code is shorts, shirt and thongs, you have to sign in and you must have at least $20 in your pocket, we went last Friday, it was quite busy as it was "pay" day, no children are allowed in so they play outside the fence and keep yelling to mum to by them some tucker which if they are successful is duly tossed over the fence to them, the battle for food for kids here is a real problem especially in school holidays, on school days they are fed if they attend classes, a pretty good insentive to go.
Apart from dogs there is also mobs of wild donkeys and horses wandering all over the place, Lucille heard a disturbance one night and as Lucille does went to investigate and several brumbies wandering around our van so they were duly evicted to the street.
A few k's North of Kalkaringi is another community called Daguragu, we went for one drive there, won't bother going back
On Saturday we celebrated Christmas big brunch and hot evening meal of pork, ham vegies and all the trimmings followed by plum pudding and various other deserts, we had a great day.
So back to the highlights of the place, catching up with our family, Christmas Celebrations and our river bank picnics.
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