Day 73

Day 73 Pine Creek

Girt in her hiddy hole

Our toilet block

Well today seemed to rush by but we have not gone that far and we only visited half a dozen things, ^st to catch up with Tony and Julie Snelling. Our thinking now is to stay at Pine Creek for the night and head up to Jabiru then across to Darwin. So we drove to Pine Creek. It was a nice drive and for once we were not surrounded by burnt out bush, this area was regrowing after a fire. We hit Pine Creek at 12 and at its hottest at 40c and picked the Lazy Lizard Tavern and Caravan Park, it just sounded like us, it also

Showers

old Gold mine

boasted a pool. The pool ended to be just a hole in the ground concreted and lined as a pool, nothing fancy here, this is a mining town! (Hawk and spit on the ground) there are a few options in town for accommodation and this one was the first we drove into.

but the day disappeared. We got under way from Katherine at 10 after a slowish get up and pack up. We drove into town to get some gas at the Coles servo as we had discounts for fuel but they had it at $1.19 and I could get it $1.09 back down the road so around we went until we got the

Open cut mine filled

Old mine shaft

cheaper gas. We also were looking for a fan to help push the air around in the van and we thought a small sandwich toaster might be nice as well so I stopped and Maureen went into a couple of shops and came back with a fan, seems no one likes toasted sangers! At breakfast we discussed where we would head to today and really all we could agree upon was Pine Creek 100kms from Katherine, but it is the crossroads

Locals in the park

Coperfield Lake with locals

for either Kakadu and Darwin and we were not sure what order to do them in. we have some mail items in Darwin waiting for us (my ice machine one of them) but we do not have to be there until the 21st.

The people were great, we were given a site and then told if you don’t like, just pick another and let us know, so we did. The site next to the one we had was shadier

Track to gorge

Original Furphy water tank

so we went there instead. We are the only caravan here, the rest are dongers for workers or as units for hire. The toilets are great and very rustic. The block is made out of mud bricks and all internal walls are corrugated iron. We setup Girt and had some lunch. When we booked in, Maureen was given a map not of the park but of the town showing all the buildings and sites to see, now this is how to promote a town – you

Furphy

Telegraph repeater station museum

listening Katherine? We had a look and worked out that we would visit the lookout, Lake Copperfield and the Umbrawarra gorge before returning to town to scope out the museum at the library and the Train Museum at the other end of town before coming back and having afternoon tea at a train shaped bar/bistro across from us at the Lazy Lizard.

The first stop was really interesting as the lookout overlooked the original Gold Mine here and they

Maureen with all the different poles from wood to steel

Old Boiler

had been working it since 1890 until the 1990’s when they stopped the open cut and diverted Pine Creek into it to fill it. It took 18 months to fill and is now 125m deep. There are also 2 mine shaft openings on top of the hill as well. Spooky as it sounds, whilst we were there the radio said that the worlds biggest undeveloped gold resource was 50km North of Katherine and was worth over $5billion! We headed

Railway Museum

off but on the way there was this group of horses wandering the park eating the grass, happy as larry and quite used to it. I would say this is their normal state and everyone knows them. We went to the Copperfield lake which was a small lake, no information there about how it came into being. We then went down the track further to Umbrawarra gorge but the track soon turned into gravel and was pretty rough but we persevered for the 20kms and came to the gorge car park. Maureen got out and went down the walk path for 5 minutes or so, but it turned rough and

for the railway buffs

our pool

seemed to be a long walk in the heat so she came back. We did get some nice pictures at the river crossing so all was not wasted.

Back in town we went to the Library which is open until 5 and it is located in the old telegraph repeater building from 1889 and is now National trust listed. The outside verandas are all closed in as is the style here and this is where they have their museum displays, a nice little place to visit. They have all this old mining equipment and engines and boilers, including an original Furphy Water Tank. It has all the company stuff on the end and in really good condition. We went to the train museum but that is closed for the season so Maureen had to

Original residence

One old Buffalo says to another Buffalo

wander the grounds looking in. then back to the Railway Resort. This is a hotel that has shaped itself in the shape of a train and is a lovely modern and cool place to have a drink and some afternoon tea, which we did.

Back at the Lazy Lizard we decided we too would be lazy and go to the bar for dinner. Last night they had Crocodile burgers but tonight they just had Barramundi and chips! Never mind, all went down well. Maureen chatted up the barmaid (my job usually) as she is Italian and here working on holiday and Maureen knew where she came from as she had travelled through there some years ago(not allowed to say 30 years ago), so we were top of the pops!

We are now back in Girt in the air conditioning with me doing the blog and Maureen Facebooking. We are going to move on to Kakadu tomorrow as it is 220kms exactly to either option so a week in Jabiru will do us nicely.