Sat, 7th May, 2022 Bush camp by George Creek, near Robin Falls to Bush camp at Oolloo Crossing on Daly River, NT

Bit chilly this morning, 7am 20 degrees. The sky is clear and blue.

Packed up. The Evans stopped by on their way out. They are staying at Lake Bennett Tourist Park tonight.

Said farewell to John and Kay - they are heading to their friend’s place at Humpty Doo.

We continued along Dorat Road then turned off onto Oolloo Road. Stopped at the sign for a cuppa. 71km to Oolloo Crossing on the Daly River.

It is windy now and there is a light cloud coming over. Lots of big cream ant hills as we travel through flat grazing country. 

Lots of planted trees - maybe for carbon offset or something.

Passed the turn off into Douglas Hot Springs and Butterfly Gorge which still aren’t open and by the sounds of it won’t be this year. Obviously the Traditional Owners haven’t fix their problems.

Next is the van park - they will suffer not having the tourists coming to the springs etc. Across the Douglas River which has a good bit of water in it and lots of pandanus on the banks. 

Passed two pairs of wedgies - first ones I tried to get a photo of an missed and the second two just sat there because I didn’t pick up the camera!! 

Big fields of green grass with big hay stacks. 

More land planted with trees of different varieties.

Onto the dirt road as we passed a sign for Mustang hill Station. This will test out the new pressure vents Steve put on the side of the camper.

Spotted a sign saying Daly River Esplanade with a narrow grassy track leading off. Looking at the Hema it goes alongside of the river where it appears to be a big lagoon. Steve said it looked too narrow for us.

We continued on and the road narrowed to one lane. On the map we are running alongside the river here.

Eventually we arrived at Oolloo Crossing. We parked at the top and walked down. Bit steep and I don’t think we will be crossing the Daly River here! Doesn’t look like there is a way up either. Someone has made a swimming hole which will be handy.

Sadly we picked up a heap of bullet shells. There was broken bottle and a few beer cans in a nearby fireplace. Will come back with a bag to pick them up.

A ute arrived and the people walked down. The chap is from the tree farm - the one with different trees. The smaller ones are Sandalwood and the bigger ones with yellow flowers are Cassia. Apparently Sandalwood is a parasite tree and needs other trees around to grow and lots of water. They have tree farms at Katherine, somewhere else in NT and one in the Burdekin area. He has only been here 6 months and said there was a huge lot of people here last weekend so we are lucky. The other farm with the same trees is mahogany - forgot what the first part of the name was though. Someone caught an 86cm Barra recently here off the log but there was also a 3.5m salty spotted a bit further downstream. He said there are a few freshies about here too and to watch out for snakes. His advice was not to leave our car doors open as the snakes have a habit of going in! We commented about the volume of water coming down and he said that the Katherine River and another also flow into the Daly. We thanked him for the information and they headed back to the farm. 

We decided on the camp spot half way down so I walked down and Steve drove the truck down then backed it up into the spot. All good.

Got out the chairs - view of the water here and at the front of the camper we have the view over the crossing. The sound of the water rushing over rock crossing can be heard but isn’t as deafening as down beside it.

Quite windy here and there are whistling kits and bee-eaters flying around.

We sat outside for lunch watching the water in case a croc or barra swam by!

Another family arrived to use the ‘pool’ and have a fish. Steve wandered down and had a chat with them then he came back and got the fishing rods out and set up.

Another ute arrived after they left - 2 couples from Darwin - we are in their spot but they are ok to camp down by the river with their 3 dogs. Someone had left a prawn pot behind and they pulled it up and found 3 prawns so they might float them out tonight to see if they can get a barra.

We flicked our lures for a while - Steve got one snagged on a rock but no Barra. We gave up and left it to the others. Look at me balancing on the log - it is very shallow there so all good.

The wind settled so we had dinner outside as the sun was setting with a little fire going too.

Steve went for a wander down after dinner as we heard the others shout out. They only caught a tarpon on one of the prawns then a catfish so we decided to not bother tonight.

We put the TV up and tried out some of the DVDs Erica had given us. Now we can pass them on when we find a book place to swap our books too.

10pm - it has cooled off to 23 degrees so we put on the hot water system for the first time since we last used it at Charters Towers.