A shortcut to craters

 

Friday  5 August 2022 – A shortcut to craters

H&L convinced Jenny that we should do as they do in the Tour de France and actually keep exercising on a rest day.  We therefore were only in the cars for about 20 minutes before another hike into Kathleen Springs was required.  It was actually a very easy, paved and wheelchair accessible path with about a 40 minute return walk required so it was probably a good option for stretching out our leg muscles.  Kathleen Springs has evidence of the cattle industry with cattle yards and watering points and the cattleman used the walls of the gorge to help corral the animals.  The spring itself is quite deep but, once again, culturally significant so no swimming etc.  Apparently you don’t want to anger the water serpent that dwells beneath the surface.  I wonder if he is a cousin of the Loch Ness monster?

Back in the vans and another 80km or so before we turned left and off the bitumen and onto the Ernest Giles road which is unsealed by only 100km or so across to the Stuart Highway and a direct route to the Henbury meteorite craters.   Jenny’s categorisation of unpaved road theory remained true for this road with the dark brown stuff being corrugated and slow going and the white stuff being smooth sailing.  We were still more than ready to see the turn off to the craters and it was a short, quick drive in to the carpark/campground.

Larry had forewarned me that quite often day trippers park in the camp sites so we weren’t too surprised to see two cars with camper trailers parked in our site and the boomers having their lunch in the adjoining picnic area.  What was a surprise (but not really because they were boomers) was when we politely pointed out that they were parked in our booked camp site, instead of an apology we got “You’re the bloke with the drone.  You were flying it illegally in a National Park”.  Larry, who is a lot more patient and polite than I am, set him straight by explaining that we have a permit and only fly where allowed so we were fully entitled to fly it where we had.  That shut him up but I don’t think we actually got an apology.  Rather, whilst one couple quickly moved their vehicle so the other could park up,  the boomer continued cooking his lunch whilst bombarding us with questions about our van, the drone permit etc.  All while we were trying to back the van in, get it level etc. Grr!

After they buggered off we sat in the van (as the flies were pretty friendly) and had ham and salad sandwiches (we too are trying to use up fruit and veg.)  As M is still feeling poorly we had a casual afternoon and Jen made a cake using up the pears while L did some drone maintenance.

In the late afternoon three of us headed up and around the meteorite craters and were slightly underwhelmed as they take a bit of imagination to see as craters.  Apparently the meteorite that caused them broke up through the earth’s atmosphere and therefore were only the size of 44 gallon drums when they hit the earth.  Still hit with enough impact to make sizeable craters. We were glad of our fly nets as the flies are friendly similar to at Wolf Creek crater.  I wonder if there is something in meteorite material that attracts them – ha ha!

We had read during holiday planning that you weren’t allowed fires here but there was a good firepit between our campsites and M found a sign saying you could have them as long as you used the designated  pit so we built up a good fire while I heated up pre prepared bolognaise sauce and cooked spaghetti.  We made use of the table and chairs in the covered picnic area and even had mood lighting and a tablecloth and ate our dinner as the sun set.

After dinner we adjourned to the fire pit and Jen used the newly acquired billy to heat up some mulled wine as our dessert which was delicious and even converted M who had previously declared that she wasn’t really a fan.

Another clear and cold night so we were soon back in bed and snuggled under our doonas.