Round Australia by bike - Day 019 - Daly Waters to Katherine

Day:	019
Date:	4 June 2008
Start	Daly Waters
Finish	Katherine
Daily Distance:	273km
Daily Speed:	25.2kph
Relative to Schedule:	-567km
Daily Podcasts:	Here
GPS Track	Here
Journal:	Got up at 12:30am and was on the road shortly after 1:00am listening to the cricket and admiring the starry skies.  Even though I was now travelling north along the Stuart Highway, the main link between Adelaide and Darwin, there was little traffic.  In fact, I generally have no problem these days on my snack breaks while traveling at night to just sit in the middle of the road and look at the stars and listen to the night sounds of the bush while I snack and rehydrate. I made reasonable time although there was a slight opposing wind and I reached Mataranka (168km) by 8:45am where I had the smallest “big brekky” I have seen on the trip.  There are some great thermal pools near to Mataranka, but they’ll have to wait for another time.  Just before reaching there, the road crossed a tropical swamp on a long causeway, where there was a covering of exotic water lilies and many different kinds of waterbirds.  Otherwise the scenery was the usual arid savannah, with occasional cleared pastures. The weather became very warm after breakfast and probably reached the low 30s centigrade, with the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky.  The road also became quite busy with tourists, road trains and some oversize trucks so that I was always checking what was coming up behind.  On the plus side, I was getting lots of support from everybody including friendly toots from road train drivers and even had some tourists pull over to take pictures of me while I rode past. I reached the southern outskirts of Katherine around 1:30pm, and made my way to the Casuarina Street Primary School, where I gave a short presentation on my trip to Rodney Gregg’s students, who have been following my trip, and answered their questions.  They were very supportive and interested.  I hope I make it this time.  I called in on my first Round Australia trip last year, and then bombed out, injured, a week later.  Hopefully, history will not repeat itself. From the school I rode into central Katherine and checked into my motel room.  After a shower, I enjoyed the luxury of sufficient time for a visit to the adjacent supermarket and a short walk around town before adjourning to my room to eat some Asian take-out food and a whole litre of ice-cream (I wasn’t sure I could do it, but it was easy!) and do my chores.  Katherine is an interesting town.  It has an outback/government town feel to it, and is peopled by transient grey nomads (caravanners) and European backpackers resupplying and booking sightseeing, along with the local inhabitants, including a large number of aborigines.  Many of the latter don’t seem to have anything to do (and probably don’t….I don’t imagine there’s a lot of work around here), and tend to gather on street corners or sit in the shade of trees chatting. I’m hoping to get another very early start for my last day in the Northern Territory.