It was a warm start to the day very early and to be honest I was enjoying just relaxing in bed and with only 169 km to travel today, despite peeking out the window and seeing the light dawning, I was in absolutely no hurry to run out and take photos.
I did however also completely forget to take photos of the camp but we were very pleased on arrival to see that the parking arrangements had changed dramatically. On our last trip caravans were parked end on end in very narrow rows making departure in the mornings quite erratic and stressful. On the one hand if you were aiming to leave early, you were at the mercy of your position in the queue and your departure depended upon a gap wide enough to manoeuvre out of the park. On the other hand, if you weren't aiming to leave early, you were under pressure to get out of the way of people who were! Not to mention the potential for disaster if there was an issue with a fire or some other emergency that required a hasty evacuation. Thankfully this time everyone had easy access in and out of all sites.
As we were eating breakfast a few birds were hopping around at the door looking for food so I threw out a few crushed cornflakes to grab their attention while I took a few photos....... and then this happened. They came from everywhere and let me get so close that I literally could have reached out and touched one.
I wanted to take a few last photos of the pub before we left, so we parked up in the shade and went in. As we were wandering through the various rooms and out into the dining area we met up with last night's entertainers, Lou Bradley and husband Phil, who were having breakfast. We chatted with them about their work and their show, and in the course of conversation I mentioned we had missed half the show because of Shane's altercation with the power box and next thing Phil ducked out and came back with a free CD for Shane. We had been laughing about the fact that Lou had kept referring to her CD being for sale during their show as an Aria Losing CD. I'd venture to say that being nominated for an Aria for Best Country Album in itself was something not to be sneezed at but it was an amusing quip.
Back onto the highway and a little further down the road we stopped at the Larrimah Hotel. Larrimah has a population of about 10 of average age around 70 and is probably "famous" for a few things - mainly the Pink Hotel, Frans Pies and for the strange disappearance of Paddy Moriarty all of which seem to be strangely entangled.....
The pub is called the Pink Panther because it is pink and has a huge Pink Panther sitting on a chair out the front next to the gigantic brown stubby as well as a bike with 3 pink panthers riding it in one of the open windows along the wall of the pub. Fran Hodgetts, a local owner of Fran's Teahouse, who makes pies and pastries and has been selling pies from her store on the highway for many years.
Paddy Moriarty vanished in mid-December 2017 after leaving the Pink Panther with his kelpie, Kellie, and driving his quad bike the couple of hundred metres to his home. Despite police commencing a three-day search and another four-day forensic search just after Christmas. No sign has ever been found of either Paddy Moriarty or Kellie.
Police have their theories but what’s missing is a body – two, counting Kellie – and any
conclusive evidence of anything although for some time Fran has been a suspect. And no - we didn't call in to buy a pie from Fran. From most of the accounts I've read about the woman she's quite rude and her pies are way overpriced (about $13 each!)
The one thing that really made me sad at the pub was the sight of this poor Crocodile who lives in a small cage with a small pond full of very green water. The area for him to lie in dappled sunlight wasn't even big enough for him to stretch out full length. At one point I thought he was perhaps just a fake croc, but after watching him for a few minutes, he opened his eyes and moved forward a few inches so he could flick his tail to the other side.
After days of clear blue skies we had a few clouds this morning, but they too cleared and we had a pretty hot arrival into Mataranka just after lunch.
Today was exciting for me though as we had finally caught up with an old friend that I haven't seen in many years, Alan Wassilieff. I knew Alan from my very first years of showing dogs from 1977. Alan had moved away from Melbourne some time ago but we had reconnected via Facebook a few years ago and had kept in touch regarding his travels. I had hoped that we would cross paths somewhere out there. We were fortunate that he was flexible enough in his travels to be able to reshuffle his itinerary so that we could travel together for a while. It has been fantastic to remember those old times - the good and the bad and talk about the dogs of the past. Kitty has adopted him as a favourite visitor as well - enjoying every back scratch with a huge waggy tail.
One of the things I enjoy at Mataranka is dinner at the restaurant and generally speaking the entertainment although I must admit whip cracking isn't probably something I would choose to go and see - especially at 9.00pm at night. We enjoyed a great meal of grilled Barramundi, a few wines and more sharing of memories.
On returning to the van it was such a beautiful warm night we decided to sit out and enjoy it while we could. Just loving the warm days and nights and the relaxing time we've been having.
169 km
Total - 4,711 km
Top today 30°c - expecting overnight 12°c
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