Thu 31st July – Day 82: Butterfly Springs -> Roper Bar

This morning we realised the full extent of what extreme corrugations can do to your trailer – the fridge had packed it in and no amount of swearing and cursing on either of our parts could rectify it. Pete spent most of the morning emptying the contents and trying to pack them into the Waeco. Unfortunately his lovely frozen bait was now a liquefiying mass dripping through the entire fridge, tainting everything with that lovely fishy aroma! (Yes, I was extremely happy today!).
We forgo school this morning as we realised the bike rack had also broken – ripping the mounting block away from the trailers bumper, necessitating putting all the bikes on the roof of the trailer, yet again. We told the kids to take stuff to do in the car (no DVD today) and surprisingly they worked extremely well and without much protest.
A final paddle in the springs as poor Pete always looks the worse for wear on pack-up mornings, everything he must touch (bikes, chains, jockey wheel, plugs etc) is covered in mud, dust, dirt or all 3, he actually has morning clothes for pack up and changes just as we leave.
Just outside the Nathan River Rangers Station about 10km up the road we pass the grader coming our way and know the road will be infinitely better today with all the large stones, dips and corrugations smoothed out. Imagine his life – he was driving his grader, towing a demountable hut, which he sets up along a strip of so called highway and grades it until smooth only to move on to the next bit & then return – excitement, NOT!
We reach Roper Bar early afternoon and stop off at the Roper Bar Store (again a mismatched collection of just about everything you can imagine). Luckily they have bread (we have been living on wraps and are a little over them!). Pete buys hamburgers for lunch ($16 each!!!) we nearly choke on them (no wonder the price wasn’t on the board) and we go across the Roper River to eat them in the shade of the gums near running water (no swimming due to Crocs).
The temp is pushing 33C, so we locate the local caravan park near the riverbank ($30 for a shady spot under the trees, a small amount of patch grass and the promise of hot showers all it has to offer, but we are too tired to care and the showers are a must!). We set up, I wash all bedding in the laundry tub supplied by river water, wring it out and hang in the sun hoping it will be dry by the evening. Then I join the others on the bank to do a little more Barra fishing – once again they elude us and although we pull in lots of small black bream, catfish and longtoms, nothing of substance. I can see Pete is becoming disheartened with the whole big fish scenario. Ah well, steak on the BBQ for dinner will have to do. A beautifully quiet night and although the bedding is still wet we rig a sleeping area for Chloe and settle down to read our books by headlight torch and pass out soon afterwards.
Leichhardts Caravan Park ($30/night)