Good Morning Daly
Waters!
Low 14°c (59°F) – High 33°c
(86°F)
Very little colour in this morning’s sunrise so I didn’t
photograph anything at all instead opting for a very early shower and back to
the van to pack up. It was an easy
departure today with the van still attached to the car and no puppy pens etc to
pack. Even as Shane was taking up the
outlet hose and power cords at 7.30am, there were a number of campers who had
either already left or were leaving so instead of heading up to the pub
for a morning coffee and a few more photos, we opted to head off. Our next stop at Mataranka, just
170 odd kilometers down the road, is always busy due to the hot springs. Again, without being able to book ahead, we
had decided to get an early start.
Roughly half way is the town of Larrimah which the 2016
Australian census reported had a population of 47 people whereas of August
2018, the town was reported as having a population of 11. Larrimah is known for its Pink
Panther Hotel and Motel with a caravan park also attached. The hotel is host to a large collection of
Pink Panther memorabilia and a crocodile that, to us, lives a very sad life in
a small pond barely big enough to allow itself to immerse in the water. The
town also became known for Fran’s Pies, a little “café” for the want of a
better word that operated on the highway run by Fran Hodgetts whose reputation
as loud mouthed and rude proceeded her.
More on that later but given the early time we were passing through,
none of these icons were open for business……
Located 10 km north of Larrimah is the main point of interest in the
district: the Gorrie Airstrip. Built during World War II it is reputed to be
the largest, dirt airstrip in Australia and was the largest army base in
Australia during World War II. Gorrie was used as the supply and maintenance
depot at the height of the war effort when over 6,000 RAAF personnel were
stationed in the area.
Established in 1940 as the rail terminus of the North-South
Railway Line from Darwin, Larrimah was a military town, the transfer point for
personnel and supplies. In 1942, a repeater station was built from two Sidney-Williams
huts to provide direct communications with other sites including at Tennant
Creek and Newcastle Waters. Sidney-Williams huts were kit form steel structures
used by the Department of Defense that were home to thousands of Australian and
Allied servicemen from the late 1930s when the defense build-up in the north
became more urgent. It is estimated that
around 4,000 huts were erected in the north of Australia during World War II
and a number of these still remain.
Larrimah’s more recent history includes the unsolved mystery of the
disappearance of Paddy Moriarty in 2017. Born in Ireland in 1947 Paddy immigrated to
Australia at 18 and worked as a station hand, ringer and grader driver. After
moving to Larrimah in 2008, he purchased an unused service station on the
highway in 2010 for $30,000.
On 16 December 2017, Paddy Moriarty and his dog Kellie left the Pink
Panther hotel and drove 800 metres home on a quadbike. Paddy’s hat,
wallet and keys were on the table, next to a dinner ready to be heated up and his
dog Kellie’s food was half eaten in a dog bowl.
Despite extensive air and land searches, and a $250,000 reward for information
Moriarty and Kellie have not been seen or found since.
On 7 April 2022, a coroner handed down inquest findings on Moriarty and
his dog’s suspected deaths. The coroner concluded Moriarty was likely
killed on 16 December 2017, however his cause of death was unable to be
determined despite a $250,000 reward for information that remains open. The
coroner established Moriarty was "killed in the context of and likely due
to the ongoing feud he had with his nearest neighbours", his nearest neighbour,
directly across the highway, being Fran Hodgetts and her gardener, Owen
Laurie.
The rumours about his death have included some pretty amazing stories;
one of my favourites being that Fran had disposed of the body in her pies! But it was clear that there had been a feud
between the three over a number of years with Fran having filing nine separate
complaints with police. Among the many
accusations, she claimed he stole her $200 red umbrella, deliberately scared
away her customers, poisoned plants and dragged the stinking carcasses of
kangaroos onto her property. Who knows
if the mystery will ever be solved.
For the past couple of days, and particularly on today’s
travels, there have been lots of the roadside burnt out. Everything is so dry, it wouldn’t take much
to cause a fire and one was clearly started by a car that had failed to take a
corner and was lying upside down and completely burnt out along with a good
deal of bush either side of it.
Hopefully its occupants were OK.
Our arrival at Mataranka Homestead was a little after 9.30am
and probably the earliest we’ve ever reached a destination ever! Mataranka for both of us signals our arrival
in the tropics with the massive palm trees that grow naturally in the bush and
the beautiful springs and bush walks in the area. The temperature was already quite high when
we arrived and continued to get hotter very quickly. On booking in Shane was told there was only
one site left in the shady area we have usually managed to camp in. We looked for some time but couldn’t find it
and were finally allocated another site in the newer extended area out the
back. The entire camp is huge and the
sites are basically wherever there is a gap between the trees. The new area has no shade yet with young trees
trying to take hold in the dry, rock-hard soil that once was an airstrip for
the homestead.
Setting up in this heat isn’t fun but we’ve decided to leave
the van on the car despite our two night stay which saved a bit of effort. There isn’t much in the town that we won’t
see on our way out and we’ll just enjoy the surrounds of the homestead while we
are here. It didn’t take long for Kitty
to get a bit overheated sitting out under the awning with Shane and we had to close
all the windows and turn on the air conditioning. She isn’t a fan of the heat at the best of
times so we’re going to have to take that into account for any free-camping we
might opt to do.
The rest of the day was spent making the awning resemble a
Chinese Laundry….. again (it never ends!)….. and an opportunity to wash extras
that dried in no time in the heat of the day.
We’re unlikely to venture down for a dip in the hot springs, they are
always so crowded and neither of us is keen on that after our first visit where
you were virtually shoulder to shoulder with people but they are incredibly
fascinating.
