So… After Banka Bank Station you feel as though you are starting to leave the arid centre of the N.T. and begin the transition into sub-tropical N.T. At this point most people head towards the legendary Daly Waters Pub to stay there and experience the outback pub culture and their ‘beef & barra’… After reading reviews, listening to others heading south and hearing of a massive pub brawl a few nights earlier we decided to forego this experience. It seems that current opinion of the Daly Waters Pub is very polarised and a lot of travellers are choosing to bypass it as we did. Perhaps it is becoming a victim of its own popularity and failing to live up to expectations… Some really enjoy it, some were hugely disappointed by it. No regrets from us for avoiding it.

It was a decent 300km to from Banka Banka to the Daly Waters Hi-way Inn, which we broke up with a lunch stop at Dunmarra Roadhouse. It too is a camping option but not far enough up the highway to warrant the extra night. It is, however, famous for its pies and vanilla slices. We can confirm that the pies are superb with soft, flaky pastry and rich chunky filling. The vanilla slice was huge, high and beautifully messy to eat requiring a trip to the bathroom to wash hands and face afterwards. Apparently the roadhouse owner is/was a baker so it comes as no surprise…

Arriving at Day Waters we chose to stay at the Daly Waters Hi-way Inn, a roadhouse with a much more relaxed and calmer atmosphere than the pub and yet another excellent example of roadhouse stopovers and outback cuisine. It was first in first served for to choose your own van site and we snagged a nice big site with power and water that we could stayed hitched for a quick exit the next day.

Two vans pulled in behind us belonging to Julie and Ian, and Thresa and Greg. Two couples who had met on the road at a previous southern stop and decided to continue travelling together. At first we thought that Greg and Ian were having a blue over their van locations but quickly discovered that they were in a bromance with their long-suffering spouses forced to go along with them… They were genuine Aussie characters that were always up for us laugh but, like us, not overly interested in the Daly Waters Pub kind of experience. Back to them shortly…

We had a few intermittent electrical outages after we set up, which were unrelated to the two sparkies that were there re-wiring a whole bunch of ‘stuff’… Seemed everytime a new van came in and powered up the circuit breaker would trip and the caretaker would go and reset it. To be expected in outback roadhouses so no point complaining. It’s good to have power and water at all…

We noticed a roadtrain pull in out front that was hauling huge cotton bales south processing. It’s an impressive site but still can’t understand why we grow water-thirsty cotton in Australia instead of hemp which produces a higher yield for much less water consumption… There’s obviously politically vested interests around this industry.

After a quiet afternoon we wandered over to the roadhouse beer garden for happy hour where we got to talking with Julie and Greg, and Ian and Theresa. Jo was in her element sharing travel gossip and Rob joined in with the blokey banter for some social intercourse. They invited us to join them for dinner and continue the moment, which we readily agreed to.

Rob and Ian decided to brave the ‘Truckies Mixed Grill’… A magnificent over-abundance of carbohydrates and protein consisting of:

• Two fried eggs
• Full steak
• Sausage
• Crumbed lamb cutlet
• Bacon
• Grilled tomatoe
• Grilled onion
• Chips

Thankfully Rob hadn’t eaten too much that day and managed to demolish it as did Ian. IT was highly reminiscent of the mixed grill at Queanbeyan’s Central Cafe of years gone by. With a couple of glasses of Shiraz it had all the food groups…

After dinner we kept on chatting until last drinks were called at 10:30 due to a scheduled power outage… As last drinks were called an indigenous chap, James, asked if he could buy Greg a beer in exchange for sitting with us for a bit of a yarn. Greg accepted the offer and James joined us.

He explained that he was a machinery operator heading back Katherine after working in northern Qld. He was an interesting chap and we learnt about the difficulties of outback road work, that emu (cooked in the ground) is delicious whereas wallaby… not so much. The thing you take out of an impromptu discussion like this is how completely different our lives are to that of an indigenous worker in the outback who is prepared to travel thousands of kilometres for work and be away from family for long periods of time.

The night came to an end and we farewelled our dinner companions with the knowledge that we would most likely catch up with them again at Mataranka…