July 21st 2017 

Our day has been busy but rather uneventful apart from being woken by the sounds of the Blue Winged Kookaburra practising his laugh. We packed our rig then drove up the street to fill with fuel and restock our refrigeratror with enough food to get us to Alice Springs. There are 3 Supermarkets in Borroloola which have provided us with all our needs. We visited this town some years ago and it is remarkable how the  buildings, the general tidiness and the appearance of the locals has improved. They have every right to be proud of their township.

Rock formations at Caranbarini Reserve

We headed south along the Tablelands Highway to Caranbarini Conservation Reserve. We have visited this interesting area before but we still enjoyed our walk through the wonderful rock formations. Yellow rod blooms on unidentified wattles provided colour as did the bright orange flowers on the very high branches of the Darwin Woolly Butts (Eucalyptus Miniata).

The directions on the information board suggested that the Barrawulla Loop of 2 km would take 1-2 hours but we made our return in a little under one hour. After we enjoyed our lunch we walked along another track to the Caranbarini Waterhole which has a bird-hide overlooking the water which has large waterlilies growing in it. We quietly watched a number of 

Green Pygmy Geese. They are not very big birds but have interesting markings including lustrous green wings

Waterlillies at Caranbarini Waterhole

The Tableland Highway has continued south to Heartbreak Hotel at Cape Crawford where we did consider staying but eventually drove a good way south and parked on a roadside stopover on the edge of the Barkly Tableland. It is flat and dry with little shade but my washing is on the line and we will enjoy some Borroloola sausages for dinner.

I have neglected to mention that John has had two events with a tic… digging into his wrist firstly then into his upper leg. Nasty things, we were able to pull them both out/off with a pair of tweezers.