Into the Top End!

I reckon we well and truly made the transition today, from Central Australia to the Top End. We headed north (Sun 3rd/8) along the Stuart Hwy, stopping for the night at Longreach Waterhole, a lovely spot 12km’s west of Elliot (which itself is not worth speaking of!).

Traveling north from the Alice Springs area, the scenery gets greener and lusher from around 100km’s shy of Tenant Creek. Then 100km’s or so after tenant creek, it gets well and truly green and then stays that way. Unfortunately there is a heap of roadkill around 200km’s either side of Tenant Creek; not kangaroos, but cows! Hate to think the damage they would cause at 100km’s per hour or more!!

We were told about Longreach Waterhole by another camping couple, and it turned out to be a beautiful place, with heaps of bird life. We also got treated to the most spectacular sunset. Check this out!!!

Sunset at Longreach Waterhole, NT

Sunset at Longreach Waterhole, NT


The sandy track/road in had Nicole freaking out for a bit in places – here is some video we took on the way out. I prefer this softer sand bush track to the bone jarring, motorhome disintegrating corrugations of a hardened dirt road though! There was another motorhome in there (similar size/style to ours), as well as quite a few 4wd’s and caravans. I’m sure Apollo would have been impressed with that rental motorhome heading in, lol, but who knows – ours might have already done that road a few times too!!

The camping area itself is huge – anywhere along the whole side of the waterhole, and could fit a huge number of vehicles/campers in. I typed this place into Google to check I had the name right, and was surprised to read that it is the largest temporary water hole in the NT. It can grow to 1,000 square km’s!! We obviously only saw a tiny portion of it! An awesome place to stay, and free too! We were treated to the most beautiful sunset and displays from the abundant bird life….

Pelicans in formation…!

the golden sun burst through the clouds for a few minutes!

the golden late afternoon sun burst through the clouds for a few minutes!

The following video was taken by one of the boys Monday morning. Warning: if you choose to watch it don’t blame me if it makes you sick….they are worse than me at filming…. but it does show the number of birds around!!!

2 thoughts on “Into the Top End!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *