Cumulative 12176 kms
Alan took off early at 7am to get to Katherine for his new rear tyre. He was close to running out of fuel by the time he got there. Colin had a nice lie-in and got up for breakfast at 8:30. One of the owners of the Resort carried a Wallaby into the restaurant and gave it its breakfast. It was very tame.
Colin got the call from Alan and packed up and set off to meet him in Mataranka township and fill up with fuel. While he was waiting he had look round a museum about the days Mataranka was a supply depot during WWII. It was connected to Darwin by railway then. Mataranka is the home of Elsley Station which was made famous by the book "We of the Never Never" and there were lots of sites associated with the book around the place. We didn't have time to look at them as we wanted to get to Cape Crawford in time to do a helicopter flight to the "Lost City". We rode on 
down the Stuart Hwy to Daly Waters to refuel. We turned off the Hwy for a few kms to have a look at the famous Daly Waters Hotel. It was a delightful old pub near the railway line and was thronging with tourists towing caravans. There was a pastiche of a store on the other side of the street with a helicopter sitting on the roof. We had a coffee and took off.
down the Stuart Hwy to Daly Waters to refuel. We turned off the Hwy for a few kms to have a look at the famous Daly Waters Hotel. It was a delightful old pub near the railway line and was thronging with tourists towing caravans. There was a pastiche of a store on the other side of the street with a helicopter sitting on the roof. We had a coffee and took off.The road to Cape Crawford is called the Carpentaria Hwy and is part of the Hwy 1 network. However the road was nearly all single track tar and passing vehicles had to put one wheel in the dirt. That is except for road trains which can't go on the dirt so if one approaches you get right off the tar and stop. We only passed one 
road train luckily. Another was parked and we think it had been radioed by the first and was waiting for us to pass - very generous. The countryside was flat lightly wooded grassland but the type of trees and shrubs varied frequently to keep us interested. Alan was getting tired after his early start and extra kms and Colin's bottom was protesting by the time we pulled up at Heartbreak Hotel our destination for the night. Alan's bike had used much more fuel than Colin's for some unkown reason as they had done exactly the same speed and distance since Daly Waters. This is significant because tomorrow we tackle our longest ride between fuel stops - 380 kms. If Alans fuel consumption doesn't improve he will have to use all of his spare tank to get there. We will ride slower to see if that helps. Two other bike riders arrived after us. They were hardcore dirt riders with a couple of serious off-road bikes and very well equiped. One had done a ride from Alaska to Argentina - makes our trip seem a bit tame! We had a few beers with them and swapped bike stories.
road train luckily. Another was parked and we think it had been radioed by the first and was waiting for us to pass - very generous. The countryside was flat lightly wooded grassland but the type of trees and shrubs varied frequently to keep us interested. Alan was getting tired after his early start and extra kms and Colin's bottom was protesting by the time we pulled up at Heartbreak Hotel our destination for the night. Alan's bike had used much more fuel than Colin's for some unkown reason as they had done exactly the same speed and distance since Daly Waters. This is significant because tomorrow we tackle our longest ride between fuel stops - 380 kms. If Alans fuel consumption doesn't improve he will have to use all of his spare tank to get there. We will ride slower to see if that helps. Two other bike riders arrived after us. They were hardcore dirt riders with a couple of serious off-road bikes and very well equiped. One had done a ride from Alaska to Argentina - makes our trip seem a bit tame! We had a few beers with them and swapped bike stories. We booked our helicopter flight for 5:30 when the setting sun shows up the rocks formations very well. It was only a 15 minutes flight but exciting. The helicopter was almost new so we were very comfortable, quite different from the old Cessna 
in Halls Creek. 
The view of the "Lost City" was spectacular. It was a large group of 30-40m high sandstone pillars standing on a flat rock base so from the air it really did look like the skyscrapers of New York or Chicago with narrow streets on a grid layout. The pillars were eroded from the sandstone by wet season floods and 
the weaker layers eroded away first. They were sitting at the edge of the huge sandstone plateau stretching all the way from Arnhem Land to the north-east and there was an steep escarpment falling down to the Gulf country that stretches away to the east. After dinner we had a few more beers with our new biker friends who were heading off north along the Savannah Way the next day and across to Burketown and Normanton. We watched a rugby league game on the TV - a very Australian way to spend the evening.
in Halls Creek. 
The view of the "Lost City" was spectacular. It was a large group of 30-40m high sandstone pillars standing on a flat rock base so from the air it really did look like the skyscrapers of New York or Chicago with narrow streets on a grid layout. The pillars were eroded from the sandstone by wet season floods and 
the weaker layers eroded away first. They were sitting at the edge of the huge sandstone plateau stretching all the way from Arnhem Land to the north-east and there was an steep escarpment falling down to the Gulf country that stretches away to the east. After dinner we had a few more beers with our new biker friends who were heading off north along the Savannah Way the next day and across to Burketown and Normanton. We watched a rugby league game on the TV - a very Australian way to spend the evening.
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