Mary River Roadhouse

Well what a hectic couple of weeks.  Our house sit finished up on the 31^st March and we said a sad goodbye to Swansea.  The weekend saw us enjoy a lovely time with Rob, Lucy & the boys – catching up with Lucy’s family on Saturday night with a celebration of Lucy’s 30^th Birthday.  During the day we received a call from our new employers at Mary River Roadhouse asking if we could make a dash for the NT as one of their employees had an accident and they were short staffed.  WOW yes I guess we could rearrange how next couple of weeks.  Sadly this saw Rob’s weekend at BluesFest go out the window.   So on Sunday morning after attending Frankie’s christening we hit the road once more.

A quick stop over in Port Macquarie on Sunday night saw us catch up with Bruce & Louise once more and then onto Kingscliff.  We were detoured through Lismore – such a sad sight with so much flood damaged to business’s and homes.  The same again in Murwillumbah and Chinderah. 

Jen & Garry kindly put us up for a few days and it was great to catch up.  (You guys could get your van out and join us on the road again 😊).  Our lovely mechanic at Chinderah Motors assisted us by fitting our car in for a service  week ahead of schedule - Thanks guys we really appreciated it.  Then a quick check on our house to make sure all was good and a catch up with friends before hitting the road to the NT.  Thanks everyone for meeting us with such short notice.  A big Thank you to Lynn & Kym – it was great that you came down from the Coast and we really enjoyed catching up with you again.  Maybe next at Mary River!!

3,350 km in 5 days !!   Actually a pretty good trip all round.  We had a few issues with the van hitch on the first day so stayed the Thursday night at Mitchell Caravan Park.  Craig there was very helpful and we were all good to go on the Friday.  Free camp near Winton on Friday night and another free camp between Camooweal and nowhere on Saturday night.  Funny thing about this one – we had 1 bar on our mobile but couldn’t get any radio reception.  Go figure!  Sunday saw us reach Mataranka around 3.30pm and we stopped at Territory Manor Motel & Van Park to check it out as this is where Favourite niece Aimee is going to be working after Easter for the peak season. Couple of meaningful words in their ear to look after Aims.  

Monday was a short drive into Katherine and a bit of shopping before heading to Pine Creek to check out what services are available to us in our nearest town.  Cute little place with a small supermarket, bottle shop ( a necessity ), post office and other basics.  58km further on and we reached our destination of Mary River Roadhouse.  Now we weren’t sure what to expect really as it’s been 2 years since we were last up here but I can say it’s a pleasant surprise.  The grass is green (although they say as the dry sets in this won’t last) the place, although old, is well looked after and clean. 

Mary River Roadhouse

Amenities Block

Camp Kitchen

Camp fire in grounds

Our campsite at Mary River

Accommodation block

Our employers are Tony & Christy, who took a leasehold on the Roadhouse 2 years ago, are working on improving the property.  Although old we were pleasantly surprised as to how clean the place is and the grounds are a lovely green and well maintained.  Note though the green probably won't last through the whole dry season.

There is Bob (blue) and Ruby (red) the resident cattledogs here for protection – so I’m making really good friends with them as I'm thinking I might need them sometime.  Ruby has a tendency to nip your heels if you’re not watching but I’m already working on training her to choose someone else’s ankles rather than mine.  I take either one of them with me when walking as there is dingo's and water buffalo around :(

There is also a dozen chooks which are well caged up due to the roaming Dingo’s.  

Rob and I are doing a bit of everything work wise.  Cleaning, stocking drinks, serving in the bar and cafe, food preparation and now I'm learning to do the cooking as well.  Hopefully I don't poison anyone.   The bar is interesting work.  The whole liquor act in the NT is so confusing and each premises has their own legalities.  Our bar is open 10am to 10pm daily.  And as far as I can see there are no restrictions on how much alcohol one can purchase.  Weird because in Darwin, Katherine, Alice Springs there are restrictions on this.  You can drink in the bar (all cans) however if you want to take away then we have to record your name and where you are from and where you are planning to consume the alcohol.  There is also 4 pages of names of people that are banned from purchasing alcohol by either their local Aboriginal council, the police or self banned.  Pretty time consuming when you are selling the stuff!!  Most of the local indiginious (our main customers in the bar) speak their native language plus english but are so hard to understand.  I've taken to asking them for ID so I can copy their names off that. 

At Mary River there is no Mobile reception (although I can get Messanger through Satellite so use that if you want to contact me), there is no Radio reception, TV only through Satellite (which we don't have), no newspapers - and it's a 58km drive to the nearest "town" where we can get mobile reception.  Guess Rob & I will get to spend a lot of quality time together.

Relaxing by the pool after a hard days work!

Did I mention the pool - the saving grace as it's so damm hot and humid here at present.  The Dry season hasn't officially started as yet so I think Rob & I are dropping weight by the hour!! 

More next week but needless to say we came here for the experience and so far loving it.  Take care xx