Monday 30 July – Today we have had a lovely relaxing day.  We woke pretty early, Grant was woken by a couple of very loud light aeroplanes taking off – so he headed off down to the Roper River, at the bottom of the walk past the pool to go for the big catch.  I didn’t get up straight away, and after showering, having breakfast, doing a bit more hand washing and reading some more of my book, I decided to go down and see how he was going.  And as he had been gone over two hours I thought he may have needed help to carry home the haul!

I had only got down to the roadway the path to the river leads from and there he was – empty bucket, so no barra being cooked today.  He said it was a beautiful spot where he fished, and even on his way down to the river there had been people in the pool.

So after he had his toast and cuppa for brekky we went for a walk to the Elsey Homestead which is on the property here.  It is not the original homestead, which no longer exists, but was built strictly to plans, etc for the making of the film We Of The Never Never.  It had the story of the Gunn’s and some items of interest on display such as some of the gowns the Jeannie character wore in the film.   Once we had been there we got in the car and drove the 21km to the Elsey Cemetery, which is situated about 300 mtrs from the site of the original home.

It is south of here, so we followed the Stuart Highway for about ten km, then turned onto the road in to the property.  About halfway along that 8km stretch, we came across a snake crossing the road.  It was wriggling really hard and was quite scary.  We drove over it, though not with our wheels, but it gave me the creeps.

The cemetery was most interesting, with probably about a dozen people buried there, but generally spread well apart.  The main grave was that of Aeneas Gunn, the husband of Jeannie who wrote the book We Of The Never Never using the name of her deceased husband Mrs Aeneas Gunn.  They went to live there in 1902, and he died in 1903, after which she returned to Melbourne.  But the experience was so meaningful to her that she wrote her autobiography of that time.  After leaving there we drove the 300 mtrs to the site of the original home which is now marked with a cairn of stones and a plaque.

From there we took a bit of a drive into the township of Mataranka, which is quite a nice town, and having most services available there.

Back at the camp we had a bit of lunch and a cuppa before heading to the pool for another dip.  We took a few photos of Grant’s fishing spot first, then spent about an hour or so enjoying the warm water.  We caught up with a couple we talked to yesterday as well as the Jessup/Gladstone connections, and as I was getting out of the pool I heard “G’day Dawn”.  I looked around and said G’day to the bloke who had spoken, and he had to remind me that he and his wife had been our neighbours at Daly Waters and helped to save the young fellow’s camp site.  You talk to such a lot of people that I couldn’t remember his name.

For all the doubting Thomas's who think I don't go in the water!!

So now we’ve had tea, packed up what we can ready to get away reasonably early tomorrow as we move on to our next destination – Litchfield National Park.