Banka Banka, NT

Only a short leg today of 260km. We had been planning on staying at Banka Banka since we roared past it twice last year. Banka Banka is billed as a working cattle station that happens to have a nice grassed area for a ‘few’ vans. Turns out that the camp-site is full on, takes about 50 vans, has room for bus tours and a whole tent city for school groups. It’s really nice though, greener and more relaxing than Three Ways, which is 70 odd km back down the road, at the junction of the Barkly Highway and the Stuart Highway. The distances out here can get a bit tricky. We want to stop at Mataranka tomorrow so we can go to the hot springs, but that would have been 720k from Barkly Homestead, and there’s not a lot of choices in between. 

As it turns out, we got in early, got the best spot under a shady tree and chilled out for the afternoon, except for when I did the ‘waterhole walk’, supposedly 2.5 k one-way. I followed the signs along the flat, dirt road and made it easily. While I was taking snaps and loafing about at the hole itself when some others turned up, having walked along the ridge line from behind the camp. A round-trip! How could I resist? First you clamber up the broken rocks to the top, and then clamber over all the other rocks/boulders for the 2k return trip. Quite a work-out, as was the rounds of the proverbial table when I finally got back!

This was also our first night without power and we survived easily, just a way of easing into the completely self-contained free camp, should we ever need to.

Snap:

Water Hole. Banka Banka Station, NT