Mataranka

Mataranka is a small Stuart Highway town in the Top End of the Northern Territory, on Mangarrayi and Yangman country. It sits inside the Elsey National Park and is best known for two natural thermal pools: Mataranka Thermal Pool and Bitter Springs. Both are gravity-fed by ancient artesian water that emerges from a limestone aquifer at a constant 34 degrees Celsius year round.

Mataranka Thermal Pool is the more developed of the two, with a stair-and-rail entry built into the natural rock and a small palm-shaded swimming area. The water is so clear that the bottom is visible at any depth. Surrounding the pool is a stand of Livistona palms (the same species you see in Watarrka and Palm Valley further west) and a paperbark forest that is the dry-season home to thousands of flying foxes.

Bitter Springs, 5 minutes north of the town, is the wilder of the two pools and the favourite of return visitors. The water enters at a small spring at one end and flows through a gentle 200 metre channel, allowing swimmers to drift slowly downstream and walk back along a boardwalk. It is a remarkably relaxing experience and one of the most distinctive natural swimming sites in northern Australia.

The town is also the setting for We of the Never Never, the 1908 Australian classic novel by Jeannie Gunn about life on Elsey Station. The original Elsey homestead foundations are preserved at Mataranka Homestead and the Pioneer Cemetery in town contains the graves of several of the people Gunn wrote about. The Never Never Festival is held every May.

Mataranka is a year-round destination but the thermal pools are at their best in winter (June to August) when the air is cool and the warm water becomes genuinely welcome. The wet season (November to March) makes the pools less appealing because the surrounding river often floods them with cold water. The 110 kilometre drive south from Katherine is a standard inclusion on any Top End or Stuart Highway road trip.