It’s the Northern Territory’s newest camping experience and no bull, this stock camp and travellers’ rest on the edge of Mataranka Hot Springs is the real deal. Run by ex-ringer Des Barritt and wife Telka Zotz-Wilson, who partnered up as teachers on a remote Indigenous school east of Mataranka four years ago, the Little Roper Stock Camp opened in April this year but has been booked out just about every night since. Why?
Firstly, the location is stellar: bordered by the Little Roper River and Elsey National Park on three sides and close to the thermal pools at Mataranka Homestead and Bitter Springs, riverside walking trails and awesome barramundi fishing holes.
Secondly, it’s affordable and unique: shady bush campsites cost just $15 per vehicle, there are spacious powered sites and hot showers, and enough bulls and buffalos to fascinate the city kids who prop themselves up along the rails, play on the hay bales and curl the camp’s pet python around their necks.
Finally, there’s real generosity here: every morning Des and Telka gather travellers together around the communal campfire for johnny cakes and billy tea, which you can pay for with a single silver coin. Their twice-weekly stock camp show and campoven dinner is a starry night feast you won’t want to miss, and did I mention that kids stay and eat for free?
Not only does Mataranka easily slide into my Top 5 favourite NT destinations, but Little Roper Stock Camp is so unlike any place you might spend a night in the Top End that I’d recommend it over just about every campground we’ve stayed at in our latest ‘across the top’ adventure.
Let’s say you pull into Little Roper Stock Camp after some long hours on the Stuart Highway, park your rig or pitch a tent in any shady bush nook you choose – powered or unpowered – and set off for a tropical snorkel through the hot, limey channels at nearby Bitter Springs, drifting downstream in the gentle current.
You might prefer to warm up a different way, on the short walking trail that follows the Roper River downstream and over the limestone tufa dam at Mataranka Falls, stopping to fish for barramundi en route. Afterwards, you plonk yourself in the deep pools at Mataranka Hot Springs to wallow beneath the world’s largest stand of livistona rigida fan palms.
When you finally return to camp at dusk, you grab a hot shower and a couple of cold drinks and make a beeline for the camp’s communal fire pit. Travellers are already gathering as the sun begins to set through the trees and there is Des Barritt, stoking a hotbed of glowing coals and chatting away, preparing to unearth a trio of campovens slowly roasting the buffalo, beef and tender lamb on tonight’s stock camp menu.
With a bit of luck you’ve booked yourself a seat at the table because this three course bush feast is not only a substantial feed but is teamed with Des’s quirky camp show – the showman himself hosting in proper dinner attire (that means footwear and clean sleeves in these parts). He’ll gather you around the rails and introduce you to his buffalo and bulls, open the campovens and teach you how to cook in them, and strum guitar while belting out a menagerie of Slim Dusty tributes, laughing and joking and spinning yarns about cattle and kin and the Never Never country he calls home.
You might get to meet one of the ‘black fella’ mates who taught him how to wrangle and hear how while teaching at Roper Valley Station decades ago, Des became a ringer by default. By the time his kids has outgrown the classroom, Des felt right at home and didn’t have the heart to leave, so Roper Valley’s Indigenous ringers taught him to ride a horse and throw cattle and turned this teacher into a stockman.
Years later Des was back to wrangling kids as principal at a remote Indigenous community outside of Mataranka when he met Telka and kick-started the dream to turn nine abandoned acres into Little Roper Stock Camp. With the camp running at full steam, Des is taking a sabbatical from school life but his soft spot for kids means he won’t charge for them to stay.
Families have been quick on the uptake and are talking loudly about the ultra affordable campsites, the animals that keep their kids entertained and being able to kick back and enjoy a few drinks and a campoven feast that may just be the most affordable three-course dinner around because everyone under 10 years eats for free.
According to Des, “the feed’s worth $44.90 and the show is ten cents”, but he manages to front a pretty entertaining show while campers fill their bellies with pumpkin soup and homemade damper before those campovens are opened, full of oh-so-tender meats and baked veggies, gravy and home-made bread “and me Mum’s cauliflower cheese”, says Des. You can eat as much as you want, and thanks to his trusty CWA cookbook, Des is a dab hand at dessert, serving up Spotted Dog, custard and Telka’s apple crumble and ice cream.
Despite a complete lack of advertising, the word is out about Little Roper Stock Camp and the soon-to-arrive estuarine crocodile is bound to create a buzz around the Top End, but Des isn’t getting carried away. “Tonight I’ll shut the gates early again so obviously I could be charging a heap more per caravan but I don’t want to get too greedy,” he says.
Sounds like an experience every travelling family should have, great fun, educational, and very reasonable for the budget. A night for the cook of the family to have a night off.
Too true Leonie! Mataranka is a top destination and this is the spot to stay.
From Des and Telka a great sum up of what we do the wording and the pictures are brilliant. Good to see a travelling family and doing a job at the same time, a lesson for poor buggers in the rat race… Thanks heaps it was nice having you stay here too!!!
Thanks Des and Telka, you deserve the accolades for running such a great camp and for giving travelling families a break! Hope this inspires other tourist operations to follow suit.
Pinned to our maps and hearts…looking forward to chilling back there for a few days towards the end of next month. Thanks, Wild Travel Story for such a fantastic and detailed write-up and the fab recommendation.
Thanks Laura, you will love the stock camp and lazy days drifting through Bitter Springs. Arrive at dawn to have it all to yourselves and be sure to say hi to Des and Telka for us!