'Daly Waters Pub' last night and this morning it was the 'Pink Panther Pub' at Larrimah! What a hoot!   We are still travelling on Stuart Highway. I certainly don't want to live at Larrimah and I came away feeling a bit disturbed about whoever was still trying their best to make a living in this isolated location, that had played an important role in the defence of Australia during WW2. During WW2 the troops travelled by rail to Alice Springs and then they had to make the rest of the journey north on the convoy route, which was a rough dirt track.  Many of the places we have stayed at or visited on our journey north, also played an important part in providing for the troops.  At Wycliffe Well vegetables were grown as was the case at other wells along the track.  It took three days for the troops to get to Larrimah.The railway line came as far as Larrimah from Darwin and it is written that this 350kms of line was very historic.  The troops were carted almost like cattle to Darwin. Larrimah in those days consisted of a railway station, a telegraph repeater station, an enormous military staging camp and the Northern Territory's biggest air base at Gorrie, eight miles away.    In those days Larrimah had an itinerant population of 20,000.  By 1954 it had less than 20 and today it would be less than that!  During the War, the now 'Pink Panther Pub' building, was the WW2 Officer's Mess.  A chap by the name of Mahony purchased the building and opened the pub in 1954.  It was decorated differently then!  Now it is a bit more than different!  Named the 'Pink Panther Pub' and everything around is painted pink.  They have lots of lovely coloured birds and some of the iron on the cages is painted pink!  There were pink sheets on the line too.  But "Oh dear, it is so run down"!  The zoo, as it was called, was free entry.  Mostly birds, but there was a croc that sleeps all day and is fed a chook once a week.  Friday is chook day, so he was more than happy today, seeing it is Saturday!  There was a reasonable sized goanna and a little tortoise.  The birds were so pretty I ended up getting the zoom lens from the caravan and tried my skills at getting rid of the wire from the cage.  Like Val and I managed to do at Mogo Zoo.  I did quite well, but Peter got a little frustrated, with the time it was taking me!  And there's more!  There was a reptile house.  Well that part of the visit really did disturb me!  Everything was filthy in this room.  The ceiling was falling in and as for the big glass boxes with  huge snakes in them!  They were covered in dust and cobwebs.  And....we could see into the living quarters.  There was mess everywhere!  Did I say earlier in this blog that it was a hoot?  Well from the outside it was very different and you did feel you needed to call in for a look!

'The Pink Panther' visit definitely needs to be included in the story of 'Travelling Oz' 2014.  10 photos