Tuesday 27th May.
Today we decided to check out the origin of the spring which feeds the thermal pool here at Mataranka Homestead.
Huge reservoirs of water, 30 to 100 metres underground are heated to the temperature of the ground, at this depth around 34 degrees C. The springs here at Elsey National Park are not true hot springs in that there is no underground hot spot heating the water, just the just the normal temperature increase with depth. At Mataranka's Rainbow Springs 30.5 million litres of spring water per day flows through the pool out to the Waterhouse River then on to the Roper River.
So, the thermal waters are not part of any river as such but formed from the output of these springs. The water is absolutely crystal clear both at it's origin and throughout the pool area until it exits at the man made waterfall.
We also walked along the Riverside walk to Stevie's Hole which is a much larger natural swimming hole, located 1.2km from the thermal pool. Stevie's Hole is fed from the overflow of the main thermal pool via a quite narrow channel through the dense bush land.
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