Chugging Along

We are now North of the Tropic of Capricorn. There is nothing terribly significant about that other than there was a marker on the side of the road as we were traveling North of Alice Springs and so we took a picture. 

Our stop in Alice Springs was brief.  Despite being famous for its role in establishing communications via telegraph lines and the fact that it is the most inland city in Australia, it just didn't hold any appeal to us, so we stopped only long enough to top up food and fuel before moving on out, making our way North.

We stopped for a night in Aileron, home of the giant people.  Tomorrow it is going to be a long haul to our next stop with not much in between.

And I can tell you, it is a long straight highway that is taking us to Darwin.  1,900 kilometers of pavement and scrub bush on either side.  The termite mounds are quite amusing, especially those sporting t-shirts and hats.  It is incredible how many of these termite mounds we saw.  It was like an ever-ending forest.  There must be trillions of termites in this part of the country.  Makes us wonder why they checked our boat so carefully for termites when we first arrived last October.

We rolled off the highway to marvel at the Devil's Marbles and stretch our legs, and a little further on we took a shade tree at the old Telegraph Station as our lunch spot.  After driving about 900 kilometers, we called it a day at Daly Waters.

  

Daly Waters is quite a place - the pub is a popular spot to leave your business card, brassiere, hat, t-shirt, flag or whatever else you have.  They serve up an Aussie style barra and beef bbq and some Australian talent hit the stage for a good bit of music and funny stories.   

It is much warmer up this way.  No more freezing at night.  Thank goodness we are back to the tropics.  Despite the cool/cold nights we have been very lucky with the weather - sunny days and starry nights.

Today was a short 2-hour drive.  We stopped to take a dip in the thermal waters of Mataranka and generally just chill.  The thermal waters bubble up out of a spring in the ground and about 30 million liters of water flow through the dipping pool daily.  Ah, it was just the perfect temperature.  The caravan sites are much busier up this way which I guess explains the nightly entertainment we have been enjoying. We listened to a great entertainer by the name of Garry Booth with a guitar and didgeridoo playing a collection of songs as well as some of his own music.

Tomorrow we meet up with Ken and Lil of Moonbeam in a small town called Pine Creek.  It will be nice to catch up with Lil .... We haven't seen her since Fiji!