Ash is taking advantage of the open spaces to get a feel of driving. There are lots of off road opportunities out here.

As we go close, we were struck by the greenness of the land after several weeks of red.

Over the ranges we found a lot of amazingly rich looking farm land, growing wheat (we think) canola and some livestock.

As we headed east, we were overtaken by the Indian Pacific. (Carmel and I did this trip 20 years ago and loved it.) It should reach Sydney tomorrow morning.

In a few hours we left SA. Carmel and I do intend to come back when we are less encumbered!

You may have noticed how there are no wildlife posts in this blog about NT. That is simply because we saw none except flies and birds, the latter being very shy. Not a Roo, snake or lizard for two weeks – quite extraordinary. However, we did find an Emu farm at Erldunda as we left the territory, so while not wild, it did give dog something to think about.

The road from Glen Helen to Kings Canyon was quite an adventure. It was our first long stretch of unsealed road on the trip. I had driven a kilometre in the Barooga State Forest finding Paradise beach, and about 500 metres to get to Stanton Bend at Rutherglen, and 20 km round trip to get to the Australian Museum of Dinosaurs near Winton, but this was a 120 km rattler. While most of the road was find, the few bad patches were horrible to drive – rattling at 40km/h, bone shaking at 60km/h and deafening at 80km/h. We managed to shake off and shatter one or our driving mirrors and dislocate our toilet flap.

The road was pretty straight, but there were a couple of blind bends when we went through gorges. We found the “politically incorrect” street sign shown in the left. I remember it from last time we drove this road (15 years ago). The tin on the other side had been amended from “Put um back down” to “Take a break”.

The drive from Brunswick Heads was uneventful after an inauspicious departure. We left in periodic rain showers, and of course its Dad’s job to be packing up the outside! However, once you are wet, you can only get dry again by packing everything away and getting into a car with the heater on.

A dry dog in the car is more important than a dry Dad, so he was coddled while I got wet!

The local church in Wodonga is quite lovely inside being mostly woodwork – red river gum and (black) petrified wood trim.

Anyway, after mass, I was delighted to have Carmel join me, so at least the family was not so spread out. Ash claims he wants a chance to prove that he can go to school and get an afternoon job and support himself, so we decided to give me a chance. We are grateful for local friends who are keeping an eye on him. I personally hope he will return and join us in a few days.

It looks like I need to get used to the hat with corks!

I also note in the background the very practical fly net on the straw hat. I wonder if I’ll be needing those on this trip.