Well that was a warm night! 10 degrees after such a warm day - we finally feel like we're in the north although we woke to fluffy clouds covering the sky. There wasn't really a mass exodus from the showgrounds this morning either. Just a few vans leaving at respectable hours of the morning. Maybe we need to camp at showgrounds more often! This was just a small section of the large number of campers at the showgrounds last night.
We had a visit from this little busybody who got so close to the door I thought he was going to come inside. It was a gorgeous morning to have the door open and watch the grounds come alive.
All packed and ready to go - our first sign post - Darwin is getting closer. Only about 1500km to go!
I loved this fence which blocked off the view of a fairly ordinary yard of trucks, trains and a whole bunch of other unattractive stuff, but also the design that is obviously inspired by the ranges that surround the town.
There are lots of memorials and historic site markers along the road. We stopped at a few of them on our last trip and missed a few, and we did plan to stop at the Tropic of Capricorn this time. We made an unplanned stop for this one - which amused me a little as the road is so flat to and from this marker it's hard to imagine it being higher than much of anything.
Of course now we are north of Alice Springs, there will be far more road trains. Although there are massive amounts of them on the roads at night, it would appear from our experience that there are more road train movements between Darwin and Alice than south to Adelaide. And they get bigger - we struck two this morning that consisted of four parts. That last trailer always looks like the wayward two year old that is being dragged along reluctantly on a shopping trip. And having your wits about you on the road is even more important as the force of air and suction will drag you across the road if you aren't prepared for it.
I also remember these deep, wide channels that I assume take water off the road in the wet season. The fact that there are so many and they are so deep and wide makes me curious about the amount of water but probably never curious enough to be here in the wet season.
Things don't always work in the outback I guess, and wherever you look there are also reminders of things that used to be there.
And again the vegetation changes.....
We arrived at Aileron Roadhouse around 12.30pm - just in time to get set up, make lunch and hook up to the internet for Shane to watch his Melbourne Storm NRL match. As it turned out it was lucky we stayed the extra day in Alice as we were originally scheduled to be at the Devils Marbles which has no telstra signal for the internet. It would have been a sad panda Melbourne Storm fan to miss the game. As we had pulled in and were checking in, I watched as a young indigenous mother took her maybe 2 year old daughter over to the footpath in front of the shopfront and proceeded to change her nappy on the cement before tossing the nappy in the bin and heading back to the car.
Obviously the heat today has made someone a little sleepy - there was a significant amount of snoring happening - oblivious to the noise of the NRL match or anything else happening around her until dinner time.
It wasn't until the sun went down that the flies finally departed. Meanwhile we had a knock at the door and an indigenous couple were trying to sell some artwork - we declined. After taking a few shots at sunset we went for a wander across to the roadhouse which is also the Aileron Pub. On the way over we encountered a holden station wagon full of indigenous people of varying ages, one of which was an older man (the same one who had come to the caravan) who was holding a canvas painting up to an open window asking if we would like to buy it. Once again we declined to which there were a bunch of words in a language we had no idea of and the car sped off out of the roadhouse and down the road. As I watched it leave I noticed two young children and a young man unrestrained in the back of the wagon.
Of course being important to support local business we each bought a drink and spent a bit of time looking around the various artworks on display, including a number of Albert Namatjira prints and a selection of indigenous paintings. I must confess that I do love the aboriginal art. We purchased a couple of pieces on our last trip (that I am still yet to have framed), but as tempting as it was to add to the collection, we are trying to cut a few costs for our trip so I was restrained.
139 km
Total - 3,732 km
Top today 26°c - expecting overnight 8°c
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