Heading North December 2010

  We didn't get away from Port Augusta till late as we stayed the night about 40 klms out and the next day it was raining as we headed into fuel up before heading north.

 We then spent a very long day on the road and arrived at Coober Pedy about 6pm. after being stuck in the vehicle for so long I was very anxious to stretch the legs and didn't feel like cooking so persuaded Lynn to walk to the pub for a counter tea. It was still daylight when we walked back to the van which we had parked at the Information Bay on the edge of town. It is a free stop for trucks mainly and has no facilities but when we stayed there last year there was quite a few vans there but we were on our own this time.

 this truck was red last year but it now sports the Port colours



 the mural at the truck stop.

 From Coober Pedy we headed off again by about 7am so that we could travel in the cooler part of the day. We had a stop at  Cagney station for a cuppa and then continued on .

 When we were looking of a lunch stop we came across a nice rest area just north of Agnes Creek. It was quite a large area with shade and enough room to get back from the highway for an overnight camp. There was a motor home already parked there and the occupant came  over for a chat while we had our lunch. He had an interesting story to tell about some budgies that were nesting in the tree a t he back of his rig. Later he  showed us where the nests were and we saw a female budgie guarding her nest and waiting for her mate to come back and feed her.

 When we got to Kulgera Lynn was very excited as he thought he was going to get some Paul's Iced Coffee and the local paper but he missed out as they don;t stock either .  We finally got the day before's paper at Erldunda.
After another long day's travel we stopped at the Finke River rest area  for the night . We were very surprised to see water in the river as it is the first time in all the years we have lived in the Territory and travelled the Stuart H'way many times .

 I took a walk down to the river to get a better idea of much water was in it and found quite a bit of bird life around.

 the Finke River  with water in it !!!!!



Black fronted Dotteril

  We too had our tree with budgies nesting it . The big tree in the centre of the rest area had  at least one nesting pair that we saw and they weren't too perturbed by all the galahs and Corella's that were roosting in the tree too.

 By the time we got to Alice Springs the next day we were starting to warm up and enjoy the warmer weather . Unfortunately y we had quite a few storms and heavy rain  during the week we were there but we also had some quite hot days and enjoyed a swim In the pool at the park. We stayed at Wintersun Park and found they were clean facilities and friendly people. We had great neighbours who we shared lots of sun downers with.

 We stayed in Alice for a week to allow me to catch up on some sewing projects I wanted to get out of the way before getting to Darwin and so I could post them off before Xmas.