Saturday 28th June

We stayed overnight in the Avon Downs rest area with about 24 other travellers. After having been breathalysed when we arrived yesterday, we decided we should have a few nice reds with our BBQ dinner.

The night was quite uneventful other than a visit from two young fellows, who had broken down with their rental truck and east bound, looking to buy a beer or 3. They had broken their wheel spanner and several others from other vehicles. They believed that the wheel nuts had been over tightened by an air tool. We could not help them as we only carry red wine!!

Pack up this morning was quite quick as we did not deploy the awning for an overnight stop. We have been managing without the awning on overnight stops.

Along the way, we stopped and had a morning cuppa in a rest stop just over 90 minutes from our overnight stop. There were numerous others doing the same thing.

The scenery is not monotonous during to the changing trees, shrubs,termite mounds or even lack of any foliage and only limited amounts of grass. We noticed where the local aborigines have burnt the land there is a green tinge from the grass butts. The shrubby foliage appears to burn off and so leaves a clearer patch of land. There were a large number of hectares burnt that were visible from the road. Quite often the horizon displays a radio repeater tower and each one is quite high. Sometimes the horizon disappears but then either a few little rises or trees or shrubs change it.

We planned a quite short run today to Barkly Homestead Roadhouse. It was only about 220 kms from our overnight stop. We arrived here quite early which allowed us to pick the spot we wanted in the caravan park. There is water, good quality, and power to each sight. Nearby there is an ablution block which has a washing machine available. The power is from a very large generator that we can hear running quietly nearby. No Country Energy type power out here.

Barkly Homestead Roadhouse is quite an establishment with not only Caravan Park but also a small motel. Inside there is a small shop with very basic supplies and fuel outside. Adjacent to this part is a restaurant on the east side and on the west side a tavern which was great to watch the Wallabies beat France in Rugby. So much for Northern Hemisphere Rugby!

Fuel prices are going up as we go. We noticed the price here to be $2.15 per litre. We are going to have to get used to the price and there will be similar prices on the coast by the time we get home by the sound of the rising oil prices. I have trimmed the Bravo to rev out at around 2750 rpm and at this setting it is returning about 15.41 litres per 100 kms. That is really good when the all up loaded weight is around the 3.5 tonnes.

This afternoon, I gave a massage, as well as brushing flies away from my face, in the biggest room yet. In the shade under a tree! It brought plenty of looks from afar but reminded me of doing massage on the NSW Big Ride. It was appreciated.

We have just made, for the first time on this trip, a cappuccino with brewed coffee and heated milk then whizzed up, with a battery operated stirrer, to form some froth. Yum!!!