Day 27 Daly Waters to Barkly Homestead

Day 27 Daly Waters to Barkly Homestead

When we'd arrived at Daly Waters campsite we were placed next to three other camper trailers who were travelling together on their way to Birdsville. These were serious campers with big 4WD vehicles and off road campers. They'd been quite surprised to see how quickly John and I had gotten set up in the evening and we were smug the next morning too when we beat them dismantling our setup and got on the road before them!

We kept running into them at various roadhouses all the way along the Stuart Highway as we stopped for morning tea and lunch and to fill up with petrol. We ascertained that they also planned to stay at Barkly homestead overnight. They beat us there. Dammit.

Lazy cows

Second breakfast at Dunmarra

We stopped at Threeways Roadhouse for lunch. There were warnings there of a rogue buffalo - I wonder if it's the same one from Nourlangie at Kakadu wreaking havoc all over the Territory. All we saw were a couple of very mild and lazy cows.

On this leg John became quite concerned about our fuel consumption. The car's on board computer gives a rolling estimate, and although it's not particularly accurate it is consistent. After Daly Waters the consumption shot up by 25% for no apparent reason. After checking this, that and the other, and on seeing a warning sign at Barkly Homestead we concluded we'd been subjected to headwinds. Perhaps it's tribute to the car that we hadn't noticed buffeting or lack of power, but it was certainly quite worrying until we twigged.

John was keen to get to Happy Hour at the Barkly Homestead. Our stocks of alcohol were seriously depleted after so long in areas where the purchase of alcohol is restricted. We also dined in at the restaurant. Well we are on holiday! That night we turned in after watching TV on our computer. John was pleased to get it working after breaking the aerial. All it took was a piece of stiff wire! Shear  genius, though I say so myself!

The John Flynn memorial at Threeways

Desert flowers

John worried about fuel consumption....checking tyres

Sometime during the night the weather began to turn ugly. Luckily we hadn't left anything outside and John had lashed down the tent roof with extra rope. The temperature also dropped markedly, down to 12 degrees. The doona's back on the bed again.