It was going to be hot and sultry today so I was thankful that we made the decision to leave Cactus. We had to spend a few hours in the Penong pub waiting for the mail to arrive and get sorted. Finally at 2.30pm we were told our mail hadn't arrived and as the mail is only delivered once a week I was happy to pay the $5.00 for a redirection to Perth, there was no way I was going to spend another week at Cactus with NO water. Finally we were away and we filled up with gas at Nundroo (56.9c/litre) which came as a bit of a shock having paid 24.8c/litre in Adelaide and 29.8c/litre in Port Lincoln. Sadly they would only fill our small water container so we will have to be very frugal with this.

Just before we got to Yalata a car coming towards us flashed their lights and the two occupants were waving at us like they were possessed. It was Robert (Christine’s husband) and his friend Adrian who have been at Yalata building houses. We pulled over and they turned around and we chewed the fat for awhile before we all made our move. It was fantastic to see familiar faces; they are on their way back to Adelaide tomorrow.

We wanted to get a few kms under our feet as we really hadn’t got very far today. Just before the first coast sighting we saw a water tank and although the water wasn’t potable we filled up the toilet tank (I can’t survive without my dunny).

Finally about 8.00pm we stopped for the night at our first stop on the Nullarbor, I had been thinking about this time for so long. It was almost dark so no time to go exploring. By the time we had dinner, cleaned up and had a cuppa it was time for bed.

The radio was warning of thunder squalls here, we didn’t get any thunder but there was quite a lot of rain so we had to batten down the hatches and shut the windows which was a little challenging as it was quite warm.

There was nobody else here and we were well off the road, so there was no noise, the peace was deafening.

I look forward to whatever awaits us tomorrow.