It's amazing what has to be done to get someone out of bed – all it took this morning was for the genny to stop at 8.30am and consequently the air conditioner. I haven’t seen Kimbo move so quickly for a long time. Within a few minutes we had our comfort back and we could sit down and have brekky. We were back on the road about 10.15am knowing we still had about 500km to go. The road was long, remote and lonely. There are only 2 roadhouses between Port Hedland and the Broome turnoff (some 600km), the roadhouses are a welcome sight for travellers. We didn’t stop at Pardoo Roadhouse as it was only about 80km from our overnight stop.

The main traffic again today consisted of bloody big trucks so I continued my road kill count.

So today the stats are: 1 bird (that flew into us), lizard x 1, pelican x 1 (yes a bloody pelican)

We think a lizard that ran onto the road may have lived to fight another day, thankfully our wheels went around him.

Live animals – large goanna x 1, obligatory Brahmin bulls x many who were enjoying all they had to eat, with shelter and plenty of water.

There were 2 - 4 calves lucky to be alive being missed by a HUGE truck and us……amazing what happens when the driver’s hand is securely placed on the horn!

We stopped for lunch at Sandfire Roadhouse where Kimbo filled up one of the jerry cans just to make sure we have enough for the genny for the rest of today and whatever we’ll need for tomorrow. At ($1.968/litre) still less than we were paying in Onslow!

Once again the countryside is sparse and much flatter than what we saw yesterday.

What has been the biggest change since we last drove this road in 2004 is the level of communication. We have had almost 100% coverage since we left Dampier – our thanks to Telstra for making this happen.   It makes travelling so much safer and easier to share the experience as I know everyone on Facebook will attest to. It has truly blown our minds.

We pulled into Goldwire Rest Area (about 150km from Broome) around 3.30pm and once again a fabulous area that has been created. A dump point for chemical toilets, several covered areas with tables and seats and what appear to be compost toilets. The whole area is pristine and we hope it remains that way, or this spot like so many others will close and we don’t want that.

I am so grateful that our air conditioner continues to run, it has been going 24/7 for over 3 months now even while we've been travelling. I wonder how we used to manage in our old bus without any air conditioning while travelling.....perhaps we were more like the backpackers then. I've clearly become soft.

Although the cloud built during the day it all came to nothing and by the end of the day gave us no respite from the 37 degree day......humidity was a factor. The cloud built up again and assisted in the overnight of 27 degrees!
Nobody else here apart from us for the night..........one of the pleasures of travelling this part of the country at this time of the year, no scrambling for a spot.........bliss!