Yesterday morning was a bit of a slow start, we ended up taking our lift buddies to the shopping centre at Cassurina Park and never got fully on the road till almost midday. Oh and of course I went to watch the rugby with Stephen last night, there was a lot riding on that game and in a way I hoped England would lose but they won and I ended up leaving Darwin. People say that everything happens for a reason and I do believe this and it is because of my choices that I had a great week in Darwin. You know who you are and why *smile*, I believe I left Darwin too soon but the adventure is far from over...

We had originally planned to get on the road and stop somewhere so we could go to the Mataranka hot springs first thing in the morning but we made excellent time to Katherine. Claudia and I went walking round the shops looking at random things such as Walkie talkies to try and make the journey more fun but we got the distinct impression that the other passengers just wanted to leave and get on the road. We arrived at the Mataranka hot springs late afternoon which was perfect for swimming. I will admit though that the springs were not quite what I had expected, from the pictures on the postcards I got in Darwin I expected some sort of magical oasis with beautiful palm trees and running crystal waters. Don't get me wrong it was nice but sort of reminded me a little bit of a man made oasis pool that you might find in an all inclusive resort in Mexico or somewhere.

The swim was well deserved though, the water was lovely and we got to watch a wallaby eating at the side of the pool. It was getting late so we grabbed a free shower (this could be our last for some time) and got on the road to go to the first of our camp sites of the trip. We arrived when it was already dark, it took a while longer to get there than planned. It was a fun first night, there were bugs everywhere! I was a little bit annoyed at the windows of the car being open and them letting all the bugs inside but to be honest I wasn't sleeping in there so I got over it! After a dinner of instant noodles I think everyone was relatively tied so we all crashed out for another early start tomorrow morning.

Today was going to be a day of driving as far as we can to The Devils Marbles. We stopped at the Hi-way inn to get some fuel and promptly took a load of silly photographs with a plane which was casually rotting away along side of the petrol pumps. It was then a group decision to go to the Daly Waters pub, one of the oldest pubs in Australia. I couldn't believe it, it was just as random as the Broad Arrow pub with pictures and random objects from all over the world. For instance there was Australia's most remote traffic signal, the thong tree (which had loads of flip flops from all over the world on it) and a whole wall of number plates from all over the world. It was these that intrigued me as I came across one which said land of the little people...Ireland... So of course I promptly took a picture and tagged a few Irish buddies in it! We had a beer at Daly waters and then got on the road again to go and see the airstrip which held the first ever Quantas flight. It is still used as an airfield for the Flying Doctor service, not much there to be honest it was rather barren and boring. We got on route again and decided to stop at Tennant Creek at the visitors centre.

Adam decided in his randomness that he was going to challenge me to an over taking contest along the Stuart highway whilst Jan was taking pictures from the passenger window. Kind of dangerous but ho hum. We arrived at the visitor centre to discover it was closed but there was a lot of old mining equipment around so I thought I would use the time whilst we were waiting for Claudia to take some random pictures. I got on the back of a truck and promptly put my foot straight through and noticed the handrail was rusty...whoops...best avoid some sort of tetanus injury so I got off! Claudia and Bastie arrived and we set off for a camp ground a bit further down the road. We had some randomness with tonight's dinner too, for some reason we thought we could cook 1kg of rice in the smallest pots you can imagine...lol.

The picture is of 'The Crew' lol.