After waking up from a chilly night (apparently the temperature dropped to about 5°C, no more sleeping with all the tent flaps open for a while), we covered 400km through fairly flat terrain covered with spinifex and stunted shrubs, small termite mounds and the odd rocky outcrop. Stopping at one outcrop, Quartz Ridge, for a look at the view, we chatted to a couple from Victoria with their three small children, bulldog and lorikeet in tow. We were impressed with his Camel Trophy knowledge, and had to agree when he said that anybody who hasn’t heard of the event has no right to be out in the wilds in a 4WD! In case you are passing this way, there’s a track around the back of Quartz Ridge that leads to a great bush camping site, but we wanted to push on a bit further towards Alice Springs so left it for another day. SPOT
The only other punctuation to our driving was buying an ice cream from the Rabbit Flat roadhouse, famous for being the most remote roadhouse in Australia, as well as for its proprietor - Bruce Farrads. Only open certain days, it used to be cash only and if he didn’t like the look of you he wouldn’t serve you, not to mention the most expensive fuel going (AU$2.30/litre for diesel, whereas in Halls Creek it was $1.52). Open for over 40 years, it will be closing for good on New Year’s Eve. We chatted to Bruce’s son who was helping out for a while before returning to his proper job in Darwin. He thought it too cold for ice creams, but we explained that we were from England so it was like a hot summer’s day to us (it was in the mid 20’s°C today!). SPOT
We must be acclimatising to Australia as it’s feeling cold as we’re sitting out tonight, although hopefully it’ll keep the mosquitoes/sand flies/anything else that likes munching on us in hiding - it’ll be nice to be bite free for a while.
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