Day 20 Home Again

Adelaide to Melbourne
Distance traveled 8303km
Temp 35-24
Track

Picked up our car this morning from Adelaide Terminal, and headed straight to Melbourne
Would you believe 160km out from Melbourne a flat tire, ran over a steel tube.

Day 19 The decent

Yes we are on our way down to Melbourne, the Nissan started it's journey this morning on the ghan at 10:00am we are catching a jetstar red-eye from darwin and will meet it in Adelaide Friday morning. It's been a long day (yesterday) we checked out 1:00pm and have been loitering round Darwin shops and cinemas for the past 12 hours, currently waiting to board the 1:35am flight. What we will do for cheap flights....

Day 16 Final Destination

Mataranka to Darwin
Distance traveled 7833km
Temp 35-39
Track
Left Mataranka today leaving behind the deafening cicada noise on route to Darwin. More of the same trip of yesterday we detoured again to Litchfield national park to take a dip in the local watering hole, wish we had one of these at home; Emma is acting more like Elaine everyday when she led us on a bush-walk through the park regularly stopping to take photos. Staying in Darwin..

Day 15 Springs at last

Kununurra to Mataranka
Distance traveled 6968km
Temp 35-39
Track
We headed for Katherine this morning, passing through magnificent escarpment after escarpment, the roads were patchy after repair from recent floods; the roadside was so green and absolutely teaming with life, cicadas, birds, frogs, butter-fly's, grasshoppers...  hot and sunny we had lunch at Katherine and took a 100 km detour to Mataranka to visit the springs there. I think we were all satisfied by what we found.

Day 14 Further North

Halls Creek to Kununurra
Distance traveled 6343km
Temp 37-39
Track
We left Kununurra this morning in search of springs to take a dip, traveled to the Palm Springs 70km trip where the local aborigines go, was not thermal but a nice spot. The locals were coming in droves behind us obviously they use this spot quite a lot during the wet season when the temperatures remain in the high 30C.
We then set off to Kununurra at a leisurely pace, given all the parks (bungle bungles)  were closed off during the wet season we could not make any other detours. Staying at the Hidden Valley caravan park for the night before closing in on Darwin, no rain today back to high temperatures and very high humidity. Darwin has been stormy the past few days and has a forecast of storms for the next few days so there is no rush to get there. We have been lucky with the weather to date as Broome had storms today also.

Day 13 Just can't wait to sniff some xxx-xxxxx with my friends

Broome to Halls Creek
Distance traveled 5894km
Temp 28-37
Track
Yes we are on the road again after spending 4 glorious nights at the mantra Broome. JC departed the group today heading back to Melbourne after shipping the GS by truck. Given the changes to the group we have changed plans also and will be heading to Darwin via Katherine. Today we had our first taste of Kimberley rain albeit just enough to cover the roads in flood-zones I'm sure it can get a lot worse. The temperature dropped below 30C the first time for days. Tonight we are staying in Halls creek cooking our staple diet of noodles and salmon, skies are clear again and temperature is back up to 37C.

Our last sunset in Broome

Day 10 Rest

 Broome
Distance traveled 5034km
Temp 32

A rest day at last with a visit to Cable Beach and the shopping center to stock up on supplies. Most of the day was spent in the pool. JC arrived from Fitzroy Crossing around midday. We managed the obligatory sunset camel ride on the beach, Matt and JC on Jamal and Emma and Pete on Ely. Emma of course now wanted to bring a camel back to Melbourne, probably as practical as a stray dog...

Pizza in the Weber tonight a far cry from the sachet pasta and salmon of the previous nights in the desert.

JC dropped a bomb-shell tonight, that he had had enough riding in the hot temperatures and was going to ship the GS and himself home.
JC was struggling with the high temperatures, understandable with +40C of course but we thought that hydration may have played a role at some stages of the ride drinking less than 6L of water and no mineral replenishment. Something that should have been planned better.