Thursday August 20

Day 3 at Longreach waterhole and all is quiet at the front. The bird front that is. We shifted camp today and are now parked in absolute waterfront, if we were any closer our wheels would be in the water. As a reward we have witnessed all sorts of bird activities from the large number of bird species that are here. We have Pelicans, cormorants (shags to those who no know better) 2 or 3 different species, jabiru, kites, little black water birds, duck and lots of others. I know all these things because people who know a lot more about birds have told me so, to me they are just a lot of birds flying, fishing and fighting over fish. These same people told me the there is normally a bird population 10 times what we are seeing. I don't know why it is different, maybe the water is low, although there is still plenty of it, maybe the season?

Unfortunately we will be leaving in the morning as we are starting to run short of time. I have attached a few photos to show what we are seeing. 

Wednesday August 19

Day 2 at Longreach Waterhole. 

Spent relaxing in beautiful surrounds as one would expect. My morning walk is along the shore past lots of other campers, today as far as a couple of interesting looking trees a goal walk of about 4 kms.  Then back to the van and breakfast following which Elaine did a bit of cleaning and I lmade bread in the camp oven. For the first time I did not use a bread mix and it was ok but a little heavy. Elaine then upstaged me by making soup in the camp oven. This meant that we kept the fire going until mid afternoon and in fact it is still dealing with the last of the coals. 

Yesterday Elaine set up the rubbish bins with signs saying to take your rubbish with you if the bins are full, which they were. This morning first the shire supervisor turned up and we explained the graffiti on the water tank near the bins, of which he approved. Then the workers turned up and emptied the bins with a bit of encouragement from Elaine. 

Late this afternoon we sent for a walk and had a chat with some people, from Traralgon on the Murray River, who have been here many times over the past several years. 

Tuesday August 18

Ok today we stayed where we are at the Longreach Waterhole. 

Basically we took it easy a little bit of cleaning by Elaine and a little bit of sewing to reinforce our wood bag. I should add it is a Country Road bag ideally suited to our upmarket wood. 

I had my usual morning walk and found campers spread over about 4-5 kms of shoreline. I also came across a cane toad, not sure of what it was I sort help from a nearby van, confirmed its identitly and wacked it over the head with a steel pipe that I had found. Actually I think that it was already dead because it didn't move while this was happening! I then got a plastic bag and put it in a rubbish bin. I found out later that you don't hit them on the head as they can squirt a rather poisonous fluid at you that can cause serious drama. So next time I will squirt the horrible creature with Dettol which I am informed does the job very well. 

Then after lunch we fired up the fire pit and Elaine made a very nice roast chicken for dinner. 

Monday August 17

Out of telstra phone range again so this is being written in 'notes' for later publication. 

Last nights camp was a surprise packet, actually it is van park behind the Daly Waters Highway Inn which is on the corner of Stuart Highway (Darwin to Port Augusta) and the Carpenteria Highway which goes across to Cape Crawford. The inn consists of a pub, a cafe type restaurant, the van park, a horse race track of sorts and a few dongas. During the afternoon. Elaine spied a huge pig in the horse enclosure, I didn't see that but the enclosure had a very interesting collection of visiting animals. Ther were of course horses, black and red cockatoos, green and red and green finches, kites and some long legged birds. In addition we saw wallabies, at one stage standing up and boxing. All in all the best collection of animals this trip, definitely not expected at this place. Incidentally they had close to 30 RVs parked all contributing to the sites income, even the price was very friendly. 

Still heading south aimed at place called Longreach Waterhole supposedly a nice camp spot that I had come across before we left home and Elaine had been told about. It is near a town called Elliott and is an official camp area complete with toilets, water and of course the waterhole it also has what I think is a very corrugated 12 km road in and Elaine thought was not too bad.  Anyway we are here camped in a good spot overlooking the cream coloured water amidst trees along with a number of other people in RVs spread around the shore. It is very nice and we plan to spend a few days here. 

We have been told that we will arrive in Alice Springs during a truckers convention which will limit our accomodation possibilities, we will see what happens.