A cold night & a cold start to the day with ice all over the car & the caravan, it took an hour or so after the sun rose to melt it away.  Today was a mish-mash sort of day for us & we started out fairly early.

I took a look under the car on the weekend to see if there was anything loose after the 6,500km we have travelled so far, with a fair bit of rough dirt road & discovered that nothing was obviously loose, but a shock absorber was leaking oil.  It was Picnic Day yesterday so today was the first opportunity to order a new shock absorber, airfreight from Melbourne, so hopefully here Wednesday afternoon & fitting on Thursday.  We also decided to buy some Rock Tamers (big extra mud flaps)  from the 4WD store to try & reduce the number of stones on the dirt roads bouncing off the Karavan & into the back of the car.  The dirt road from Gregory River to Camooweal threw up a lot of stones & the luggage crate on the Karavan had a tidy assortment of rocks, the Karavan drawbar had collected quite a few & the back bumper of the car also had a lot of small stones still sitting on it, the bigger ones obviously had fallen off.  We have seen a few cars with broken rear windows because of this.  So, it took me a few hours to fit them to the car.

While Tereza finished her house work in 5 minutes & read the rest of the day.  Yes, I read all day, I don’t know how come I always have work to do at home – I think we will live in the Karavan from now on.  The Karavan is smaller than our bedroom and we have everything in it.  We hardly have any washing up, we wouldn’t use more than 2 or 3 litres of water a day. Our washing is shaken by the travel, so Ron could just take it to work with him & washing and rinsing we don’t use more than 2 or 3 buckets of water for a week’s washload, all the waste of time & water used at home.

We also had a bit of banking & business matters to attend to, plus, importantly, a new pair of sunglasses for Tereza.  (left at home)

Our friends John & Sue took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping & a bit more sorting out of their new Vista caravan, making sure it will be ready for our next trip across the Tanami Desert.

The afternoon was closed off by our customary cheese & bikkies with afternoon tea. John cooked some lovely fish & Tereza some vegies for dinner, which we shared in our Karavan with a glass or two of red.  We solved the problems of Australia & a decent stab at some political debate.   It’s good that we sort of feel the same way – one should leave politics & religion alone.