After a sunrise breakfast we packed up & went for a swim in the lovely waterhole in the King Edward River, we were trying to delay the inevitable – that rotten road to Drysdale station, then even worse, the horrible 59km from Drysdale Station to the Gibb River Road.   John found one of his shock absorbers leaking.  We drove very carefully, stopping for a family of 3 Brolgas at one creek crossing just after we got going, then stopping every 20 km to check equipment.  At Drysdale they told us that the plane would come in on Tuesday & they would order 2 new shock absorbers, (their policy is to always order 2 of every spare part) over lunch we decided to keep going.  We often drove on the shoulder of the road to get some relief from the corrugation (it felt like we would tip over).  Slow drive but finally we got to the Gibb River Road.  It started out great until we got to corrugations, sharp rocks, big rocks & bull dust (big hole covered over by very fine dust).  Things got better & some patches were even good.  Ron & John had a very hard day of driving, a shade over 200km in 6½ hours, averaging about 32 km an hour.

We had a beautiful sunset but we needed a place to set up.  We came up to Barnett River Gorge camp area – 3 km drive in from the road.  The road in was a real 4WD delight – something we did not need especially at dusk.  It was a bush camp & we were the only ones out in the sticks.  Our microwave oven nearly fell out of its cupboard, we pushed it back, hopefully it will stay put.  John cooked a tasty Italian chicken dish & I provided the vegies, all washed down with another nice red.  It was a most beautiful night under the moon & stars & we talked about the election & all of the possible scary outcomes.  May be we should just keep on trekkin & never find out the result.