Day 8 – September 8 2012

It was a cold night but turned out to be a nice sunny morning – shorts & T shirts today.

Packing this morning for the next leg of our trip to the Flinders Ranges.  A chat with our neighbours & exchanging information on places to go, stay & see, a visit from a friendly kangaroo, then on the road again.  The trip out of Mutawintji was uneventful, apart from having to slow down for lots of different flocks of emus who seem to want to run across the road in front of us, then some kangaroos that wanted to stay on the road.  I have never seen so many emus in such a relatively small area, there were easily over 100 emus that we went past on the way out of Mutawintji.  Unfortunately, also a few dead emus that mistimed their runs in front of other cars.

We stopped when the road turned to bitumen again & re-inflated the tyres.  Fortunately no punctures on the way out. We stopped for a quick food shop at Broken Hill, not too much as we still had to pass through the quarantine station in South Australia, so no fruit & vegetables.  We had to open up the Karavan so the fridge contents could be checked at the quarantine checkpoint at Oodla Warra.  The quarantine check was uneventful, we made sure we had eaten all our fruit & vegetables beforehand, the fine can be many thousands of dollars.  The temperature at this place was freezing, only 11C.  Shorts & T shirt was definitely a bad choice of clothing.

Next stop was Peterborough for refuelling & a brief departure from our friends John & Helen, they have decided to have a night of luxury in a hotel before the next week or so of camping under canvas (it was so cold & they didn’t want to bother with unpacking just for the one night). The fruit & vegetables were also restocked here, the girl serving said that a lot of people get caught out by buying up in Broken Hill, only to have it all confiscated at the quarantine station, then they have to stock up again at the next large town on the trip, Peterborough (their prices are very high because they have a desperate clientele – or it could be because we are “out back”).

Finally our destination for the night, the nice little township of Orroroo & the one & only caravan park.  Our friends Mike & Rose were already there & greeted us as we arrived.  Now the only friends missing, (who were going to travel with us) are John & Sue (they were the ones who travelled with us last time) but unfortunately they couldn’t make it – we hope that Sue’s back is better.  A quite chat with some cheese & bikkies, plus a glass or two of red while watching the sunset & the massive flocks of corellas searching for a night roost was a pleasant way to relax after travelling 466km today.  We soon said good night as it got very cold.  We have the heater on while writing the blog as it all has to go tonight (we have mobile coverage tonight) because we will be out of mobile range for quite a few days when we get into the Flinders Ranges, then the desert.