A long day driving

Our night of free camping was cold, but pleasant and uneventful. We were on the road by about 9:30 for an hour and a half to Alice Springs. Here we found the mandatory Woolworths stop, and stocked up for the next week. It was actually nice to be not spending $6:50 on a loaf of bread or nearly the same for 2 litres of milk. 

The big error in our plans was, however, that none of the bottle shops open in the NT until 2pm. And I had not a drop of beer or bourbon left in the van. Looks like I will be getting into the 5l cask of port that has been stashed in the van since we left home. 

Lunch was some dry over cooked pies, pasties and sausage rolls from the Stuart’s Well roadhouse where we stopped for fuel, because I stupidly forgot to fill up in Alice where the price was semi reasonable

Not long after turning right at Erldunda, we realised how hard the last 200km of this trip was going to be. There was a headwind or at least 50 knots and the dust storm created, made visibility almost zero at some stages. 

I was now chewing through diesel at an average of 21 litres per 100km, rather than the usual 13. At an expected refill price of $2:15 a litre, this was not the welcoming trip I was hoping for. 

And once we had finally passed through the dust, the rain clouds appeared and even slightly dampened the windscreen for a moment. This was when we made the choice to go to Kings Canyon first, and try Uluru later. Our goal is to get to climb the rock, and with this weather, I expect it is going to be closed for a few days

We stopped at Kings Creek Station which is about 30 minutes short of the Canyon, and set up in the red dust. This is actually the reddest and dustiest stop we have had so far. And with the light rain falling, we were now being also welcomed with red mud

The site was pretty basic, but nice enough. The rain eventually stopped, the clouds disappeared and a beautiful cold night descended.