Day 6 SA/NT border to Yalara by Caro

We woke up on the border between South Australia and the Northern Territory. Paddy didn’t sleep well, so I thought we’d get up and watch the sunrise. I was looking forward to this because the morning before, Bill saw the sunrise and told me “words can’t describe how great it was”. This morning’s sunrise however, was very underwhelming. We took the standard photos at the NT sign and drove off.

This photo was taken by Brett Shae’s uncle that we were camped next to.

We drove on to Kulgera which is the first and the last pub in the Northern Territory. Our next stop was Erldunda which is where you get to turn left. This is very exciting if you are the driver. There were people everywhere at Erldunda. Some friendly and some cranky. We were going to fill up here, but it was too busy.

The kids checked out the emus in the pen and we took this photo right before an emu helped itself to Bill’s chips.

(Jess is horrified by her goofy face, but it is an action shot.)

We went on to Curtain Springs, expecting to fill up here, but once again we lost interest when we saw the line up, and decided that if Danny did run out of fuel he could cyphon some out of my car.

We made it to Yalara before midday, and were turned away at the entrance. Again people everywhere. They told us we could camp 8ks back, where we had already passed a lot of campers on the side of the road, and we knew that this was filling up too.

To cut a long story short, Danny worked his magic, and has found a private spot for us on a camel farm, where we did a camel ride a couple of years ago ( and he stayed in touch with the owners). We can see the Ulgas to our right, and Uluru on our left. We have access to showers and toilets, and there is room for the kids to run around ( we have told them to give way to the camels!!). It is better than any campsite we could have been allocated at the resort.

In return for the campsite, Danny is going to work as a camel handler at the camel cup in Alice Springs next Sunday.  He has no camel experience, but doesn’t lack confidence. It should be fun to watch.

As I am typing this at our camp, this happened:

There is also someone parachuting in the sky behind me. This evening I climbed up a lookout that the kids wanted to show me, and there is even a blimp ( one of those big hot air balloons) on the ground between us and the Olga’s.  Like I said...people everywhere!!

This is the view from our own private lookout:

Life is pretty good.

Time for a shower and bed.