Tashi delek from Tennant Creek,

After refuelling the “jeep”, I left Mt Isa at around a quarter past 7, heading west along the Barkly Highway. The sun was just rising, into a clear, but relatively cool (11 degrees), blue sky.

By 9 I had reached Camooweal, where I had planned to visit a bakery to obtain provisions. The town wasn’t quite what I was expecting; it’s basically a hotel, a service station, a general store, and strangely, a butcher (but no baker). I wasn’t overly disappointed, as I had had a hearty breakfast; the serving of the Ethiopian style meal that I had last night was too big, so I had the remainder “doggy bagged”, and I reheated it in the microwave this morning.

When I crossed over into the Northern Territory at 9:10, I cranked up the cruise control to match the new speed limit of 130 (I actually set it to 139; according to my GPS, for every 10km/h over 40, the speedo is an additional 1 km/h shy of the real speed). The vegetation dramatically changed from low open scrub to grassland (and mostly remained that way).

I had morning coffee ’round a half nine, making do with some motel biscuits that I’d been squirrelling away in my picnic basket.

I refuelled the car again at the Barkly Homestead Roadhouse at about 11:30, and took the opportunity to grab a chicken salad sanger for lunch. I  partook of the sanger at the next rest area, 55 km away, at 12ish. Unlike the previous 5 or so rest areas, which were heavily infested with grey nomads, there was no one there but I; I expect they were all at the Barkly Homestead.

I was in my motel room by 1:45 EST; local time was 1:15. The temperature was only 23 degrees.

Today’s leg was a relatively short 674km. My average speed, including stops, was 104 km/h! The trip computer indicated that travelling at 130km/h added about 1lt/100km to my fuel consumption, compared to travelling at 110km/h.

Here’s the route what I took:

Cheers,
Julian