Still heading south
Woken once again at 5am - how am I supposed to get rid of my insomnia if I am continually woken up. I stumbled into the bathroom to be greeted by 2 French girls taking up the entire vanity area, doing full makeup. If I had had the energy I would have smacked their heads together.
After breakfast we headed south - stopping briefly to take photos of an aeroplane which had floated quite a few kms during the 1998 floods. We arrived at Mataranka Hot Springs for a morning bath - with 20 teenage boys from another bus tour. The two French princesses refused to go for a dip in case their makeup got messed up - I felt like pushing them in.
Mataranka had not changed very much apart from the palm tree groves which had been knocked down by the floods. Apparently Mataranka has also been taken over by millions of fruit bats and this does not make pleasant camping or bathing conditions in the evenings.
Two more hours in the bus and we stopped at Daly Waters Pub for lunch. Daly Waters has a permanent population of 23 and a transitory population of 1023, mostly bus groups stopping in for a visit. The pub is completely decorated with signed bras, undies, tshirts, business cards, photos, driving licences, stickers, numberplates, notes and coins from all over the world. The BOSS found a spare spot about 6 inches off the floor and left her mark. Not surprisingly, I could not find the business card I had left there 18 years ago.
After lunch and a quick visit to the Daly Waters International Airport (no kidding!!) we hit the road for Tennant Creek - approximately 4 more hours in the bus. Fraulein Perky came to the back of the bus to grace us with her presence. She was so enamoured with the sound of her own voice, she did not shut up once. Where's my cricket bat?
That afternoon, to help the time pass quicker, Johnny ran a trivia/music quiz which became quite lively and interesting. The overall winner was an Irish girl who was a genius identifying songs and artists.
We pulled into Juno Horse Farm quite late and discovered that we were sleeping on the ground in swags inside the permanent tents. It was quite cold and I am so glad I brought the extra sleeping bag. Dinner was an average lamb stew but it was so late (9pm) that I barely felt like eating. We hit the sack early feeling very weary, even though we had done nothing much physical that day.
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