The hot springs of Dalhousie are just so pleasant, at about 35 deg C. They offer noodles for people to use for buoyancy s as to not swim and over heat. The kids were rapt. Getting out in the cold needs to be quick!
For dinner, we had several hundred uninvited mosquito guests, and tried to get into the tent as fast as possible. I think we squished about 40 -50 of them during Loot and eating, then doing a hunt. Went to toilet, brought in 20 more on my jumper as I admired the vast milky way of stars overhead. Did some more mozzie hunting, and then slept. The dingoes started howling like wolves, not cool, including one very close to the camp ground.
Next day we all got up at 6 to watch the sun set from the spa bath. Nice. We had a lazy day, the boys on devices.
Left: watching the sun rise over the steaming springs, v awesome.
Right: standard campsite in the dirt, net protection for the hundreds of flies. There are enough to carry Louis away.
Ollie put a tent pole's spike through his foot. Him and Lou were seeing how hard they could ram the tent poles, with spike ends, into the ground. Back car tyre left has a slow leak. We'll need to go to the clinic for Ollie foot, and keep an eye on his foot plus the leaking try to limp it to Alice and civilisation. Looking forward to a breather now things have gone a bit wrong. Oh oh. I'm sure Ollies foot will heal up of with some medical attention.
The leaking back tyre was a concern over rough rough roads. We pumped it up to 33psi, cleaned, disinfected the outside and dressed Ollie's foot. It was a big disappointment as he'd really enjoyed swimming there in the hot springs, and was very much looking forward to doing some more.
We thought about driving to Alice, but Dalhousie Springs is a good days drive from anywhere. We decided to head off in the morning.
Left: At Mount Dare, the last dunny for a while, so make use of them. The people at Mount Dare rang ahead to Aputula(Finke) to book him a spot in the clinic.
We set off for Mt Dare first, for a tea/coffee stop. The people kindly let us call up the clinic to book in. Got to Aputula(Finke). The lady medic checked the foot, said she'd seen worse, cleaned it up, dressed it, and gave us some spare stuff. She was super nice. She said 'you're not going on that road with all the crazy riders on it?'
We took that into account, but decided it would be better to go straight ahead. Probs a bad idea, as it was a total jackhammering for about 150kms.
On the plus side, while going through narrow cuttings, and hammering along the table tops, we worked out Old Ghan Historic Trail we were rolling on is the Ghan rail line. We were on the old train tracks! The views of slopes with stones, vivid green shrubs, and trees was just a gorgeous garden of colours. You don't seem to get these amazing elevated views on regular roads.
Pulled into Alice around 6pm, and headed directly to the hospital to get Ollie seen to. Me and Lou had a beer and dinner, while Marie and Ollie waited to get seen. They finally got out at 10pm. The nurse apologised and said she would have put us up the list if she'd have seen the exit wound, and realised it was a full piercing, not just the visible upper scratching.
The next day we took off school as well. I went for a jog in the morning. Trying to cross the street is not great. Packed up at 10am after showers for everyone. Reparked. We went for a walk in town, through the Todd Mall, to the tourist info office, then rang around for a place to stay. Nowhere had any places left as The Finke Desert Race is on. We got a spot 14 kms out of town, and it is just beautiful. Set up and cooked before dark.
Left: the lovely Temple Bar Caravan Park.
Temple Bar Caravan Park has the mountains right behind, and some marvelous white ghost gums.
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