Down the Stuart Hwy - Darwin to Alice

We've now left Darwin and done a couple of solid days travelling south down the 1500 km of the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs. We've travelled the northern half of this route quite a bit in the last few years, but we hadn't seen the part south of the Barkly Hwy turnoff towards Queensland since we first came up through the centre over three years ago.  Accordingly we decided to pull off the road and investigate the 'historical sites' we went past, and found that not only had we forgotten most of them, some had actually been installed new since we came this way last. It seems that the Engineering Society of Australia has been putting up lots of information boards recently, so we discovered new information on places such as the point where the north and south construction of the overland telegraph line joined in 1872, and one of the many wells dug along the overland telegraph route.

We also detoured into Newcastle Waters, the remains of a once thriving settlement that serviced the drovers taking cattle from the Northern Territory to the southern markets. With the advent of sealed roads and road trains the droving industry collapsed - the Drovers Park at Newcastle Waters has a memorial statue commemorating this quintessentially Australian activity.

The Tropic of Capricorn runs just north of Alice Springs, so we've now left the tropics for what we expect is the last time on our Around Australia trip. The desert climate means we'll be snuggling up under the doona at night for a while, rather than sleeping with just a sheet as we have been doing for the last week or so in Darwin.

Finishing Up in Darwin

After 3 months enjoying Darwin's superb dry season weather, we are about to hit the road again. The caravan park, which a week or two ago was full to bursting, is now showing lots of empty sites - the grey nomad exodus back south has begun.

Once again we have enjoyed playing lots of golf, and our handicaps are reflecting the good dry conditions. We have also enjoyed the friendliness of the DGC members, and have felt quite at home here.

Like last year, we have enjoyed quite a few theatrical outings in the last 3 months. We went to three productions at the Darwin Entertainment Centre, including the latest David Williamson offering and an amusing Bell Shakespeare production of Moliere's School for Wives. The last 2 weeks have been the Darwin festival, and we've really indulged, attending 7 performances. Like most festivals there have been hits and misses, Tripod and La Soiree probably being the highlights. The festival is split across two main venues, both offering fantastic outdoor dining, so we've not only been getting a culture fix but a food fix as well.

Yesterday we thought our departure might be delayed when our PC abruptly died. One minute we were happily playing mindless computer games, the next staring at what might as well have been a house brick. A frantic run around today now sees us proud owners of a brand new laptop, with all our data retrieved from the old one. Now all we have to do is try and figure out how to make all the programs look and behave in the same way we are used to!