TOD Tour 2.0 Day 64 - Banka Banka Station to Barkly Homestead

Pace deliberately taken off today after two long days driving from Darwin. We need to get home as quickly as we can but not at the expense of Sue's back, so today is the first of three shorter days until we can get to Mt Isa and stay for two nights.

We have the early starts down to a tee now, with another departure before 7:30am this morning. A stop for Sue to stretch out and a change of drivers at The Three Ways, where we left the Stuart Highway. Its been our traveling companion for virtually all of September but we said our goodbyes and left for the east along the Barkly Highway.

We confronted our two dearest fuel prices to date: 209c/L at the Three Ways and a cent dearer at Barkly Homestead. In both cases, we were just topping up. I should add, the photo I took at The Three Ways was someone else's fuel!

We arrived at Barkly Homestead before lunch and took about fifteen minutes to set up. We left our new neighbours still setting up. They had arrived at the same time we did. We went to the Homestead for lunch. They were still setting up their camper an hour later when we returned. How grand it is to have left canvas and tent pegs behind.

Sue left for the pool and enticed my ankles to join her. The rest of my body has never trusted my

Click for today's photos

ankles advice where pool water is concerned but Sue was good enough to warn me it was cold, which means she was either generously good-hearted to protect me or she wasn't prepared to put up with the several hours of whingeing which would have followed full body immersion.

A few cheap beers during happy hour were enjoyed to round out our day.