GOODBYE QLD - HELLO NT

What a week it's been! We've been through a major black hole as far as communication is concerned. No optus connection, so no internet - and we were lucky to get one very fuzzy analogue tv station in most places. So I will try and update a very full week.
We stayed at Normanton for two nights so we could leave the van and drive up to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. This was as close to the water as I would allow the kids. There were signs everywhere warning of crocodiles. We had a picnic lunch then bought some fresh banana prawns to take home for dinner. Very yummy!
From Normanton we drove down to Cloncurry and then headed towards Mt Isa. We stopped at a rest stop for the night - a popular spot for vans.
The next morning we drove into Mt Isa to have a look around. I thought a visit to the School Of The Air would be interesting for the kids. We arrived just as the one guided tour for the day was finishing! The staff were so lovely - they put a dvd on for us which explained pretty much everything they talked about on the tour, and then said we could have a look around. We were watching a teacher in one of the studios when he waved us in. We got to sit in on a grade 6 Science class about space shuttles. The kids even got to conduct their own experiment using a paper space shuttle.
That night we stayed at a caravan park in Camooweal, the last town in Qld before reaching the border. We jumped straight in the pool. It had been 37 degrees that day. In fact every day in the last week has been at least 35. The air con has had a good workout.

The next morning we drove about 10 minutes, then excitedly jumped out of the car to take photos at the Northern Territory border.

We stopped at Barkly Homestead and had lunch in the van. The kids got up close to a roadtrain filled with cattle when it parked right next to us. From there we drove to Threeways roadhouse which had a caravan park out the back - and yes, thank goodness, another pool. The kids made friends with a boy who was also travelling with his family, and with the boy who lives at the roadhouse.

We were going to leave the van and drive the 130km south to Karlu Karlu (Devil's Marbles) that afternoon and stay there until sunset, but the kids were having so much fun with their new friends that they didn't want to go. So instead, we put the alarm on for 6am (that's 5:30am NT time) and headed down to see it in the morning. The kids didn't understand what the big deal was about some rocks, but they were suitably impressed when they got there. We even pulled up right next to a dingo as we were driving in.

We got back to the van at Threeways and then set off for Daly Waters. We had heard that there was a good spot to camp at the back of the pub there.

This is the front of the Daly Waters Pub - the oldest pub in the NT. It's a very popular spot for tourists and travellers. The publican told us there had been 40 vans there the night before, and 60 the night before that. There's not much else in the town at all, but it was worth the visit just to see the pub. The walls are covered with artifacts left behind by visitors, including shirts, bras and undies, money from all over the world, photos and even id cards.

Out the front of the pub are 'Australia's most remote traffic lights'.

Tara quite liked the post with international coins stuck all over it.

So that brings me to today. We had a huge day in the car and drove all the way to Adelaide River, which is only about 100km from Darwin. We're at the showgrounds - always cheaper than caravan parks with all the same facilities. This one even has a pool! Lots of other vans here, and hooray, internet and 4 clear tv stations!! Tomorrow we're off to Darwin.