Day 224
Temperatures were still around 31 to 34 during the day and we woke up early to take advantage of the cool mornings. Prepared for a long day, we were quite happy to have smooth flat roads and a relatively short day.
We arrived at our destination Larrimah just after 1pm and wondered how we would do with the rest of the hot day. Normally we read on our tablets, but since we now rely on them and are not sure when we will have power, we have gone back to old-fashioned paperback novels. We borrowed 2 from the book share at the caravan park in Katherine. I’m reading Colleen McCullough’s “The first Man in Rome,” and Cher is reading Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale.” We were lucky to find two decent reads since most the caravan park books exchanges only have tabloids, romance novels or off-roading, hunting and fishing magazines.
The Pink Panther roadhouse/zoo was quite eccentric. We were directed to camp anywhere we wanted on the grassy lawn along the road.
We sidled up to the largest tree we could find and pitched our tent. We were also next to an incomplete bunk house, and an abandoned outdoor barbecue. Pieces of metal, and a makeshift painting table with weeds growing around them revealed that progress has stopped some time ago.
The camp kitchen had two broken kettles that hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Luckily there was an electric hot plate which we could use to fry or boil. We were the only people to use it since it was bought, the aging receipt was still inside when we opened it. However the showers were hot and the water pressure was good. This was the only good thing we could say about this place.