Alice Springs - Uluru

The cold change did come through about midnight, we stopped smelling the fire and I stopped worrying about an emergency exit! The tooth fairy came, despite the fires, and Ella was most pleased that the tooth fairy didn’t take her tooth, which she had hidden in the Blunderbuss! We struck camp after breakfast, filled the new water bottles (in lieu of the caravan watertank) and headed South on the Stuart Highway.

Her posture says it all!

The pace of the last couple of days was starting to show, so we stopped at Stuart’s Well roadhouse, home of the famous Dinky the Singing Dingo. Well, famous to some, but we had never heard of him and wouldn’t have stopped without Mind’s recommendation. Dinky began singing at the piano when a young pup, and now entertains visitors to the pub at the Roadhouse. Ella played piano first, and Dinky sang and played with her. After the Devil’s Marbles dingo experience, she looked rather startled (to say the least!) when Dinky kissed her at the end! Lachie then got to have a turn and played Surfboard Boogie for Dinky to sing along to. After a reluctant start, Dinky got into it and even played some more with his feet! It was hilarious. Craig and Gerry, Percy the 3-legged harmonica howler has some competition! Dinky has recently had an interview with Dr. Harry, and will be on TV on November 4^th if you’d like to see him.

Lachie's kiss from Dinky

Drove along to the Lasseter Highway turnoff, and turned West for a change! There are not many corners out here! Along the highway were hundreds of melons – we were intrigued and couldn’t resist stopping to check them out. After breaking one open, we think they were jam melons.

We fortuitously found the magnetic games so the afternoon of travelling whizzed by with the kids absorbed in games of Ludo, Chess and Solitaire. However, they were soon cast aside when we caught our first glimpse of Uluru! None of us could quite believe we were really seeing it. We found our campsite, set up quickly and climbed the red sand dune behind our tent to catch the sunset on the rock. Fantastic!

Rock Music!

As we were all heading to bed, Marcus noticed a mouse outside the caravan. It turned out to be a Spinifex Hopping Mouse, and all his family, so we sat in silence, enthralled as they scampered around our feet eating scrunched up Saos!

Stay tuned …