Day 12. Wednesday October 12th. Dalhousie to Mt Dare

Wednesday October 12^th – Dalhousie Springs to Mt Dare

OMG today was a little like back to the future for Ska and Nicola, with the car heading off to Mt Dare with a slightly sprained ankle (busted shocker) as compared to the broken leg (strut) from last year.

A couple of spits of rain overnight, but nothing to worry about. Nicola, Steve and Ro up early for a pre breaky swim in the warm/steamy pool with some rain falling, very nice start to the day, but totally energy sapping, lucky it was short trip to Mt Dare, as we were not motivated to cook and eat breaky and pack up.

Sunrising over the springs, during my early morning swim.

Breaky for Nicola & Co was French toast, with everyone enjoying a meal of bacon cooked on Reve’s fantastic fire with Steve’s very useful cooking plate. Thanks guys.

Another swim prior to departure for Nicola, with Meg and Milani. Then Nicola led off with the busted vehicle to set the pace, we headed for Mt Dare via Dalhousie Ruins, blood creek and a quick revisit to the site of our 2010 breakdown.

rainy clouds in the East.

the sky was the colour of bruises. A lookout on the way out to Dalhousie Ruins

Mmm looks like those mozzie bites are kicking in Ro?

 The ruins were considerably cleaned up from last year with lots of date palms removed to prevent them taking over hte springs, the ruins were pretty much ruins, but it is still amazing to think that people chose to live and survive in such harsh conditions, hard to imagine what it must be like in the heat of summer, it was about 27 today and bloody hot.

some reeds at the springs at Dalhousie Ruins

A little skink on a mantlepiece of ruined chimney.

The ruins

A passenger who travelled with us for several kilometres, stayed for our
lunch stop.

We arrived at Mt Dare prior to 3.00 after experiencing a track that was much improved on last years, horribly rough and corrugated roads. We had to have the obligatory ice-cream on arrival and booked ourselves in, fuelled up and ordered our evening meals.

Then some more drinks and nibbles, as it is too hot to put up tents etc at the time of the day.

Camp at Mt Dare, shady trees and drink prior to inspecting Ska
and out to the Pub for tea.

 Milani got to meet up with one of the girls she met last year at Mt Dare whose Mum and Dad run the place, so it was great for the both of them to have some other child company for a few hours.

Milani and Crystal, amused each other for hours...a fairly lonely existence
for young kids our here in the middle of nowhere.

We checked out Ska’s injury to ensure that no further damage has been sustained, thank goodness this was not the case and determined that it would be best to plough on and get home on the busted shocker.

Steve and Stef, checking the damage.

Out for tea...it could only happen to Ro - the pepper lid broke and he had
peppercorns....everywhere....

Milani and Chrystal with their ice tubes.

Dad's tyre was ready to roll. thanks Stef.

Dad left his deflated tyre to be repaired. During tea time, we viewed some really interesting Mt Dare photo slide shows, of the Yasi floods out here, the damage done around the station and a lot of other photos of vehicles in trouble out here and repairs, recoveries the Mt Dare crew carry out, David the owner and father of Milani’s friend Crystal sat with us and provided a running commentary with the photos, some amazing stories and a really good bloke.

Heading for Coober Pedy via Oodnadatta tomorrow, so quite a long day with in excess of 500 kms to cover, so I’d best get off the computer and get to bed.