Alice to Darwin

Hello everybody,
On Anzac Day, we travelled to a little place in the gem fields, called "Gemtree". This is 140k north east of Alice Springs, & we were delighted to see a couple that we had met in Winton(QLD) last year. They were working at the caravan & camp grounds for 5 months. On the Monday, we went on a fossicking tour & were successful in finding a lot of very usable Garnets.Avril is having one stone cut & fitted into a ring for me for my next birthday. I thought that fossicking was walking along & picking up a few stones. How wrong I was. I havn't worked so hard for ages. Next we drove to Wauchope, via Barrow Creek. We stopped at the Barrow Creek pub for a drink & found that the wallpaper was made of bank notes from all over the world. Lots of $100 & $50 Australian notes as well. All the notes are signed & a comment on them. Wauchope is in the middle of nowhere, But the pub did a good evening meal, & the swimming pool was great. On Wednesday, we drove through Tenant Creek to Renner Springs. Disaster struck when I was parking the caravan as I struck a power post with the window & side of the van. We fixed the hole with thick plastic & duct tape. After fixing the hole, we went to see "The Devil's Marbles" & found them to be an amazing group of rocks, & after that it was time for "Happy Hour" which lasted longre than usual. Our travel plans have now been modified. We will get to Darwin quickly, so we can get our repairs done before the peak tourist season begins. After Renner Springs, we drove to Daly Waters. It's a lovely little place & the home of Australias first international airport. The pub meals are good, the entertainment is good, & the rodeo is in town. We had 2 enjoyable days here. The next two days were spent at Mataranka. We really loved this place. The hot springs were amazing & feeding the Barramundi was fun. On Monday we drove through Katherine to a little place called Hayes Creek which is about 160k south of Darwin. Spent 1 day there & then on to Darwin. Took the caravan to the repairers on our way into Darwin so we could get a Quote before setting up in a caravan park. We have been here for 5 days now & like Darwin. Nothing happens too fast in Darwin, so we don't know how long we will be here for. Love to you all,
Avril & Doug