We left Docker River this morning expecting the road to be bad, we hadn’t expected atrocious, seriously the Northern Territory needs to do something about this section. Normally we can mage corrugations because the =y fairly shallow and evenly spaced and we can ride them reasonably comfortably at 60+ kph. For the most part today we are reduced to less than 40 and often even slower.
We see a bit more traffic today, up to 4 or 5 vehicles an hour, including a few trucks.
There are literally millions of feral camels across Australia, I hasten to add that we actually haven’t seen any this trip yet, they were left behind by their Afghan drivers when mechanised transport took over in the first few decades of the 20th century and have bred and bred. They are completely at home in this harsh climate but are ruining central Australia because they eat what little vegetation there is. A few ks up the track from Docker river is the camel coral, which is quite an interesting structure. It is approximately 30 m in diameter and nearly 3 m high. There is a water trough in the middle fed by a 50mm pipe so at some stage there must have been a pump of some sort, possibly a windmill within the compound.
A little further along a dingo is wandering around beside the road looking for food. They are often loners and there was no sign of any others but we had heard them howling last night so we know there are a few around.
As a result we do not get too far up the track, about 200 ks and decide to camp just west of The Olga’s (KataKjuta). As we pull of the road and head into the bush we realise that we will have a brilliant view of the rocks as the sun goes down.
We need to collect wood and light a fire;
and then it’s time for the sunset photography;
the roof rack on the Troopy providing an excellent platform.
The colours of the rocks change dramatically as the sun sinks behind us . We are expecting a full moon tonight and were speculating as to whether it would rise behind the Olga’s but moonrise is going to be later tonight and when it comes up, right in the middle of the rocks it is far to dark to take photos.. Sitting there watching the moon rise over the rocks it is easy to imagine the impact that this phenomenon had on the ancients and how they could easily give it a spiritual connotation.
Alloveroz 