Day 05 - Boulia to Alice Springs [860km]

It's a loooong, boooring day in the bus. 

Starting at 6.30am when it's still dark in Boulia. We saw the eastern sky show a bit of colour while we were on the road.

This is at 6.46am...and Marg by the morning light.

And the sun came up at 7.23am.

The next bit of excitement has no picture (sorry about that) but it was on a straight stretch of road with the sign "EMERGENCY AIRSTRIP - DO NOT STOP". That road had all the markings of an airport runway.

[Quite a bit of the road was a dirt track where dust can be a problem. However, dust is a lot better than rain and mud when you really can't use the roads at all. We crossed two major river systems (Diamantina and Georgina) which drain this 'Channel Country' to Lake Eyre in South Australia]

Fairly soon after the 'pretend' airstrip we crossed from Queensland into the Northern Territory. 

As you can see, the land is dry with Mulga scrub and grass (mainly Spinifex - with needle sharp 'leaves').

We even stopped for lunch in such a dusty, grassy area.

There were cattle in some of the grassy paddocks (few and far between), plenty of birds (budgerigars, galahs, a few brolgas and wedge-tailed eagles) and wallabies/kangaroos running away from the bus (again no pictures - they were too quick). Found a large anthill though.

We reached the Stuart Highway - the main highway linking Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north - marking the end of the dirt road! The road we came on is called the Plenty Highway and is marked with a sign on the Stuart.  Also saw a road train there (couldn't catch the whole thing though)

We were now close to Alice Springs (YES!), and we stopped once to the line marking the Tropic of Capricorn on the Stuart Highway.

Then on to our hotel where we will spend the next three nights. A good long shower would wash off all dust from our bodies, we feel.