23rd August Dunmarra Road House 319 kms today 8,351 kms to date

We had a lie in this morning because sunrise was later than in WA.  We had Chicken Tikka Marsala for breakfast and it was quite good and set off at 9:30 heading south.  After an hour Colin’s backside had had enough and he had to stop.  Perhaps he should have used Jonathan’s services after all.  We stopped at Mataranka the famous hot springs, but only for a break not for a swim.  The Stockman’s Cafe and Art Gallery appealed not the least for the scones and jam on offer.

We settled down to our coffee and scones when this fellow turned up with 6 of his mates.  It is a Blue Eyed Honeyeater.  They were most interested in the jam and would lick the jam off the knife if you let them

We let them have their fill after we had finished.  We have never met such cheeky birds – they would run across the table right in front of us.

I was looking for something of interest on the roadside to take a photo of and found this – ugh!  It reminded me of Sidney Nolan’s paintings of dead animals that he produced after a trip to central Australia.

I bumped into an old work colleague from Hanson called Rhonda.  She was on her way back to Swan Hill after spending 3 months in Darwin with her partner Bob.  Bob will be 70 on the same day as Alan the 4th September.  We had a good chat with them both while Alan tried his analyser again on the BMW and he managed to get the RH injector to respond to the test signal so maybe its fixed the problem.

In the evening we met a couple of off-road riders Craig and Steve who had just done the Buntine and Buchanan Highways from Halls creek. They said they were in pretty good shape and they were able to ride quite fast. They are doing a survey ride for a planned charity ride for next year for the Debra charity.  They are riding KTM's and the orange one has over 40L of fuel capacity.  One is a 950 and one is a 990; both capable of well over 200 kph. They actually have hit these speeds on dirt roads but usually cruise at 120-130 kph.  We can't imagine traveling at that pace.  We mentioned the American Noah and they both knew him but didn’t know he was in Australia.  Steve has been to Mongolia and central Asia where Noah has traveled too.  They left well before us and were heading for Tennant Creek and thence to Alice Springs.  They have a support vehicle and trailer driven by their wives. They intend to trailer the bikes from Alice Springs back to Mackay in North Queensland.  These guys were Hard Core!