More of the same!

We are now enjoying the beautiful warm sunshine of Alice Springs after finally arriving in Marla at 7pm 2 nights ago. It was wonderful to see the lights of civilisation again after another arduous 212 kms from Oodnadatta to Marla. Poor Bob drove the last section when he also had to contend with decreasing light and cattle on the road. At one stage Warwick had to get out and manually clean the windscreen and headlights so Bob could see where he was going! It mad an amazing difference!

Earlier in the day we had had morning tea by the side of the old Ghan Railway Line, walked on the amazing old Algebuckina Bridge and lunched at the infamous Pink Roadhouse at Oodnadatta. We left Oodnadatta at 3pm with the skies looking quite threatening again. We were hoping that this section of the road was going to be better but that proved to be a forlorn hope!! However we pushed on and were thankful to arrive safely at Marla and to get the last motel room available! This part of our journey has proved to be unexpectedly challenging but we are glad that we did it and it has provided us with some good stories!!

On our way into 'Alice' we called into Yirara College and were able to get the worst of the mud off the car and trailer with a fire hose! You should have seen the mess!!

Lorraine and Graham Buttle have welcomed us warmly into their home and we are spending a couple of days drying tents, washing (well actually Lorraine did it all for us last night!), buying a few more supplies (like spare wheel bearings) and generally relaxing before we set off on Tuesday morning. Last night we enjoyed a BBQ at Mark and Narelle's (Bob and Fay's daughter and son-in-law) and Mark was able to shed some light on the problems we are having with the security system on the Discovery. This morning we enjoyed the service at John Flynn Church and had a great time catching with our old friends here. After fellowship over morning tea a few of us adjourned to the Old Telegraph Station for a sausage sizzle. This is a beautiful and very historic part of Alice Springs and my (Yvonne's) favourite place here.