July 21st

We continued through low sand dunes and undulating country until we reached Tjuntjuntjara
 where adults and kids were gathering for a day out at the Ilkurlka Rockhole.

We travelled through the Carlisle Lakes which are a very old salt lake system. The red/purple samphire growth was brilliant. It is a very pretty plant that grows in salty sand.

Forty Seven kilometres east of Tjuntjuntara we came upon another tank shed.
This one had two small tanks but only one was connected to the shed roof. John was able to fill our containers with water.

We were fortunate to see a small flock of parrots which we think were Scarlet Chested Parrots.
It is difficult to identify birds when they fly by so swiftly. We did see a Wedged Tailed Eagle 
fly up from the ground carrying a live rabbit...  for his dinner no doubt.

We lunched along the road near where we camped in 2001. This brought back some memories!
 I was on cooking duty on the night. I had our camp oven full of steak and vegetables for ten hungry travellers. Somehow the camp oven balance mechanism had a malfunction and a third of the uncooked stew was suddenly in the sand...Everything went very quiet while the goodies were rescued and washed. We all eventually enjoyed our meal with dumplings on top...not one complaint!

We are now camped near the South Australian/ Western Australian border. The road had been good this far
but the land has been barren with large sections of the country having been burnt.
While eating our dinner this evening we had two lots of visitors. Firstly we heard the rumbles of a camel
showing his discontent and then a dingo walked within three metres of our campfire. There is always something of interest.

John filling our container at a tank shed