Darwin

Campground: Oasis Tourist Park
Facilities: Toilet, Showers, Potable water, Powered sites, Laundry, Camp kitchen, Rubbish bins.
Good stuff: Facilities were good, lots of shady sites surrounded by bamboo.
Not so good stuff: Very crammed in, our tent didn't fit in the site we were given.Price: $35 per night for two adults.

Pulling into Darwin with a car that was not liking the heat as well as some interesting sounds from the front wheels and the engine bay- Margaret was ready for some more TLC.

We were hoping that Margaret only needed the budget treatment but of course she had to decide that the luxury package was for her. What is that? Radiator rebuild you say… The small knot in our stomach increased to a fist size when we heard the cost of getting it done. NT is not a cheap place to get things fixed!  After looking at our budget and re-jiggled route we decided to go ahead with the radiator rebuild. The next day Margaret was taken in for a service. Luckily we had a spare set of belts and wheel bearings to help her get back to her normal fighting spirit. She drove out of the garage and radiator shop with her groans now gone- wohoo!

After this, we had another think… The Simpson Desert is the place that we want to go to most; with Margaret’s shiny new radiator and new found health along with currently being in the perfect location to head down middle to take on the Simpson- we thought LET’S DO IT!

There was also an ulterior motive with adjusting the route. For a while we have had a few knocks along the way, the amount of money we had assigned for different things had taken more of a battering than we had imagined. Due to our renewed time constraints and other factors we had to make a decision, we either would carry on and pick up work or call it a day. Our current location in relation to Brisbane meant it seemed like the most logical solution was to head back, in a detoured manner of course.