Awoke to Michael's cries of “I've had a brain wave”. Apparently he had been awake half the night working out how to rig himself up a hot shower. He set about it with great enthusiasm. We treated ourselves to a cooked breakfast – that went down a treat. Decamped and proceeded onto Hermannsberg with more gravel, sand and river crossings. The biggest one of which was a good 70 metres wide, necessitating a volunteer to check the depth. Malcolm knowing the croc infested river crossing that would have to be checked in the Cape volunteered to do this easy one. He set out with shorts rolled up and a big walking stick, looking like Gandalf (was that because of the white beard). Despite it being toe numbingly freezing the crossing was safe, and all the boys throughly enjoyed driving through seeing who could make the largest bow wave.
At Hermannsberg, everyone decided they didn't want to pay $2.20 for fuel so we headed for Palm Valley. A very rocky slow treck to the end of the valley, but worth it. So called because of it's unique cycad palms. Another quick walk through, up and along the top of the gorge. Nice to get some exercise. Time for lunch before setting off for Grosse Bluff. This is a huge meteorite crater, We were looking for the crater but it was only after climbing a lookout we realised we had been in the crater – it was spectacular. No time to waste, headed towards West Macdonnell Ranges looking for a suitable camp for the night. Eventually managing to drive through some scrub some few hundred metres out of sight of the road. We opened up the camper to discover we were parked over an ant highway, as that would have meant me standing on it to cook, we had to moved. Fortunately with the luxury of our remote control (the envy of Michael) it wasn't long before we had relocated to a less 'trafficked' spot. A full moon that night, so it was cold, but dry and we saw stars for the first time.
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