Saturday 28 July – Well very little to report today.   Left the Three Ways by 9am on another sunny morning.  There were no major sightseeing stops today, so it was almost midday when we had a wee stop at Elliott.  The star attraction at Elliott was the wonderfully loud, repetitive and incoherent conversation a local female resident was having with herself as she turned in several circles whilst trying to keep from falling over.  She eventually sat on a park bench where she alternately continued her ranting, then put her head in her hands. 

A few kilometres further along we stopped at a rest area for lunch and chatted for a while with a bloke who had pulled in to camp for the night.  There were four vans already pulled up for the night and it was only about 1pm.  We made our destination - Daly Waters – by 2, so had an early end to our drive.  We are staying at the campground attached to the Hi Way Inn on the Stuart Highway, and it is very nice – even a bit grassy!

We sat out and read this afternoon between chatting to passers by, and particularly a young man, Brett (41) who is returning to Central Australia from attending a wedding in Darwin.  He works with indigenous young people at Hermannsburg, so we had long and interesting discussions with him.  I think he is sleeping in his car.  We minded his site for him when he went for a drive into the historic Daly Waters pub later in the arvo.

The main excitement for the day was the close encounter we had with a brahman cow, as it stood on the verge of the bitumen deciding whether or not to cross.  It eventually did cross the road, and fortunately we had waited till it did.  So apart from that, and its fellow herd of more brahmans, we again had to rely on the birds of prey to break the wildlife drought – today, 16 hawks and 22 eagles.

Shorter drive tomorrow – only about 160 km to Materanka.