150. Day 97 – Along Lasseter Highway to the Meteorite Craters

Thursday 31 July 2008

We had a very leisurely start to the day. We met up with Charley and Olivia Boorman with their girls and enjoyed breakfast and exchanged stories of our travels. Charley had just finished another one of his travel adventures, this time travelling from his home town in Ireland to Sydney using various forms of transport, from a tuk tuk to a road grader, making documentaries for the BBC. His wife Olly and their two young daughters had flown out from England to share a holiday together in Australia.

We left the Sails in the Desert Hotel at 12 noon on a beautiful sunny day, with the temperature at 83° Fahrenheit (28° Celsius). We headed out onto the Lasseter Highway heading towards the Stuart Highway.

**Back on bitumen and passing more caravans**

**The toilet block at Curtin Springs – so Aussie!**

Our Earthroamer travels so smoothly on a good bitumen road, we travelled along at 100 kph. We remember when there was no speed limit in the Northern Territory. The new Labor Government has now brought in a limit, however it is the highest in Australia at 130kph.

Speed warning sign

**Highest speed limit we know of in Australia**

We pulled off the road and made ourselves a salad for lunch. From here we had a good view of Mt Conner.

Wedge tailed eagles have flown over us every day of our trip across Australia. They soar over us with their magnificent wing span, or land in a tree and watch us pass.

We think it is fantastic that the Northern Territory government named this road after Harold Bell Lasseter. His gold reef has never been found but many people have been out looking for it.

There was dust in the air up ahead and we wondered what it was. We soon found ourselves in a dust storm with the wind blowing quite strongly.

At the Ebenezer Roadhouse we stopped for a cold drink and found it had a good Aboriginal art gallery inside.

After turning left onto the Stuart Highway we pulled into the garage at Eridunda to see the price of diesel fuel at their garage – it was $2.26 per litre.

**We turned left onto the Stuart Highway**

Mt Breaden was right beside the Stuart Highway.

We turned off the highway onto the Ernest Giles Road – which was another terrible, ungraded dirt road with many corrugations and sandy patches. We had to creep along so we didn’t shake our Earthroamer to pieces!

We turned right and drove the 5 kilometres to the Henbury Meteorite Craters. A meteorite 4,000 years ago, that was only the size of a 200litre fuel drum, formed the craters when they smashed into the ground.

**The grey bushes in the centre of the crater are salt bush**

We stayed overnight in the carpark and were amazed how many tiny insects somehow crept into the Earthroamer, attracted to our lights. The wind stopped when the sun disappeared below the horizon and the temperature was very mild. Pip cooked dinner using our electric frypan and we watched a DVD on the TV – our home on wheels is very comfortable.

Total today 336 kms 36,718 kms since Anchorage, Alaska.

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