With Kylie and Jim's friends still in Darwin with car trouble, we elected to camp on the Hugh River - a short drive from town, but well located to explore the West MacDonnel Ranges. We found ourselves criss-crossing the river bed as we wound our way into the foothills of the range. We found a great camp not far from the main road close to a waterhole. A good selection of seasoned timber nearby meant we were soon warding off the chill air.
Camping just the way I like it
We decided around the campfire that we would continue to travel together for the next few days while continuing on to Uluru, and hope that Kylie and Jim's friends could meet us there. The boy's were thrilled that George would be travelling with us for a a few more days.
The next morning Kylie and Jim headed into town to supplement their food and fuel supplies (as they had only planned to be out for a couple of days). As there is very limited phone reception out of Alice Springs, we planned to meet on the road at a designated time - with back up meeting points, and actions if we didn't make it to camp that night, just like we used to do in the days before mobile phones made us lazy. We took a bit more time to get going in the morning, but with three little boys in the back seat, everyone was looking forward to a day together. Just as we pulled out of camp we came across a magnificent Dingo sitting in the sun, quite happy to pose for photographs. No doubt he intended checking out our camp after we left.
