I can see for miles and miles...

Okay – in Darwin now, going to pick Colin up at the airport in an hour or so. Hoping to find an intenet place to post this to the blog, once we go downtown.

Travelling:
Lots since the last posting. We knew that this would be the long driving section of the trip, as there is not much to stop and look at or places to stay when crossing the Queensland plains or most of Northern Territory. Will have more of this crossing to the West Coast in a few days. For now, we will spend about four days in Darwin. Still, our longest day has been about 630 km, about the same distance as Prince George to Terrace. Van is working fine, our fuel economy is about 11 litres per 100 km (26 mpig). Fuel cost is averaging 1.30 per litre, about what we estimated. That’s the good news. One of the roadhouses cost 1.639 per litre, and we have heard of higher prices further West. Exchange rate still working okay for us, paying less than 90 cents to the $A on the credit card.
Speed limit in Northern Territory is 130 km/hr. We are not driving that fast, of course. If I exceed about 100, my navigator will point out that we will be around Australia in three weeks. That is the human navigator. The Nuvi doesn’t care how fast I go.
We have been identifying and (where possible) photographing tropical birds. Some pretty good success on that count. Will include some photos here.
The bucket
For those of you who were worried about not having a bathroom in the van, the bucket works just fine. Of course, we use the French pronunciation le bouquet – seems to make it smell better.
The Roads
Are generally excellent, although many of the interior Developmental Roads are a single paved track, so you have to move over onto gravel when meeting someone. Not all of the road trains move over, so windshields are quite expendable here. The highways tend to be humpy bumpy, while flat and straight as far as the eye can see. It is nothing to drive 50 km without turning the wheel or meeting another vehicle.
Very Hot
While we have not seen any clouds since we crossed Capricorn, it has been, for the most part, very warm – in the mid to high thirties every day – very humid, now that we are at the coast. I bought a thermometer to check the temp. Don’t know if I will bring it home ‘though – it only goes down to zero. Many of the Caravan Parks where we stay have swimming pools, so we have been using them a bit.