Wednesday 31st July 2013 – Alice Springs to Sandover

Packed up and headed off about 10am after a visit to the car wash to wash a bit of the mud and dust off the camper.  Not sure if I mentioned that we washed the car a couple of days ago.  Also filled the jerry can with diesel.  On the bitumen up the Stuart Highway and the 27km along the Plenty Highway until the turnoff onto the Sandover.  Called into a parking bay to take a photo crossing the Tropic of Capricorn on the way. 

Tropic of Capricorn

Leaving the Stuart Highway

The beginning of the Sandover

Took a bit of air out of the tyres and hit the dirt.  The highway is in pretty good condition.  Not too many corrugations and the only thing slowing us down are quite a few patches of fairly soft sand.  Getting along about 80kph.  By lunch time we had reached the Arlparra Community where we intended to take on a bit more fuel.  The only trouble was they closed for lunch didn’t they?  We obviously weren’t going to buy our lunch at the stall so we parked across the road and raided our fridge.  By the time we had eaten the store was open so we took on some fuel and bought an ice-cream/icy pole and set off once again.

Travelling the Sandover

We started looking for a camp spot about 4:30 but the countryside at that stage was pretty bare and there were no spots to pull off.  Eventually about 5:30 we passed trough and area of a bit more vegetation and found a spot to camp.  A very quite spot with no passing traffic except for one car travelling through about 9pm at night.