After our walk in the Finke Gorge National Park we headed towards the MacDonnell Ranges on the other side. We stopped at Ellery Creek Big Hole. It is a gorgeous swimming hole and as it was stinking hot (about 38 degrees) we stopped for a swim. It was lovely and refreshing and I swam over to the other side of it twice.

We then headed to Glen Helens Resort where we hoped to re-fuel and buy something for dinner. But there was no shop there, only a pub and fuel. The camping ground looked a bit yuck so we headed to Ormiston Gorge. This was a lovely campground and only one other camper was there. And again, it was only $6 per person.

We chose our spot, parked up Dory, got out and immediately were attacked by flies of the buzzy variety. They got in my ears; my eyes and one even went up my nose! I had to blow really hard to get it to come out. Dad and John, I think you know what we are talking about. We did this spastic waving of the arms thing to get rid of them and hopped straight back in the car. We put on our head nets, took a deep breath and tried again.

We lit a citronella candle, a mozzie coil and got two incense burning but it didn’t help at all. I had to drink my wine under my netting.

We had no fresh food left (or beer), as we haven’t seen a shop for days, so we were on emergency rations. We drank our emergency bottle of wine and cooked a packet rice-a-riso, two-minute noodles and a tin of soy and ginger tuna. We ate in the car to hide from the buzzy things. As soon as it got dark the flies seemed to disappear. We must start cooking after dark in future.