We awoke early to do a 7km, 3-4 hour walk of the Ormiston Pound. I got up and immediately was swamped by flies again. I did my spastic dance and jumped straight back into Dory in search of my head net.

We headed off on our walk at 8am and it was already 35 degrees. We walked for about 15 minutes and decided the Ormiston Pound walk was boring so we backtracked and did the 1.5-hour gorge walk instead. This was a lovely walk through towering red cliffs and down to a water hole surround by lush green vegetation. As hot as it was, the green weedy water hole couldn’t tempt me in.

After the walk we decided we were done with gorges and it was time to go to Alice Springs and spend some money.

Along the way we saw some black cockatoos, which are quite rare to see. Mike crossed them off his “wildlife to see” list.

I expected Alice Springs to be a larger version of Cooper Pedy (i.e. shithole) but was pleasantly surprised. We drove in past modern homes and arrived at a modern, clean town with lots of green vegetation. We stocked up on food and we finally got rid of John’s chairs that were falling apart and becoming quite dangerous.

We cooked up a feast of chicken curry with rice. We slept in the tent for the first time since Adelaide, as Dory has been way too hot the last few nights.