The concept of space, time, and distance in this country is something that Iam not sure I will ever get used to. Today, Idrove the circuit loop road in Diamantina National Park. This road was about 130 kilometers long and what is even more amazing is that I had the half a million hectacres of the national park utterly to myself. It is really quite an amazingly feeling to have a large chunnk of wilderness wholly to yourself. Anyway, I started on the drive after photographing for a bit around my campsite where large numbers of Galahs were coming in to drink at the waterhole. The drive itself was very nice and the pamphlet giving very basic geology, botany, and history was informative for someone like me who knows very little about this sort of landscape. By about 11:00, I had finished the drive and decided to head to Birdsville, my next destination. The drive took me through several massive cattle stations that looked desolate andI can't imagine trying to graze livestock on such land. The roads weren't marked on the stations so we will just say I didn't take the most direct route, but arrived in Birdsville just fine though fairly worn out at about 6:00.
From here, I have a couple decisions to make. I have two options, first Ican head out into the Simpson Desert for a couple days and then head south on the Birdsville Ttack or I can skip the Simpson for now and enter it from the west next June or July whenI am in Alice Springs. I think Iam going to take it easy tomorrow and see what happens but at the moment I am learning towards skipping the Simpson and moving on south. We will just have to see.
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