Tobermorey Station to Gem Tree, NT.

We only saw 3 on coming cars on The Plenty Highway en route to our intermediate stop-over at Jervois Station. The country has turned very arid. The south side of the road is the boundary with The Simpson Desert, but the north side doesn't look any different. Our jar of Instant Coffee came to grief on this road. It bounced upside down and then the lid came off. Dried Coffee in the cupboard, down the wall, over the bench-top and then across the floor. The joys of caravanning on badly corrugated roads. Eventually made camp at Jervois Station. This is very different to Tobermorey. Very dry and dusty here. We have learned here that the worst of the road is yet to come!! Bring it on, we have been travelling down to 30 kph already.

Sometimes stupid statements issue from my mouth, the above is one of those times. After 5 km of moderately rough road we hit the Bull Dust. Two hours later we are still wallowing through the Bull Dust at a steady 20 kph. That is second gear, 20 kph for two hours and it didn't improve much after that until about 60 km from Gem Tree. We were planning rest stops but there was nowhere safe to pull off the road. All the roadside was soft sand, if we went in there that would be where we stayed. I think we were driving, er crawling along for about 6.5 hours non stop.

The Plenty Highway was freshly graded by a pair of road graders for about 30 km until the bitumen began for the final 30 km into Gem Tree. What a relief!

Gem Tree is on Private Property and is a Mecca for Gemstone Fossikers. Garnet and Zircon are the two stones sort after.

Even way out here there are road workers with too much idle time.

I think this must have been a coffee break on the way to Jervois.

Bald Hill. I will stop for anything!

More desert. That is all there is here.

Cattle around the troughs at this windmill.

I kept one eye on this fellow, he didn't look too friendly.

One Nissan Patrol that didn't see the end of the trip. We saw many abandoned vehicles, most of them burned out. We also noticed many car parts and also a caravan water tank.

Just another Mesa. I can't remember the name of this one.

Termite mounds out here are all very large but this is the daddy of them all.

Jude disturbing the peace at Jervois Station with her Ukulele.

Great Ghost Gum in the camp ground at Jervois Station. There was only two campers here last night.

Our camp at Gem Tree.

Function shed at Gem Tree.

The Office and Store at Gem Tree.