Getting our Kicks on Route 66

Yes I jest not the first part of today we took the Aussie Route 66!
We started a bit later today so it was light...

... but even at 130kph the sun rise was spectacular:

As we were less rushed today covering a mere 640km we made more stops.
The first pit stop held Crested Pigeons and Galahs arguing over a dripping water tap [the NT provides large water tanks at all major stopping places]

The scenery was different today once we were past the first 40km, it became far more open grassland with scattered trees and in places just pure grassland:

With the grassland came a change of livestock with many cows and one group of brumbies

You can tell when the isolated cattle stations are because several still use the old style water pumps rather than the solar powered version

There is a good selection of road signs the best,which you certainly would not see in the UK said simply NO FUEL FOR 500km [we think thats about Aberdeen to Manchester], but just for you Jo:

At one stage we did start to worry that the world financial crisis had caught up with the NT roads department as there was a slight decline in road surface:

and given that we were in a salon not a 4x4 we were concerned about surviving, this was not helped by the presence of two of Australia's largest raptors [Wedge-tailed Eagles] waiting to pick the skin off our bones:

 ... in fact it was just a detour of about 100m as they were resurfacing the road.

 By 1100 our NT adventure was over and the next chapter was begining:

[the leaving NT sign had been stolen]

It was then just a short hop to our first QLD pit stop which had a very helpful sign:

Despite being in a new state the scenery was similar.....

 ....and the nutters were still the same:

Although as we got closer to our destination we started to see hills

We arrived at 2pm and are off shortly to meet an ex colleague of Tish who works for Care Flight. she is going to show us her office [aka a plane] and a good steak house.
Tomorrows stage is another long one but after that four days off!