IT IS BLOODY COLD. The change has arrived. There is not a cloud in the sky, BUT the gale is 30kt WSW and COLD.

I am wearing my shorts and T shirt, but they are covered by my trakkie daks and top.
I am on MSN with Luke our son, who is having an issue with the NAB Bank, strange!. He lives on the Gold Coast and has changed all his accounts to there, so yesterday he gets a letter addressed correctly to his GC address, saying that his renewed Mastercard is ready to be picked up at the branch. Sounds good, except it is at 500 Bourke St Melbourne, so now he has to go through all the drama to have it sent to the Gold Coast.
We are just about to start packing up camp for the drive to Marla. I hope Marla is warmer.
As we left the caravan park at 10am, we filled up our fresh water tank from the park's water dispenser (20c for 40 litres, it cost me 60c). We can just afford it. Driving north from Coober Pedy, you are amazed with the 000s of opal diggings, they are everywhere.
First stop was a Rest Area about 75kms into our trip. The wind was a pain the whole way. We stopped at Cadney Roadhouse for lunch, a Mrs Mac pie was yumma.
We arrived at Marla Travellers Rest Hotel/Roadhouse/Caravan park etc about 1:30pm and yes IT IS WARM but windy, still I am in shorts and t shirt. We setup camp and I decided to put up the satellite dish. This took about an hour, I tried everything, but the bastard wouldn't work, in the end, I realised that last night after the wind blew over the dish, it moved the LNB, so after I re-adjusted the LNB, everything worked correctly.
So we are at peace with the world. Well we can watch TV, anyway.

Tomorrow, we are off to Erdlunda 254kms.

It was cool, but by the time we left camp about 9:15am, it was getting warmer. Shorts, T shirt and thongs.

We stopped at the rest area about 75kms from Marla and then we stopped at the SA/NT Border. The flies now are bloody awful, there are everywhere, both Marg and I are wearing the hats with the fly netting, an absolute fashion accessory. The drive was uneventful, except for a wide load that we heard on ch40, he was in front of us and I thought that we may catch him, as I was sitting on 85kph, I heard over the radio that he was sitting on 90kph, so we never saw him. The traffic is extremely light, in today's 250kms probably we saw 30 vehicles oncoming and 20 passing us.

I am starting a Feral camel count (like Hamish and Andy did on their tour) - Feral camels todate: ZERO.
Wedge Tail Eagles (alive and within close proximity of the road): 11 to date.
We saw 5 today and nearly hit 2 that were eating some fresh roadkill, I passed them on the wrong side of the road, all safe, no cars around.
One horse stopped in the middle of the road and looked at me, it was a standoff. I eventually won, he moved (see photo.)
We arrived at Erldunda about 1pm and setup camp and Sat TV, went to the Tavern for a chilled refresher (375ml VB can $5.50 each).

Tomorrow, we are off to Kings Canyon 252kms.