08Oct08
In an attempt to see the dawn chorus we crawled out of bed just as the sun crept over the horizon, but these desert birds are extremely early risers and we had already missed the crescendo.
However it did mean we got an early start on the day, which is something we keep trying to do since it gets oppressively hot by midday.
After breakfasting with some curious galahs, I got my first driving lesson in the landcruiser. Yes, I'm terribly embarrassed to admit it but I'm not comfortable driving a manual and Justin did all the driving in NZ and in Australia thus far. However Australia is so large and we will be doing so much driving that I really need to be helping out. So since we had the campground to ourselves it was a great place for me to practice driving on the wrong side and shifting gears. Fortunately the truck is pretty easy to shift and not prone to stalling (like the VW which convinced me I'd never drive a stick!), so I did fine. Now all I need to get used to are roundabouts :)
After that bit of fun we drove north to Lake Eyre – I should say Justin drove because the road was terribly corrugated and sandy and I wasn't quite ready for that! Lake Eyre is a giant salt lake, currently dry, surrounded by very bleak and flat desert.
The lake itself is immense. We walked on it for a good thirty minutes towards the center and we only covered a fraction of it. When you're standing in the middle of it you can see a near 360degree mirage on the horizon. The mirage looks so much like water shimmering in the distance that we kept thinking that perhaps there was water in the lake after all – until we walked a bit further and realized that rock we thought was sticking out of water, was just stuck in the salty mud.
Back at Muloorina that afternoon we relaxed under the shade of a gum tree and under the protection of our fly net (the flies are horrendous here) and watched all the birds at sunset from the comfort of our folding chairs :)
Muloorina photoset
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