We left camp around 6am – we were both awake with all the wind – and went to the Marbles for sunrise. Honestly, I don’t think we could have had a better experience of the Devil’s Marbles, it would not have looked anywhere near as good in the middle of the day! Sunset was better, but sunrise was still beautiful. We had breakfast there then hit the road.
We were driving up the road towards Tennant Creek when the Landy made a bang noise and there was a strong smell of oil. We pulled over and Josh checked it but couldn’t find anything wrong. We stopped into a servo to get fuel and continued on our way but the noises just kept getting worse. We kept pulling over but poor Josh couldn’t work out what the problem was. He ended up thinking it was a gearbox issue.
We stopped in at the next roadhouse to buy some oil that might help us. Most expensive oil ever! I was so panicky thinking we might end up stranded and so went to get some snacks, which I never do but I thought it might calm me down. Josh decided that there was nothing to be done on the road and that we had to head back to Taree to fix it. So we drove off at 75km/h which was a safe enough speed where it wasn’t making a huge noise. We made it all the way across to the NT/Old border. I’d like to say it was nice but it was just boring. There was little to see and it was noisy and stressful. Also no loos along the way. We drove to Mount Isa, stopping in just before 8pm. It was dark already and you could see the mines all lit up.
We picked up some Red Rooster – probably the worst Red Rooster and service I’ve ever had, don't rate. Then kept driving until 10/11pm. Not really sure what time we stopped but we just pulled over at Fountain Springs rest area, put up the tent and went to bed. Very glad our setup allowed us to do this. Would have been awful to have to muck around setting something up after the day we'd had