THURSDAY 25 MAY     LITCHFIELD

We had a regrettably early pack up and departure from Hidden Valley, in order to get Truck to Landrover at 8am.

We were able to use a loan car for the day, so that at least gave us some options.

We spent the day in the city. John never likes to drive a borrowed vehicle too much – fair enough.

We parked the car in an all day spot and wandered about, browsing the shops. Bought lunch at a cafe.

John decided we should go to the cinema in the afternoon. Saw “The daVinci Code”. It was alright.

The verdict on Truck, when we got back to the service centre at the appointed 4pm, was that new bushes were needed for the clutch, and a new radiator core was needed too. We would have to take it back in a couple of weeks – when they had the parts in – and the work could be done in a day. So we booked it in for what would be our day off that week.

Refuelled at the Oz Fuel outlet at Winnellie – $1.46cpl. Had done 493kms.

Got back to the Monsoon just on dark, going via Batchelor.

It was not really a very relaxing break.

It was a pity that the Truck problem had dictated how the time was used. It would have been much better to have been able to go to Kakadu for a couple of nights, so John could see it with lots of water about. He had only seen that area once – in a very hot, dry and dusty August – and had not been impressed. Whereas I had visited it in the months of March and June, and knew how lovely it could be.

M reported that work had gone alright for her. In our absence, she had been asked to work today, which should have been her day off, but had been given the weekend off instead. She planned to go to Darwin and visit a friend there.