Mt Isa to the NT

Above shots are of Mt Isa by night, the mine sits beside the town and is lit up at light like a city.  We stayed a couple of nights had a beer and steak at the Isa hotel and headed for Urandangi to get to the NT via the Plenty Highway.  At Urandangi we stopped for a couple of beers at the Dangi pub.  The pub was in caretaker mode while the owner had go to buy some antiques.  The couple standing in were from Alice Springs and we had a chat with a few locals.  Kev met with the old guy pictured drinking at the bar and he gave Kev the history of the place including when Christine Arnui came to visit.

Cross the border and on to the plenty highway, got to Jervious and there were fires burning at Harts range and the road had been closed.  Threw the swag out and camped at a rest stop  and had a chat and a beer with a grader driver from SA.  Nearly left Kevy there as he liked the idea of working the grader in central australia.  Due to the fires and a lack of a spare tyre (we blew 3 tires going across) we headed for Alice Springs.
Got to Alice and restocked, 4 new tyre's and a bag of clean clothes and headed for the rock.  On the way dropped into the Meteor craters and then to the Mt Ebeneser roadhouse for a couple of beers.  Nice spot with heaps of passing trade.  It was lunch when we arrived so order a bowl of chips and headed for the bar.  Barman from Maroubra, doing a bit of time in the bush after some strife down south.

The roadhouse also doubles as an art gallery for local community, whose resident artists sit out back while their wears are displayed.  After having a look, we headed off again.

Got to Yulara around 4.00pm and setup camp and headed to see rock at sunset, everyone seen heaps of photos of that, so on to the pubs.  In Yulara there are a number of five star hotels and only really one bar/pub, the pioneer.  We went and had a look and I noticed that they had NT draught on tap and so that Kevin could experience the feeling of drinking cats piss (This was what NT draught was always referred to, when we lived in the NT during the Eighties), I order 2 handles (standard measure in NT), I was charged - wait for it $12.60 for 2 drinks.  That was the last we had there and headed to camp to drink our own.

After a couple of days and a couple of walks we headed back to Alice via the Merinee loop track which took us through the West Macdonald ranges and on to the northern road.  Stopped in to Glen Helen and had a couple of beers.  Years ago this roadhouse had a great reputation as a place to come and eat, new chef now and a older looking.  Nice water hole.

This turned out to be the last pub we had a beer at in the NT.  We did go east over the MacDonalds along the Ross Highway, but the pub at Arltunga closed down about 2 years ago, so we were left to lament a drink at this old pub on the old gold mines.  We spent a couple of days scratching around on the gem fields and bought back some nice "rocks" as Kevin calls them.  Back to Alice to restock and then we head over the border to SA.  We were going to follow the old Ghan track, but reports are that with the current state and the number old rail spikes, tyres are usually sacrificed and given our new treads and the tracks we will be doing, we decided to travel the Stuart Highway down and cut up the Oodnadatta track from Roxby downs.