Today is my (Robert's) 70th birthday, but there were no birthday celebrations this morning, but instead an early start in order to have an excuse to be in the fly proof air conditioned interior of our vehicle. About 75km from last nights camp over more rough sandy/rocky tracks we came to Mt Dare Homestead which is now a hotel and restaurant/cafe as well as a station homestead. We cooled our heals at Mt Dare for a few hours having coffee, lunch and talking to the couple from Zimbabwe who were managing the place for a few weeks.

Leaving Mt Dare we passed from South Australia into the Northern Territory and joined a route called the Ghan Heritage Trail which follows the rail bed of the old Ghan Railway all the way to Alice Springs. About 100km from Mt Dare this route passes through the aboriginal community of Finke. The road from Finke north, is the scene of an annual offroad race (next in June of 2019). While the course of the race is a separate road parallel to the Heritage Trail the next 100 or so km proved to be the roughest road of the past week with very deep sand and very large corrugations.

During the course of our afternoons travel beside the Finke race route we decided we would like to spend the night at Chambers Pillar. As the name suggests this is an area with a small but spectacular stone pillar (and a few other stone structures) standing above the desert floor. We were lucky enough to get to the campground at the base of the pillar just on sunset and hence got a few "good" photos.

The upshot of the descision to push on to Chambers Pillar was an exceptionally (for us) long day.

There are two camping areas at Chambers Pillar both are bush camps, thus with few facilities. Pit toilets, camp tables and fire places.