Before leaving Lyndhurst this morning Nina went on her usual morning walk and got captivated by thee effect of the early morning sun on the earth dams behind the hotel. The photos in some sad way captures the essense of Lyndhurst. A cross-road settlement that barely earns the title of a town and consists of two gas stations and a pub.

The first surprise of the day was that the first 75 km of the Strzelecki track was sealed, and throughout the day we would encounter a number of sections of 7km of sealed road.

What to say about todays portion of the Strzelecki track ?

Remote, and lonely would be a good start and sympathy and admiration for the people that drove herds of cattle along this track.

Initially the track is through rocky desert, over flat country, with random but regular dips in the road for creek crossings. The plains which appear to go on forever reminded Nina and I of the section of the poem by Dorothea MacKellar "I love a sunburnt country". Though to my mind she massively understated the harshness and intimidation of the Australian outback.

Eventually the gibber plains gave way to small white-sand dunes and we stopped for lunch at Montecollina bore for lunch.

Up to this point in the track there had been regular signs of water damage from recent rains but very little actual water beside or on the road. However near Strzelecki Creek (about 225km) the country side changed to red-sand dunes and water became more evident.

There are few official camping spots on the track so late afternoon we had to improvise and found a gravel pit or dam (we could not work out which) just over a sand dune from the road and settled in for the night.