Farewell awesome friends!

The sad day had come.  Today we would part with Ross, Barb and Daniel as they headed east and we headed for Alice Springs to pick up Lou’s Mum for a Red Centre adventure.

We decided to have a final lunch together at the iconic Daly Waters Pub and were unlucky to arrive 5 minutes before a pipe burst somewhere and they lost all their water.  Most of us were busting to go to the loo but the lack of flushability meant that the toilets were closed :(

Entrance to the pub.

The pub is pretty amazing.  We heard that it is up for sale for $4 million and even though it is such a famous historical landmark and tourist attraction, that seems really steep.  It is deliberately shabby and the walls in the bar are totally covered with shirts, undies, bras, money and every kind of ID card imaginable.  People have stapled their drivers licenses, concession cards, university ID cards, work ID cards, CFA badges, several European documents that look like passports and military name patches.  If you ever turn to a life of crime and need to assume a new identity, this is the place to come!

The outside bar is adorned with akubras, thongs (the shoe kind) and vehicle number plates from every state and several overseas countries.  We were imagining all kinds of people sitting there having a drink or three and deciding that ripping the number plates off their car and nailing them to the wall is a good idea. 

Cash - in many many currencies.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and Daniel gave Ben a cardboard plane that he had made.  It was very sweet and Ben loves it.  He’s talked about Daniel every day since and can’t wait to see him when they get back home (we will be back a few weeks before them and Ben may well wait for them on their doorstep!)

Great mates!

It was a very short parting as we accidentally met up again at the local service station when we both refuelled so we had another goodbye before finally, really going our separate ways.  The boys said goodbye to each other over the UHF radios until we finally drove out of range.

What a brilliant few months we have had travelling with them.  We headed south and as Ben asked the first of a million “when will I see Daniel again?” questions, we were glad that we had a visit from Grandma, a rendezvous with his friend Jack and a birthday for him to look forward to.