Millie was up somewhat early and spent the morning making us “cards” with inspired messages. She is at the ultimate age for potty humor, as am I. I couldn’t stop laughing at the concept and illustration of Nick eating cereal with his butt.

We checked out at 10am, and began our drive of the day. It was “only” 4 hours today which felt somewhat short. I googled to see if there was anything to do in Tennant Creek or on the way but there was literally nothing. I’ve never been to a more desolate place. To give you an idea, the least populated state in the US is Wyoming. The entire Northern Territory is 1/10th as populated as Wyoming. There is nothing. No buildings, no people, no nothing.

Luckily there was also no flooding on the roads. We drove past some very flooded fields, but the roads were even more clear than yesterday.

My complaint of the day is that I have something wrong with my eye. It could be a myriad of things: I am genetically predisposed to Uveitis, I wear contacts and could have a corneal infection, or it’s a very severe case of pink eye. Whatever it is, I spent half of the drive in Nick’s face bra mask to block out the light. It is extremely uncomfortable and painful. I’ve got some emails out to ophthalmologists in Darwin in case it doesn’t start to feel better.

We arrived in Daly Waters. The claim to fame here is that it’s the first international airport in Australia because when commercial air flight started, they’d need to land here to refuel. These days it is home to the Daly Waters Pub, where we are staying for the night.

Once again I will say: the Outback is West Texas, and West Texas is the Outback. The pub has now expanded to be a full “servo” with hotel rooms, but not much else.

We got to our room and played a bit while I rested my eye. Millie played a round of charades, except she is awful at acting things out. She just contorts her body into a shape and sits still until we guess it. Here she is as a purse and a phone.

At 6pm we walked over to the pub area and ordered dinner. Nick and I shared their famous “beef n’ barra”. Barra is short for Baramundi and they had a big thing on the wall about the couple who catch the fish and drive it down to them.

We had a fun time looking at all the many tchotchkes on the wall.

We spent some time after dinner asking Millie what she does and doesn’t remember from the trip. It’s a mixed bag, but the stuff she does remember shocked me. She didn’t remember any of Turkey until I showed her photos, and then remembered a ton of little details.

Tomorrow we set off on our final day of long driving, and then we will have driven Australia from bottom to top. Millie said today “even though I get to watch my iPad, I’m getting sick of driving.”