Back in the days when the distance between Sydney and Singapore was too far, planes would touch down one last time on Australian soil to refuel in Daly Waters. Of course the airport isn’t used today anymore; the whole settlement only consists of a handful of houses. Still the old hangar attracts lots of tourists, and rumour has it that the airfields could have been used as an emergency landing site for space shuttles when the program was still running.
The pub is an eccentric little place covered in a huge array of memorabilia that tourists left there: Passports and car number plates are the more “normal” items. Collections of bras and other pieces of underwear represent a fashion show on what’s been en-vogue across the planet over the last decades.
We have a beer or two before we resort to our tent site. Unfortunately the camp site next to the pub is the dustiest place in Australia. Jonas and Niklas play soccer in the ankle-deep bull dust, and after a few minutes it's impossible to tell them apart. So when we return to Daly Waters a fortnight later, after our tour to the Top End, we stay at the roadhouse on the highway instead.
[Daly Waters, 16.-17. and 25.-26. August]
