16:15.188S 133:22.134E

 

Daly Waters Roadhouse – miserable bloke owner but delightful HongKong girl and French girl behind the bar.  Spoke to a gnarled old guy who had come up from Tennant Creek to the roadhouse, for Christmas. I asked him “what’s Tennant Creek like?” and got a slurred tirade about all the bad that the “do gooders down south” are doing by throwing money at the indigenous people.  I hate to keep mentioning this issue, but it is so in your face in the north, people you meet. just constantly talk about it.

 

This road house at Daly Waters is a fascinating place.  The pub is FULL of memorabilia and “trophies”, including cast off underwear and car number plates.  The settlement grew up after John Macdouall Stewart crossed Australia from south to north.  He stopped here in 1862 because there was a spring, and he carved a letter S on a tree whose stump is still there.  The Stuart Highway is named after him.