As it was a little chilly we slept in a bit and packed up slowly to let the dew dry off the car awnings. We left about 9'ish to head into Maree. When we went to refuel, I found my credit card would no longer work (neither eftpos nor credit) so something was very wrong, luckily I had enough cash to cover the fuel. There is no mobile phone reception (telstra or optus), so no internet and the public pay phone was playing up and wouldn't accept coins and the post office was out of phone cards. Long frustrating story cut short, a dodgy charge was lodged against my credit card (72 cents from a company I had never heard of) so the bank blocked it, they need to issue a new card which I can't do until I get home as I have to pick it up from a NAB branch. They gave me a phone number to call and I can get the card temporarily unblocked (10 mins) to get cash out of an ATM. So I hurry from the phone to the ATM in the pub only to find it out of order, but luckily I could get cash across the counter of the pub, so I have enough cash to pay for fuel for awhile and will have to repeat this in a few days.
While this saga was being sorted out we went for a drive out to Lake Eyre, Level Post Bay (about 100 kms there). You could see water in the distance and the occassional mirage which made it look like there was more water than there really was. The road out was pretty good except for corrugations on the last 15 km or so. Also, along this road there is a really nice camping place, Muloorina, which was located around a water hole with quite a bit of birdlife. Then it was back into town, where we organised a flight out over Cooper Creek and Lake Eyre but it left as the sun rose in the morning, so we decided to get a cabin at the caravan park as it would be easier to get going and get to the flight. The thought of a cheap curry at the caravan park didn't tempt us so we set up Brett's grill and cooked some magnificent steaks for dinner. Then after cleaning up we headed for a shower and an early night. I am hoping I set my alarm correctly as Maree is running on South Australian time and I have left my clocks on Queensland time and corrected for the half hour difference.
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