Day 15 - 16: The last slow crawl in Alice Springs

Day 15: Monday July 25
A very slow, very cold, climb out of the Hugh River after a feed at Stuart’s Well. I spoke briefly to Wendy from the phone box, got Kev to book me a room in Alice: both he and I have colds and don't want to mix them. Joyanne and Graham brought me ginger biscuits and an apple; they saw me coming on Facebook. It was great to see them, and made my day.

Phil, the cyclist who people keep thinking is me, is two cabins away in this huge caravan park! He said he appreciated Joyanne offering him cookies, but when she offered him their caravan for the night he began to suspect they were after the legendary Andrew!

Tomorrow I will get the dried food that I sent up to Kev Prior's business, repack the box and send it post restante to Winton.

Day 16 Tuesday 26 July
This is the mess of a cyclist rest day. My cousin Kevin kindly brought around the dried food that I sent up some weeks ago. We both have dog colds, so we shook hands and stood at a respectable distance from each other. The box has been repacked and will be sent up the track about 1600 kilometres post resante, which Google dictate thinks is toast restaurant. Two cabins away is Phil the cyclist, strangely enough, who has been stopped all the way up the Stuart Highway by people asking are you Andrew? At least Joyanne Hastwelll gave him some cookies last night. I'm heading off tomorrow in the general direction of Tennant Creek although it will take a few days to get there.

I've streamlined the load and taken out a few items I've not used.  Everything still fits!