I set the alarm on my watch for 5:20 in order to get up early enough to avoid the heat going over Mt. Misery (we made sure we filled all our water bottles in case it took us longer than planned to get down to the Kennedy highway about 40km south of Irvinebank).
Mount Misery didn't live up to its name for us - we were expecting a brutal climb up rough roads in the scorching heat, but we left so early it was actually foggy in Irvinebank (which is unusual for the dry edge of the outback). The roads were pretty good too, and we soon got to the top. I wasn't convinced we had actually reached the top, thinking there must be more climbing to come, but we started heading down and soon found ourselves at the junction to go to Silver Valley road.
Ciel took pictures at the top just in case it really was the top. We could still see the low-lying fog in the valleys to the north.
Just before we reached Silver Valley road, we saw our first kangaroo - Ciel spotted it first so we both stopped. It just stood there watching us and scratching its side for a while, then it got tired of us and hopped away. We saw several others on the road after that.
After a bit of indecision about which way to go once we got to the highway, we got to the hot springs and decided to stay in the caravan park there. It seemed a bit strange to go into the hot water when it's so hot out, but they had a cool pool as well. First thing in the morning, the hot water sure felt good!
There are natural pools down by the creek, but they were kinda hot. We couldn't get them very cool either, with not much water flowing down the creek.
-mark.
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