One section of the highway had been widened to allow for emergency landings of the Royal Flying Doctor Service—-in case of accidents, I suppose.  There were wedge-tailed eagles along the way, most of them feeding on the carcasses of dead kangaroos.  At Glendambo we stopped for petrol and a cold drink, then went on to Pimba.  It was just starting to grow dark, and we had the option of staying in Woomera, or going on to Pt. Augusta.  Woomera was once a rocket launching site, and then a NASA deep space training station.  Today, it is a detention center for illegal immigrants, and we really didn’t want to stay there.  Therefore, we drove on.

Driving at night on the Stuart Highway is an experience I wouldn’t want to repeat.  It is very, very dark, and if it hadn’t been for excellent driving light, we couldn’t have done it.  We encountered many road trains: semi-trucks pulling up to three trailers behind them.  This makes for a colossal vehicle with 62 tires and a frightening amount of weight and momentum.  We afforded them every respect.  In some sections, it was like death row for kangaroos, with foxes feeding on the freshly killed meat.  We just prayed we wouldn’t hit one, and when we finally arrived into Pt. Augusta at 8pm, we were exhausted from the intense concentration it had taken to drive these last 300km.  The vision of a kangaroo standing forlornly by a dead friend, its head mashed into the bitumen, is a sight that ensures I will never drive at night again.  We staggered into town to find a pizza (not in the city centre area, but along the main highway), and after devouring it, went straight to a caravan park and to bed.