Are we there yet?

A big day of driving ahead of us today. There was a lot of smoke haze around and the sun was orange. We set a new record and were driving out of the caravan park at 8.15am. I did some grocery shopping while Rick gave the van a wash. We were heading north out of Alice on the Stuart Hwy by about 10. We plugged Mataranka in to the GPS - over 1000kms of long, straight road! The kids started off well - some school work, DVDs, DS, and plenty of snacks kept them going. We stopped and made some salad rolls for lunch at a roadside stop. We fueled up at Tennant Creek and were pleased when we passed 'Three Ways' because it meant we had started to cover new ground. Cooper had a melt down in the last hour. We pulled into Elliot just after 6pm and after seeing the campground we decided we would prefer to find the next roadside stop - a further 25km north. Everyone else must have thought the same because it was packed. We set up and cooked some dinner. It was still hot and there were heaps of bugs! Just under 300kms to do in the morning to get to Mataranka.