Log One Hundred and Thirty – We of the Never Never.

28 May 20926

We of the Never Never is a classic Australian novel about life in the remote outback. For us never, never refers to this trip. Life got in the way of our plans in a way that:

We could never never finalise a departure date.

Never never were we able to settle on where we might go due to our departure being so muddied.

Given the war in the Middle East we were never never sure about the cost or availability of fuel in the remote parts of this country and whether such a trip was foolhardy.

Our planned return date was never never going to happen and now we have to be home earlier than preferred.

Regardless of these interruptions we are now on the road with plans to travel through the centre of Australia, back down the WA coast and home via the Nullarbor Plain. It doesn’t sound too far when you say it quickly.

We started out last Monday and after locking up three times we finally got away for a short drive of little over an hour. It was important to just cut the mooring lines and get underway.

We have progressed to South Australia and in these three days we have left the hills and will not see a freeway or divided highway for many weeks. The next hills are the Flinders Ranges, followed by the McDonnell Ranges and then the Kimberley. The rest of the country is pretty flat.

Peak hour traffic with masses of cars filling the roads will not be an issue for this trip. However, Semi trailers (one trailer), B Doubles (two trailers), B Triples (three trailers) and Road Trains (up to four trailers) will be our constant companions, not to mention wide loads with escort vehicles. On rainy days these vehicles each create their own weather systems as they overtake or pass. All good fun. As always a UHF radio for comms with these truck drivers is a must.