2008 Outback WA & NT - Day 1 Sunday July 26th

We awoke at 5:20am after only about 3 ½ hours sleep. Jumped straight into the shower after my first coffee and got dressed. I loaded the video and the laptop into the car, along with the 2 youngest kids, (Shai & Jackson), and the pillows. We said our goodbyes to our eldest daughter and the dogs, fired up both of the GPS’s, the HF and the UHF, and then off we went in the teaming rain.

We got as far as the turnoff to the Roe Highway, about 15 minutes from home when Tracy stated that she had forgotten the lolly jar. She demanded that we return home and get it, to which I replied that she was mad. After a pretty vicious argument I finally turned around and headed home. We didn’t speak for the next 2 hours, where we finally apologized to each other and to the kids, who had actually thought that the screaming match we had was quite amusing as I don’t think they have seen us go at each other like that before.

Apart from that episode we had a pretty uneventful drive to our first refueling stop at Wubin, where we paid $1.999 for diesel and I cant remember what for LPG. Expected as the price back in Perth was about $1.859.

Traditionally on the first day we usually do a reasonably long day, so this was no exception. We had planned a drive of some 650 kms to reach our first nights stop at Sandstone, a nice little town that we had been to about 3 times previously. We made a few stops on the way for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, finally reaching our destination at 5:13pm thoroughly exhausted.



Luckily Tracy had prepared a curry for the first night, which meant that all we had to do was to reheat. A great chance to try out the new Coleman dual fuel stove I had purchased for this trip. It worked a treat and was an absolute bargain for $149.00. We had a very enjoyable meal before washing up and then getting the kids off to bed. They were also exhausted and to make matters worse Shai seems to be coming down with a flu we think.

We also tested the HF radio by placing a call into Adelaide base where we spoke with David (Signman), who was so kind in sending us his Epirb to borrow for this trip.

So here I am now at 8:20 pm on my first glass of Red, poured from out nice new 5 litre jerry cans. Still have to organize the charging of the video camera batteries and get into my sleeping attire. We are definitely looking forward to hitting the sleeping bag tonight. The temperature is about 11 degrees, much warmer than back at home in Perth. No campfire tonight as we are in a caravan park.

In the morning I still have to work on a repack of the camper to try to acquire a little more room, fill up with diesel, which we are expecting to pay around $2.20 litre and then we are off to Wiluna for our second night. One day down with forty four to go. Will we ever survive it all?

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Cheers Richard VKS737 - Mobile 1912 Selcall 1912 Member: My Profile  My Blog  Send Message