Big trip

Hi folks
Guess I've finally got over the drama involved in out trip around Oz. You might remember I posted in May that we were leaving Newcastle heading West through Mutawinjie, up to Birdsville, down the track to Marree and up the other side to Dalhousie then through Finke, Chambers Pillar, Rainbow Valley, Alice and on up to Darwin then down the West Coast across the bottom and back home. We got to about 40 k's from Dalhousie and managed to write off the 2000 model Jayco "Outback" camper! Suspension collapsed - closer inspection revealed my earlier concerns about the quality of the suspension were realised. Despite having spent a lot of money on new shockies the whole thing collapsed on the left side. Nothing dramatic happened to cause it. Simply put the left hand wheels up on the edge of a good stretch of road to go around a bit of water. Hit a little bump and all hell broke lose. Thanks to a wonderful property owner we were able to get the camper back to Oodnadatta and eventually to Adelaide where the NRMA Insurance wrote it off. Couldn't have asked for better service from them - they were marvellous! Pity I can't say the same thing about a particular bloke in Oodnadatta. Anyway the upshot of it all was that we became a bit gunshy about travelling in remote areas on our own. We bought an on road caravan in Adelaide and picked up the itinerary again in Alice and did most of the things we had planned. Had a few side trips with the tent along the way. But the main reason for this post is to apologise for not keeping you all informed on our progress as I said I would. I guess I was probably too embarassed at the time.
By the way, we had a ball! Finally got home mid November.
Tessa