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Dick,

As others have said - not the best time of year to be in our desert areas.

A word of warning - we travelled with a highly qualified nurse in winter through the area your planning on. She suffered terribly from heat and headaches until we realised her problem - dehydration. Although trained and fully aware of the consequences she hadn't realised that she wasn't taking in enough water. Compounding this, she was a coffee drinker - coffee is a diuretic, makes you urinate, so she wasn't taking in enough water and was losing it faster than necessary. Total cure once she started drinking enough water.

You say that you didn't sweat. Neither did she, or so she thought. In fact, in the very low humidity your sweat evaporates almost instantly so that you seem to stay dry, even though you are losing a lot of water through your skin. Don't underestimate your water requirements and don't rely on finding it in the bush.

How much drinking water do you need? At that time of year in that locality I would carry enough for at least 3 or 4 litres per person per day depending on the level of exertion (NO COFFEE!) and then double it to provide for the unexpected. It is a remote area with little traffic in the heat, so allow some too for the vehicle. We carry half our water in small (3 litre) containers and fill them at every opportunity, regardless of water quality. (If it's not fit to drink, at least it will be ok for the vehicle and other purposes, and in an emergency can be filtered and decontaminated for drinking. Discard bad water only when you can replace it with good. A side benefit of the low humidity is that, since you never stay wet for long enough, bacterial growth on your body is minimal - washing the body isn't such a high priority, saves water!!))

This might sound overly dramatic, but we'd like you to come back again, and not read about another visitor who didn't survive!

Cheers

John