The last couple of months have been planning, planning, planning. Getting the cars and equipment ready. Of course that required some strategic purchases of some essential equipment! (No, they are not toys!)
A big issue, is once we hit the Flinders, which is really only on day 3, there are no supermarkets. There is a small one at Leigh Creek on the way to Maree, we pass a couple of roadhouses, then nothing for the 5 days crossing till we hit Birdsville, hardly a metropolis. So we really need to be self-sufficient and take a fair amount of the food and water we’ll need, but thanks to SA Quarantine, not any fruit…..
I’ve calculated the actual crossing from Mt Dare to Birdsville at around 600km, maybe closer to 640km as at this stage we’ll need to take the Eyre Creek Crossing bypass that will add 60 or more km. Given the dunes, some of this we’ll only get 20l/100km, so we’ll need to carry at least an extra 60lts or so of fuel in jerry cans.
Car serviced, car packed, roof loaded, fridge stacked. At least with 2 cars, we can share some of the load, but so much we’ll just need double the stuff.
I got a roof rack platform a few months ago when planning for the earlier trip. It came in handy going over to Fraser in April, but it will be chockas for this trip.
Some people ask me if I’m worried about the desert, quite frankly I’m not. Sure we could have a mechanical issue, but there’s nothing we can do to plan for that. I’m more worried about the condition of the dirt roads, like the Oodndatta Track and the Arrabury Rd. If they’ve been graded recently then happy days, but with all the recent rains they could be diabolical, a 100km section of road could take an hour, or most of the day, we just won’t know till we get there. The roads and the flies, I’ve heard they can be horrendous!
A late afternoon walk, as much to kill off some nervous energy as anything else. As usual a walk down the laneway, like the walk a few months ago I end up outside George’s. This time he’s loading up the roof.
All ready now for a 6:30am departure on Monday.