Home Community Member Stories Amanda's Great Adventure Journal

Amanda's Great Adventure Journal

wwch@bigpond.com 

Well hi all, as you can see.. Yes I have made it back in one piece (but I'm not sure which piece is left).   Well to start it all off the hubby and I decide that we are going to make this the adventure to end all adventures. Starting off from home at 5am (it wasn't a pretty sight) we made our way north to travel on a delightful little Hwy (and someone needs their head read if they think that was a hwy) called the "Gunbarrel Hwy".
   

Day 1
1000 kilometres (700 miles) Fantastic although we did get slightly choked out with dust, we stopped at a beautiful campsite called Carnegie Station, set up the tent, met some great people, and after a good meal promptly went to sleep.

   

Day 2 (drum roll)
 .. woke at 5am hmmm knees don't work so good (but hey drugs fixed that!!!) we started on the big part of the adventure ... small break here for the folks in the US... travelling around a 1000 km's a day is quite normal for us so we figured the 1000 km's on the dirt would be a piece of cake right... WRONG.... by the time we had finished day 2 we had progressed around 250km 's (about 120 miles) and when we stopped to camp that night it must have taken hmmm 2  no 3 hours to convince the body to stop bouncing.    

Day 3  
I have found around 100 new joints I never knew I had ... progress of the journey slightly better than the day before, the scenery for the middle of the desert was exceptional and the wildflowers are fantastic, we got 300 km's today ( and having no more blown out tyres to change).  3 hours after making camp the body finally stopped bouncing!!    

Day 4 
Well those 100 joints found friends and they we having a grand time ( BUT I still had a fantastic supply of meds on board) so off we went again .. and another good day around 300km 's again, although we moved onto a different section of the "Hwy" this was slightly better, a little ( and I mean little) smoother .. the only real obstacle was Camels ... hundreds of wild camels who's main purpose in life is to get in front of your car while you are trying to negotiate rocks, deep corrugation, washouts, deep sand dunes and other animals that decide to have a closer look at your bull bar .. well these camels run in front of your car, normally trying to vi for the best position so you can get up close and personal with them ( and their quite gut retching smell ) entertainment bush style...    

Day 5 
and FINALLY we are near the end of the journey on this Hwy from hell and other than 2 more sets of camels hell bent on escorting us the 150 or so km's it was fairly uneventful ... for which by this time my joints and I had had more than enough of dust, dirt, corrugation and Camels!!!! ... we headed to Ayres Rock and finally starting to get back to our 800 km's a day.    

Day 6 
Ahhhh bliss we did just over 1000 km's today ( all on bitumen) and stopped at a wonderful place called Mataranka ( thermal hot springs ... water temp is a constant 32 degrees) or around 95 your temp ... My joints thanked mother nature and any sisters that she has !!!

Day 7  
A nice quick hop, skip and jump into Darwin ( only 400 km's or 260 miles) .. Fantastic place but there was a downside... due to the radical temp changes, being cooped up in a car for 6 days dirt, dust and sleeping on an air mattress.. yep you guessed it I was unable to walk far and spent most of the holidays in a wheelchair, BUT I stilled managed to win at the casino (lol)    

Well that's it for this week ... next week we will continue with the sights of Darwin and the journey home...   Luv Amanda   aka Giggles

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