As we left the beautiful scenery of Litchfield behind us, we spent the next five days driving through the Outback in old Bertha, our good ol’ campervan. We would drive from sun-up (about six in the morning), till sundown (about six at night). We were warned about driving through the outback after sundown. Everyone who we talked to reminded us that it was too dangerous to drive because of the thousands of kangaroos that go bounding through the outback during the night.
The first few days in the camper van were quite fun and adventurous, despite the fact that the only music we had available to us were a few tech-no CD’s that soon became like a drill to the skull. Although many of the roads seemed to go on endlessly, we kept ourselves occupied by playing such games as “How many dead ‘roos can you spot in 10 minutes” as there were far more than you might imagine (Aimee and Amanda held the record at 22… in 10 minutes!) Another favourite was: “How far ‘til the next gas station” (as it was always further than we thought, or hoped!)
Our first night sleeping in the desert was quite nerve racking. We weren’t sure where to camp for the night, so we just pulled off to the side of the road. We would get a little nervous anytime a car drove by, because it was so dark and we didn’t know if they could see us properly or if we were far enough off the road. The road-trains (huge multi-flatbed transport truck trains) really freaked us out, as they were so loud and long, and they would cause Bertha to sway back and forth as they passed. Also, Jono was convinced that there were madmen hiding in the desert just waiting to come and attack us in the middle of the night. From that moment on, we slept with a kettle under Jono’s bed (nicknamed “The Smash Kettle”), just in case.
By the third day or so in the Outback, we were all starting to getting a little crazy and a little agitated. Not only were we spending the entire day driving through the desert, where the scenery doesn’t change much and there aren’t many other people on the road,we were driving the majority of the day without turning on the air conditioning (to conserve fuel both for cost cutting measures and also because several of the gas stations had terrifying signs that read “Out of Fuel”). However, we spent our evenings together watching the beautiful neon-orange sunsets, cooking, counting the stars in the majestic desert sky and watching a few DVDs before heading off to bed.
We were thrilled by the time we had made it out of the Northern territory, and into Queensland, where we knew there was a little more civilization ahead of us. We would continue to drive for a few more days, before we made it to our desired location, the coast! Finally, we would be out of the desert and seeing something new!