Hi All

Since our last post we have travelled about 2000km and seen many strange and interesting things. Currently sitting by a water hole in Birdsville watching the birdlife come down for their sunset watering. Quite the cacophony.  The first few days were pretty full on driving but then we hit the dirt and slowed down a bit both literally and figuratively. Had a lovely evening camping at Farina ruins and got to have a fresh made cream bun from the bakery (cooked in an underground wood fired oven). Jo said she hasn’t had a ‘real’ cream bun since her school days and it was fabulous.

We spent last night on the Birdsville track at the Mungeranie Roadhouse which was a very interesting experience to say the least. We had the quintessential outback pub experience. The highlight would have to be enjoying a beer with Molly the camel, in the pub, yes actually inside the pub. Clearly the dress codes are somewhat flexible. After Molly left, in came the donkey for a drink. Later that evening, there were random bearded men playing  guitar and getting the whole pub to sing along and the bar tender cut off the ponytail of a customer and a nailed it to the pub ceiling along with assorted other dreadlocks and pieces of hair – all to raise money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Not sure how we felt about having dinner under all that hair that might drop in our schnitzel at any time.

The other good thing about camping here was the artesian bore which meant that after Jo had her morning run on the Birdsville Track (cool), she was able to have a hot spa provided by nature.

The scenery on the Birdsville track is simply amazing, vast stretches of Gibber country as far as the eye can see as we traverse Sturts Stoney Dessert.

Tonight we will spend the night camped at Birdsville and will watch the State of Origin decider in the pub, should be a good night.

This will be our last post for about a week as we enter the Simpson Dessert tomorrow and won’t have access to any communication until we hit Alice Springs, that is of course if everything goes according to plan.

Here are a few highlight pics.

The real adventure begins!

Bye for now.

Camping at Mungerannie Road House, Birdsville Track (Drone)

Sunset on the Birdsville Track (Drone)

The Birdsville Track (dash cam)

On the road to Marree

Molly the camel

Jo in the pub!

Jo and a few locals do the nutbush

Donna gets a hair cut (not a good one)

Some strange bar tenders at the Mungeranie Roadhouse

Day 1
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh


Finally after months of preparing the great adventure finally begins, and what a beautiful day to start our trip.

Nothing really exciting or even particularly interesting to report as all we did was drive directly to Cobar and we did not pass go. Cobar is about 650 km from Sydney.

This will pretty much be the routine for the next couple of days until we get to the start of the Birdsville Track at Marree. Jo and I are not in any particular hurry however for the first part of our trip we will be traveling with our friends Ryan, Sherran and their son Joel.

In order to travel through the northern part of the Simpson Dessert along the Hay Rvier track we had to apply to the Cental Land Council for a permit to travel on Aboriginal land. One of the conditions was that we travel with at least one other car. Ryan and Sherran only have a couple of weeks leave so we have to pretty much high tail to Birdsville so we can take our time enjoying the Simpson Crossing.

Today's wildlife count includes:
2 goats
Numerous Kangaroos (mostly dead but some alive)
1 Emu
2 Concrete rabbits
1 Dog
lots of foxes (also some dead)
Birds of all types.

Some Pics for the day

Jo in the cockpit

Our mascots (Jo decided we need more stuff in the car)

Lunch in Wellington

A pic from the dash cam (you must remember I am a gadget nerd)

Bread Baking Trial

We love camping in remote areas, the experience is quite amazing however there are a few things that I do miss being away from civilization. One treat in particular that I miss is fresh bread, so I decided to find a way to make fresh bread in the middle of nowhere.

Now I know that the traditional way is to use a cast iron camp oven sometimes called a dutch oven, in a camp fire. However finding and chopping up enough firewood to bake a loaf of bread is quite an effort, not to mention that in arid areas what little dead wood that can be found is often a habitat for some poor organism trying to maintain it's place in an pretty tough ecosystem.

The solution came in the form of a small oven that sits on top of our camping stove, it's great because when it's not in used it folds up and takes up very little space.

My Dad is a legend cook and he bakes a mean loaf of bread so I sought some advice from him and gave it a trial run today. It's really quite easy and I was pretty pleased with the results. It's a bit tricky to get the temperature right but once it's right it works a treat.

My first effort was a wholemeal loaf and it turned out great. Looks like fresh bread in the desert here we come.

Who said camping was roughing it.

Jo was very happy to come home to freshly baked bread.

And as requested here is a pic of the oven folded up.

6 more sleeps

6 more sleeps woooo hoooo

Jo did some organising of provisions today, not many supermarkets where we are heading (she secretly loves this stuff because she gets to label things and put them in boxes and she's a bit like Monica Bing when it comes to that stuff.)

Penelope is checking things out to make sure we haven't forgotten anything. As lovers of fresh food having to pack lots of long life products is not ideal but we make do. We will be able to restock at places like Alice Springs and Broome when we pass through them, so every couple of weeks we should be able to get some fresh fruit & veggies.

Our new traveling companions

Thanks to one of my students (thanks Darcy) Jo and I will have three travelling companions joining us on our adventure. 

Groundskeeper Willie, Dr Hibbert & Martin. Darcy thought it would be a good idea to have some characters from the Simpson's cross the Simpson desert with us. Sounds like a great idea to me.

 

I hope they enjoy the trip as much as we do.

 

Testing my drone

The countdown is definitely on now and preperations continue in earnest. Had a test fly of my drone today and all went well. Technically it's not really a drone because it's radio controlled and not autonomous but you get the idea. Anyway here is the official first photo.

I should have video uploaded soon as well. Hopefully the subject matter on our trip will be a little more interesting than this shot but I'm looking forward to having some fun with this.

Here are a few pics of the drone. It's a 450 size done based mostly on hobby king parts with a few custom laser cut parts thrown in. 

The camera is a mobius sports HD and does a great job. 

All about the car

OK so here is a bit of info about the vehicle that will be making this adventure possible. It started life as a Telstra vehicle based in Campbelltown so it had all the right gear such as bull bar raised suspension etc but never really saw the serious outback pounding that these vehicle sometime receive.

We love camping but try to avoid camp grounds at all costs preferring instead to bush camp wherever possible. Also given that we will be in some remote parts of Australia for weeks at a time we needed a setup that allowed us to be self sufficient but also comfortable. This is what I cam up with.

 First step was to strip out all the Telstra shelving and equipment so I had a clean slate to work with.


Then after many hours of measuring, remeasuring, sketching, re-sketching and measuring again I was able to start work on the storage and drawer system. I used mostly 12mm which is very strong and light and perfect for this application. Once again Jo’s car gets evicted from the garage for a few weeks whilst construction is under way.

This was a big job and took a lot longer than I had planned but I was very happy with the result.

The Kitchen

Next step was to get the gourmet kitchen installed. From the outset the design brief for this car was to be able to pull up to at a camping spot and be completely setup and sitting down with a cold beer in my hand within 5 minutes. So everything was designed to fold out and pack away as quickly as possible, We currently have that down to about 7 minutes so not bad really.

The kitchen consists of two stainless steel burners and a utensil draw and fold out food prep area. Once again mostly ply construction sprayed with three coats of polyurethane but areas closest the burners have been laminated with aluminium sheet for improved wear and heat resistance.

I also added a fold out wind shield to help improve cooking times. These burners work great and I conducted some test and and since determined that they are actually more effective than our stove in the house.

Next was the drop down fridge slide this was necessary to make Jo happy, she saw one once at a camping show at it was love at first sight, I really didn't get a say in the matter.

Electrical Stuff

The car runs three batteries, two in the engine bay and one in the back to keep the fridge running. Being a complete gadget nerd I had to do a fair bit of work to get all the electrics up to speed for the additional bits and pieces I have added.

I also run a wieless OBD interface connected to an Android table for monitoring of the cars engine management system and also for navigation.

There's plenty more gadgets on board but I wont bore you any more with the details. Cant wait to see how it all goes.