86 | AG Outdoor
showroom fl oor, our vehicles were far from
standard; we equipped them with bull bars, driving
lights, winches, aftermarket suspension, dual-
battery systems, heavy-duty off -road tyres, UHF
radios and more. The vehicles were then loaded
up with tools, spare parts, water, fridges, recovery
gear, camping gear and clothes. By the time we
were ready to roll, they were packed to the rafters.
Brad and Syd gave themselves a leisurely three
days for the trip from Melbourne to meet up with
Dave and Mel at Mount Dare. Michael and I, on the
other hand, would be in a rush. As per usual,
Michael was running late, having just returned
from another assignment up in Cape York, but we
were on a tight schedule and had to get to Mount
Dare by Tuesday night. While I waited for him to
show up, I came across a very relevant paragraph
in Madigan’s Crossing The Dead Heart, which read:
“Photography is a very important part of any expe-
dition, and it requires to have one man with his
mind continually on it, and with an eye to what
makes a picture, or opportunities are lost never to
return. A primary maxim is, never miss a picture in
the hope that the chance will recur under better
conditions. Experience in making a photographic
record of ever-changing scenes is much more
important than is generally known; it is not suffi -
cient to be able to handle a camera.”
Michael fi nally arrived at 10pm and we quickly
packed his gear and hit the road. We made our fi rst
camp in the middle of the night about 20km shy of
Dubbo. It was bloody cold and when we got up at
5.30am ice covered our swags. After a quick brekky
in Dubbo, Monday consisted of blacktop driving all
the way to Broken Hill and then down the Barrier
Highway to Yunta in South Australia. Here we
fi nally left the tar behind and headed up past Wau-
karinga Ruins, Baratta Ruins, and rejoined the black-
top at Cradock. We continued north through
Hawker and up to Leigh Creek and stopped for our
second night’s camp not far from Farina Ruins.
Although chilly, the weather was much milder
here in the North Flinders Ranges than it was the
previous night near Dubbo.
Happy with the miles we’d covered so far, we
had a leisurely start on Tuesday morning with time
to brew up a coff ee before departure. We refuelled
at Marree and then headed to William Creek for
bacon and eggs. We also made the most of the
hot showers at William Creek before we continued
north up the Oodnadatta Track and a lunch stop at
the Pink Roadhouse.
We spent more time in Oodnadatta than we’d
planned and could sense that there was more
night driving ahead as we pushed north towards
Mount Dare. A good spell of rain a couple of weeks
prior had slowed our progress. To this point we
hadn’t had any problems with the boggy sections
of track but, with the lights of Mount Dare Hotel in
out there: road trippin’
sight, I picked the wrong line around a sodden
section and the Defender came to a standstill. Fear-
ing that we’d have to suff er the indignation of
calling Brad and Syd for a snatch recovery, Michael
suggested we drop the tyre pressures to 8psi and
see if we could crawl out of the slimy bog. It
worked and we cruised into Mount Dare to be
greeted by the two Melbournians, the two locals
and a couple of cold beers at around 8.30pm on
Tuesday night. It seemed as though we’d already
completed a mammoth journey, but the ‘real’ trip
hadn’t even begun.INTO THE DESERT
The following morning we fuelled up and sorted
out a few things before departure. We hard wired
both the fridges to the Defender’s dual-battery
set-up, hooked up an inverter and rearranged... the vivid red sand defi es
description and the wildfl owers
add a spectacular and colourful
contrast to the expansive vistas.