Category: Adventures

Blog of our adventures with Puma, Panther and G-String

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Sunshine Coast to Roma. Finally on the road

Today was always going to be a scoot day. Just get in the car and scoot the 530 odd kilometres to Roma. Reality was, we left late, scooted to Coles for last minute groceries, scooted to Autobarn to get cloth tape (fixes almost as much as Silastic), scooted to Supercheap to not get some desperately needed camp lights and finally scooted to BCF to complete our purchase itinerary.

On the road, we noted that Puma revelled in being loaded and just purred along. The sky was cloudless, our tired and frazzled minds slowly started to clear. All was good in the world.

Entering Goomeri, we just had to drop into the bakery and delight in some of their very fine pies and pastries. This place is an outstanding oasis on any sweet tooth’s bucket list. With full tummies we hit the road again for the very long, boring slog to Roma. The short cut in Chinchilla was met with a huge road working machine blocking our path necessitating a bit of off bitumen initiative to get around.

Miles for coffee, Wallumbilla for a quick look to the left and we were there. Day one done. Gets interesting from here on in.

Messages from our travelling companions revealed Annette and Bernie we all set for a 3am take off tomorrow morning with plans to meet us at Birdsville on Sunday, whilst Trevor, Sue and Maxi were camped for the night on the banks of Cooper Creek at Windorah.

The desert is becoming a reality now. We might just make it.

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Packing Puma

Well isn’t packing for a big trip just the most fun thing you can do short of pouring acid into your eyes.

If you are like me, you start off convinced that this time you will take only the necessities, forget the ‘’just in cases and totally disregard the ‘but imagine ifs’. Reality is, you end up with so much stuff to pack into an impossibly small area, that you throw the hands in the air and almost reconsider the entire venture. The swear jar fills at an alarming rate.

Then your significant other walks in………

Call me old fashioned, call me unable to accept change, call me whatever you will. Let me tell you however, that men and women just don’t pack the same! Women have an incredible ability to find a spot for that little thing that only she knows you will need. Men, on the other hand, have a desperate need for that little thing to be able to be located within the first hour of searching a fully loaded car. My experience is that it is not common the two packing philosophies mesh in beautiful harmony.

With that said, Puma is now almost fully packed. Each piece of stuff has its own hidey hole. The mess that was the shed floor is but a distant memory and adventure beckons within just a few short hours.

None of this means I won’t wake tomorrow morning, bounce out of bed at 2am, race to the shed and pack that one tool that I know I’ll never need in a pink fit.

But what if I do need it?

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Intro to the Simpson 2020

The Madigan Line across the Simpson Desert had always held a mystique. The idea of crossing, east to west, the most remote part of the desert, in the most difficult direction, ensured the dream would not fade easily.

With our 2019 trip to the Kimberley being a catastrophic disaster due to our Toyota Prado blowing its motor 100km west of Broome, any trip in 2020 was going to be a godsend.

Enter a Chinaman eating an undercooked bat! COVID 19 hit us hard. The initial planning for a 2020 assault on the Madigan faded into a ghostly memory with naught but to turn our thoughts towards the red sands of the southern part of our beloved desert. Time, it seems, heals everything. Over the next three months the world, reacted to impending doom, overacted to border safeguards, then finally saw the light and decided we could travel into the Northern Territory and South Australia despite those pesky Victorians doing everything in their power to demonise our plans.

With the go ahead now all but certain, our newly acquired Landrover Defender required a make over. Many hundreds of hours of work coupled with many thousands of dollars, finally had our Izmir Blue example looking like a Camel Trophy contender ready for battle.

Our trip now entailed a scoot from the Sunshine Coast to Roma day one, followed by a longish haul to Windorah, then onto Birdsville to complete day three. At Birdsville we would re-provisions and meet up with our travelling partners. After that, the plan is a big loop through the Simpson Desert, drop down to the Painted Desert, hang a left across the Oodnadatta Track before heading up the Old Strzelecki Track and home.

This year, Bernie and Annette in their powered up 79 series Toyota would again join us. We would also have our neighbours, Sue, Trevor and Maxi in their mighty Defender 130 as company.