Beginnings...

 

   It was beginning to get a bit ridiculous.  Here we were, packed and waiting to load our ute, and it was nowhere to be found.  In the days leading up to our departure, it was decided that we’d replace both the front and rear windscreen panels in order to avoid exacerbating the rust that was already present.  We’d managed to get our new windscreen installed the night before, with the help of Tegan’s cousin.  However, in the build up to the trip we’d decided to get the rear professionally installed since we’d be too busy running around packing up our lives for the next adventure.  Now it was 1pm, we were supposed to leave around 11am, and we still had no ute.  By 2 o’clock we managed to track it down after calling the body shop and finding out that “they were just going to call us”.  Well, with that drama over we spent the next hour frantically preparing our vessel for the coming trip (see map, with stops in green).
   Loaded, tied down, and ready for action, we rolled out of the driveway, radio blaring.  While we could spend hours listing the details of our trip, the way the dirt road laid out in front of us, the color of the rocks at Uluru, and the finer points of avoiding getting dust in your ute, we will instead speed things up and highlight some key points of our 5,000 kilometre journey. 
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   Coming up: our ute gets a name, camping in the desert, coping with the dust, camels everywhere, the price of diesel, ranges and more ranges, tourists, and the beauty of sleeping in a bed.