Our Outback Experience

We start from Fremantle to our next stop, Shell Beach. It's about 800km to drive, which we divide into two days with a break at the seaside. Driving through the desert at 40 degrees is definitely not easy. You have to have enough water, more than usual, and ideally even more. As always, we have a 15-liter canister, a 10-liter canister, and a 5-liter container with us. We refill them whenever there is free drinking water. But there is none in the Outback. You have to time it beforehand. Driving through the hot Australian Outback for half a day is not for the faint-hearted. When all metallic objects are almost too hot to touch and the phones have become too hot and need to cool down before you can use them again. When even the drinking water in the van gets hot and you fear that all the food in the car will spoil. These things don't make it easy, but when you step out of the car and suddenly 20 flies are flying around you, annoyingly flying into your face, nose, eyes, and ears, even the hippie goes crazy! No wonder the Australians wear those pretty hats with fly nets and sell them in every shop. Every 100km, like on the Nullarbor Plain, there is a roadhouse with a gas station where we weigh up how far the gasoline will still last and when the next gas station will come. We refueled about 3 times in one day, even though the tank was still half full. Better safe than sorry! The hands, the face, the arms, the legs, everything is sweaty and the breeze is just not cool enough. We cheer ourselves up with music and thoughts, but you can only wish to hear the navigation voice say 'You have reached your destination'. The destination, the cold shower! It's even more crazy when on the side of the road, hundreds of kilometers in the middle of nowhere, there are simply several goats walking around. What are they doing there? I didn't see any water canisters?!? 😄 After the shower, we look for a place to sleep. This time it's a small rest area by the highway. Since it's already dark, we fortunately don't have any problems with flies. We have a beautiful clear starry sky, but we're still too afraid of encountering a spider or snake in the dark, and we're so exhausted anyway, so we go to sleep around 9:30 pm. Our regular bedtime. Unfortunately, it was a very sleepless and very sweaty night despite the fan. The air outside had 'cooled down' to 29 degrees, but in the van it still felt like 40. We wake up just before 6, before sunrise, and get the van ready. 80km to the gas station, and then another 100km to the next destination. The morning air was cool, it was quiet and pleasant to drive. It was once again that magical time that made all the stress from the previous day fade away. Every new day is a new beginning.