Perth to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and return, 14 days

[Bluewater Australia]

As this forum is mostly read by people outside Australia, I thought I'd begin by adding a little more sense of scale here. We had a two-week school holidays break, and figured we could - catastrophes permitting - visit Uluru, the hard way. In the Australia-Europe map below, Perth is down at the bottom left (that's home) and Uluru (which you may know as Ayers Rock) is about eastern France. Another way of looking at it is that it's about San Diego to Lincoln, Nebraska (return), which is no Cannonball Run in 14 days, but we wanted to add in the challenge - the route that is the "Gunbarrel Highway", which, whatever it is, is no highway.

There was another potential obstacle; I wouldn't call it a challenge, more of a hazard. I had not long been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; and seven weeks before departure, had had an unsucessful pancreaticoduodenectomy, which typically has a six-week recovery period after the surgery. That wasn't necessarily the hazard. The potential obstacle was that since then I had been through my first course of chemotherapy, and chemo knocks the body's immunity for six. Oops, sorry, cricket term that will have been lost on many. Chemo sends the body's white blood cell count down dramatically, and largely removes the ability to fight infections. The instructions were clear; if my temperature went up a (Celsius) degree, I was to get myself to hospital immediately. There was to be no waiting a day to see if things got better.


Now while we had a satellite phone and epirb and everything else useful, the fact was that if I acquired an infection while on the Gunbarrel, there was no way I was going to get to a hospital within 24 hours. Maybe a lot longer. We accepted the risk. My oncologist took more convincing; in fact I don't believe we ever did convince him of anything except the fact we were going anyway. My second course of chemo would begin the Monday after the weekend we returned.


Originally I had no intention of posting this up here or harping on about the cancer thing. But you know, there's just a chance that this story might be interpreted as a contribution to somebody, maybe somebody with cancer, maybe somebody helping them, maybe simply somebody who wonders whether they do a trip this year or next year. I recommend this year. It's good to get out there, especially with those you love.


Last look at the Indian Ocean for a while:

 

[4xdog]

Inspiring. We'll all send you our good thoughts. And wait eagerly for more of this report -- the kind of trip many of us have dreamed about for years. Thanks for posting!

Don

 

[HumphreyBear]

Sorry to hear about your illness, it is good to see you still out enjoying your backyard, though I understand your oncologist's concerns - it is not an area you want to get sick in your condition, help is a looong way away. I wish you the best with your future treatments.
.
I'm going to enjoy this thread! :lurk: I hope you are going to go in to detail on the OKA which most people on ExPo won't have seen before.
.
(BTW I had a postcard like that on my desk when working in Europe - everyone, but particularly the French for some reason, accused me of making it up!

 

[Doc Foster]

Hope your health doesn't interrupt this potentially great adventure. Keep us posted, with plenty of pics and be sure to include some info on your vehicle and trailer. Happy Trails!

 

[Bluewater Australia]

Actually I hadn't intended to mislead; this trip was completed in October, so you know now I didn't get an infection! That's about as late in the year as anybody would want to do it, because of the temperatures. Right now out there it's like Las Vegas in July.

I will post up more over the next few days all going well. Just today I finished six weeks of constant (pump) chemotherapy and concurrent daily radiotherapy. I'm not feeling that flash but it shouldn't take me long to get back in order. Something's pushing me to get this done.

 

[1leglance]

As an ICU RN who sees plenty of people go super safe when they get something as serious as pancreatic cancer I say ..... good on ya for getting out there with the family and having an adventure.
Sure there are risk and sure if it all goes pear shaped folks will say they told you so, but better to try to live than wait to die.

Looking forward to your report & pics and hearing how it all goes.
Good luck on the recovery by the way.

 

[4xdog]

...and you can send us pictures of your OKA any time, expedition to Uluru or not! We don't get to learn enough on that truly unique vehicle here in North America.

Don

 

[Bluewater Australia]

Middle of the night here, taken two sleeping pills and still can't get to sleep. This post is on the iPad... I'll spare you any further description of the current surroundings.

This trip was to be a bit of a gang - ten adults, ten kids, six 4WDs and four camper trailers. The plan was for everybody to meet in Wiluna, a small town in the middle of Western Australia. Some of the gang were coming from the north, some from the south and via different routes; but getting to Wiluna is pretty much a quick full day's drive from anywhere, or a casual two days' drive. We had intended to do as most did, leave Perth on the Friday morning, get into Wiluna in time to watch the Australian Football League grand final in the pub on Saturday afternoon, and start the off-the-beaten-track stuff on Sunday morning.

Our own plans changed; Friday became the day of the funeral of a friend, a year younger than me, mother of one of my daughter's 11-y.o. friends at school, who died of cancer after a two-year battle. I'm not wanting to harp on about this stuff, but if you're still wondering whether to do that trip this year or next year...

Saturday morning we bolted for a long drive, wanting to get as close to Wiluna as possible without pushing our luck. The OKA carries 210 litres of diesel in two tanks, so frequent fuel stops are not required, but with two kids on board we weren't going to make hard work of it. We stopped frequently enough for comfort, and topped up one tank at the old gold-mining institution of Payne's Find.

 

[Bluewater Australia]

Dinner stop at sunset was in the historical (gold again) town of Cue. This is, truly, the main street of town at 6pm on a Saturday night, straight over the road from the pub. It's also the main inland road and freight route for 800km in any direction. Busy busy busy. Fortunately we didn't have to book a table. The meal was pretty good and we were a little reluctant to keep going, but it would be good to get a couple of hundred more km behind us.

From there it was up to Meekatharra, which was actually a much bigger town, and which felt quite 'restless' as we drove through. Glad we had chosen to take the break at Cue. We turned right at Meeka, on to dirt road, and as is wise in the middle of nowhere at night in the bush in Australia, slowed down to 70km/h. The 'roos have never been a problem in the OKA, but this is cattle country, and those things are scary. Our all-up weight would have been around 7000kg including the trailer - over 15000lbs if you're not metric - and while I have no idea what a big bull weighs, the physics of a meeting would never be insignificant.

 

[4x4x4doors]

:lurk: In for the continuing saga! Bring it.

 

[Bluewater Australia]

There were only two 'rest stops' along that long dirt road to Wiluna, and we stopped at the second one (by which time we were getting pretty concerned that there wasn't a second one). This was about 70km from where the rest of the crew had gathered, and is actually nothing more than a graded swipe off to the side of the road; but that does save you from getting cleaned up by a dozy driver in the glare of sunrise (not that we saw any other traffic).

The kids get the queen size bed in the back of the OKA; we get the bigger bed in the camper trailer! Now you'd think I'd sleep through anything after a day like that, but at 3am or thereabouts there was a crunch-crunch on the gravel outside. We were a long way from anywhere, so my first thought was that one of the kids was up and about. Odd. Listened. Crunch again. Ever seen the film Wolf Creek? Crunch. Not one of the kids. I was so awake by now...

Faced with the choice of whipping open the zip to see if there was a madman out there with an axe, or staying under the doona, I stayed warm for a while longer. After several minutes of analyzing the crunches and wondering whether it would be a bad look to ask Liza to go out and check, I decided that whatever it was, it wasn't human. And that was good enough for me. I went back to sleep.

When we took off in the morning, we hadn't driven more than a minute before we were confronted with a substantial Brahman bull. I reckon that was my axe murderer.

 

[Scott Brady]

Thanks for posting up your trip. Wild vehicle / trailer combo you have there. It there a reason you do not sleep in the truck? I would think the combo of massive truck and trailer would really struggle in the rough stuff.

Looking forward to more photos!

 

[1leglance]

I love that the kids get the truck and you & the wife get the trailer....can't wait to see pics of each to better understand your setup.

Great writeup so far and looking forward to more!

 

[Tucson T4R]

Thanks for sharing your journey with us and setting the hook with the first few posts. :lurk:

I agree with your attitude about going out now while you can. The future is unknown for all of us.

Best wishes on your current health battle. I have a close friend here in Tucson fighting the same PC challenge you are so I understand how difficult it can be at times. Get some rest and I look forward to your continued trip report once your batteries are recharged. :wings:

 

[Bluewater Australia]

Is there a reason you do not sleep in the truck?

Yeah - the kids are in there! Do you realise how early those things get up in the morning?

But no, more seriously, the truck has been through a few variations on the theme. It started out with a full camper van interior, with two single beds that converted to a queen, and two hammocks above that when the roof was up. It's very uncomfortable sleeping underneath somebody in a hammock. So the hammocks got the flick, and then the camper van interior got ripped out in favor of more seats as the family grew, but the bed remained.

The trailer is really just a comfort thing, plenty of room for everybody, not living on top of one another, able to carry absolutely everything we could want for four, five or six of us. This time there was four of us. Not really a struggle in the rough stuff; a little forward planning sometimes to ensure reversing doesn't become necessary. It rides on the same 38" tires as the truck so it rolls around pretty easy.