Prostate Cancer Rally – Reaching the halfway point
This was the half way point for the Vintage Adventurer. Rod Wade and his team were feeling strong with the energy of young bulls eager to push forward. The sunrise was beautiful and pink.
We had received confidential news that the Simpson Desert may be off the cards so we sent Stephen the Birdsville police officer up in the plane to keep the road and weather ahead. He returned at about 9am, we saw a firm handshake through the Birdsville Airport fence, that’s when we knew he had giving everyone the all clear.
With loads of excitement we jumped into the Landcruisers and headed towards Big Red only 30kms from town. As we pulled up to the most eastern point of the Simpson Desert we decided it was a great opportunity to let our tyres down to 20PSI and the rest of the rally lined up, two rows totalling 35 vehicles.
Now here are some interesting facts about the Outback Desert here in Australia; it’s 176,000 square km the largest parallel desert in the world with sand dunes measuring 200km long. A total of 1,154 sand dunes almost 400km from east to west and it takes about five days to cross at 8hours of driving per day.
After hours of driving you would think the desert would be barren with one or two cacti in sight but not the Simpson Desert, there is dry greenery in every direction and plenty of firewood if you were to stay the night.
The convoy was getting hungry, so it was time to pull up a seat in the dried up clay pan and have a feed. When everyone was full and watered, the Vintage Adventurer wanted to make a move.
Everyone started up their vehicles and we were on our way back over Nemasis towards Birdsville. The main attraction was Big Red, the most eastern dune of the desert with four challenging hill climbs. There were competitions tackling them all. Rod and his team drove up with ease and watched as the other teams attempted to follow, some with three approaches eventually everyone made it up the hill. It was a relief everyone made it back into the town of Birdsville as a truck recovery from the Simpson Desert costs $10,000.
We filled the vehicles with diesel and confirmed that tomorrow our team would grow by one with Thomas taking the wheel of another Landcruiser. A team in the rally had decided to fly from Birdsville to Marree and all we asked is they donate money to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia seeing that’s what we were here for.
