Hello
Mates,
With plan
B now well into its planning stage things
are still hotting up! I've just spent
8 days in the Flinders Range with Rex
Ellis on an expedition training our
camels, who have worked out extremely
well with no serious mishaps, apart
from Siabod who managed to bruise one
of his pads on the second day. However,
by the end of the trip he was prancing
around again like a possessed ballerina,
if you can imagine a camel doing stuff
like that?
Steve was
left in Adelaide during this trip to
carry on with the thankless task of
the phone calling and organisation.
We have managed to gain some free accommodation
in Adelaide at Backpack Oz. The owner,
on finding out what we were doing agreed
to let us stay there for free, I don't
think she expected us to stay for a
month though!
With plans
constantly changing we may well have
Sam Rutherford and his pink Landrover
on the trip to help film as we have
now secured a video camera through one
of his contacts. The Director, Greg
Woodland from Sydney and Cameraman Hugh
Miller from Adelaide will also hopefully
be joining at various points to be ferried
around by Sam and his pink Landrover.
It all sounds a bit Monty Pythonish
but should work OK.
We aim to
leave Adelaide on Monday 10th May to
arrive at Rex Ellis camel farm on Tuesday
11th . We then have a day to find our
camels in a 3000 acre paddock (big paddocks
out here), that's if they haven't already
decided to start the trip without us.
On Wednesday morning the 13th we transport
ourselves and camels to Tibbooburra,
the start of the trip, stopping overnight
in Broken Hill. Friday 14th will be
spent preparing and organising kit,
packing food bags, loading up with water,
and then with a bit of luck Saturday
morning we can actually start walking....at
last.
Of course
we are still waiting for various bits
of essential kit to arrive like a new
battery for our sat phone which has
decided to pack up at the last hour.
This has to come from the UK as the
Aussies don't make them. I'm still waiting
for my shotgun to arrive from the UK
which thanks to the bureaucracy between
UK and Oz have managed to make a relatively
simple task into a maze of intriguing,
headbanging paperwork. We can't leave
without these two items unless we want
to end up as camel / ant fodder. Whose
idea was this bloody trip??!!
So we're
both still being kept on our toes, but
now very much looking forward to starting,
far too much hanging around.
We hope to
send you the next update in two weeks
when we should be in the middle of the
Strzelecki desert, but our sat phone
and laptop still refuse to talk to each
other. We will get a message to you
all somehow though; anyone got a long
distance pigeon?
5 May 99 Ben |
