Our map of the ‘Outback’ journey

Our map of the ‘Outback’ journey

Well, it is essential that we know where we will be driving (the big picture) so that I can plan the route for such things as petrol, maybe water, provisions, ‘Buddy’ walks and of course, overnight or longer stopovers.

This is a map of the route we intend taking (but don’t hold me to it!). The bit near Sydney is not too accurate as I could’nt get the way-pouts to map correctly - Lets just say we will be in that neck of the woods.

(R) Rooty Hill (A) Nyngan (C) Broken Hill (D) Port Augusta (E) Woomera (F) Coober Pedy
(G) Uluru (H) Kings Canyon (I) Alice Springs (J) Tennant Creek (K) Mt Isa (L) Winton
(M) Charleville (N) Blackall (O) Bourke (P) Coonabarabran (Q) Budgewoi and back to (R) Rooty Hill

I had thought of travelling along the East coast then, at some point, turning west towards Alice Springs, but there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable way of doing that unless I travel a significant distance further North. Anyway, it’s still an option at this point in time. The planned route is about 3773 kilometres each way, and I’m guessing the road surfaces will be pretty good. Use of Google Earth will soon tell me if my guess was right or just wishful thinking.

For the purposes of the blog, I will (as I have done in the past) post maps of the individual sections of the journey and hopefully add text, photographs and video as we visit each location to aid memories in our future years to come and to share with those that may be interested.

As for recording the journey, I had perviously used a Windows journal on a PC - very easy. This time I thought I would take my Mac Book Air so I opted for ‘Mac Journal’. I found it difficult to set up almost to the point of buying another journal, but I persevered. I still feel the program is a bit of a “plumbing exercise” but I paid for it so I had better get used to it. (Actually it still felt a bit difficult so I settled on the use of 'Blogger' by Google)

One thing I learnt from my last blog is not to number the entries!!!! Every now and again I needed to insert a place, to text or add something, which meant that I had to renumber all the following entries. This time I will simply refer to the entries as “First” and “Next” - A case of once bitten twice shy!

I have covered Orange, Dubbo, Cobar, Broken hill and Port Augusta in my ‘Nullarbor’ blog, however, for the sake of completeness I will cover them again - Hey, I might have missed something last time!