Sunday (Part 2) I forgot to mention in our last blog, but Mandy would be busy crocheting while Steve was driving across the desert, I am really not sure how as I could not do anything while we bobbed around, anyway there was a special presentation for Andy this morning before we left our campsite, Mandy had crocheted Andy a thong (G-string), but I am not sure that he will wear it because it might be a little bit draughty and pink is not really his colour (thanks Mandy). We left Birdsville at around 1.40pm, we are still on South Australia time, there was no point in converting to Queensland time for the brief moment we are there and it was only half hour difference anyway. Although we had intended on having an overnight in Birdsville ... read more

Day 3 - Crossing the Simpson The Tri State Expedition It was definitely a cold night, you could feel the dampness on the canvas inside the swag. When we emerged from our cosy little cell, we could see the frost cast across some of our belongings. The sun was well on its way to being up and there is not a cloud in the sky. Although we did not want to appear unsociable, as soon as we were out of bed we got breakfast on the go and started to break camp, as everyone wanted to get out on the tracks slightly earlier than yesterday. We have a lot of mileage to cover before we can get out of the desert and because of the sand and track conditions the going can be pretty slow, so ... read more

Crossing the Simpson Desert - Day 1 Wow, here it is, the morning has arrived and we were up early to get Gypsy packed up and taken around to her temporary home so that we can cross the Simpson Desert and on to Birdsville, Andy even has the awning down before I have emerged. By 9am we are parking Gypsy up near the Rangers Station and head straight back to camp to hook up with the guys that we met yesterday when I was asking for a favour from them. There are 3 vehicles in the group and for today we will be ringers and make up the group of 4, they are calling themselves the Mud Crabs, we cannot be Mud Crabs, so they called us Blue Ring Octopus and that is the call sign ... read more

Arkaringa - Oodnadatta - North Creek - Oodnadatta - Dalhousie It was a little bit disappointing to wake up this morning at Arkaringa and realise that it was still very windy, it is getting a bit tiresome now and would very much like to get out of it. We had already decided to move on, but we know that wherever we go today, we are unlikely to lose this wind. It was just before 10am when we left Arkaringa, we saw Wei on the way out, but there was no sign of Lauren, well it is Sunday and I guess she is taking the opportunity for a lie in, I don't blame her. Today our drive takes us through the Painted Desert and toward Oodnadatta, I believe that the next 50k's of track takes us through ... read more

Hi every one, Before you dive in to our latest blog, we just thought we would mention that this one is our 700th Blog entry. I know you will say, so what,! you just write them and we just read them, but 700 entries, we have made. We worked out last night that based on a 40 hour week and each blog taking about 4 hours to produce, equates to 1.35 years of blogging, now that is amazing. Our first blog entries were made on the 30th September 2008, we initially were going to go with AOL for the blog and had published the first five entries on their site when they notified us and advised they were shutting their site down within thirty days, so we needed to go with a new blog provider and ... read more