Here we go! Driving to the outback with our rental car. It’s gonna be a super long journey of two days non stop driving with a night break in a hotel but we are going for it! Lots of people just take the airplane but hey! We are adventurous and taking the challenge to drive. That way we can also see more of the country.
We heard a lot of bad stories about the drive. if you google about it, recently a young family died because of car problems. There will be no signal to reach out! Unless you have GPS transmitter and a radio. But hey we don’t have either of them! Lots of people recommend 4WD... also we didn’t had that one. It’s very hot in the desert so it is not recommended to leave the car if you got car problems. But without air conditioner it is really hard to survive in the heat! You need lots of water and food with you just in case something happens.
My dad told us it should be OK. He had checked the roads and we would be driving on solid roads. The Google Maps time indicates an average speed of 90Kph. We should be fine reaching Alice Springs. There will be enough stops to fill up gas and buy water and food. So off we go with 3 little bottles of water per person and snacks.
We were all in a good mood and enjoying the ride to Winton. The views where not that diverse as we hoped but it was still a wonderful trip! We arrived easy and safe in our first hotel. The hotel is in a cute small village in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to get some petrol to get an early start in the morning, but were told every gas stations was closed and the first one opens at 7 am. That’s a bummer cause we wanted to hit the road around 4 or 5 am as it would be a very long journey. So with a later start but a car full of gas we continued our journey to Alice Springs!
On a certain point in our drive I saw a big sign next to the road saying this road would be only for 4WD. I told my dad but he thought it would be okay cause google maps timings made him think that the road would be OK for a front wheel drive car. So we continued the road and for a while it stayed good! But then the gravel roads appeared… first there some short tracks alternating with solid parts .... but very quickly it turned into endless and endless and endless gravel roads!
It was very scary! There were many remains of punctured tires on the side of the road. I truly believed our small tires could pop in just a second! For me it wasn’t a question if but when it would happen. I prayed so much during this journey! The possibility to die in the outback on a desolate road was a reality that could happen that day!
Somehow we all kept calm and took it as it was handed to us. At the next gas station the lady told us that we would have 300Km of gravel and 200Km of solid road to cover towards Alice Springs. That translates into 6 hours of gravel road ahead before we would be back on the hard road. From that point onwards we needed 2 more hours to drive to the hotel. Going back was not an option, so we continued the road praying for a miracle that we would make it safely to the solid road before dark! It felt like a never ending drive! Just before it got completely dark we hit the hard road after driving for a bit more than 3 hours.
The Lord really gave us the wings we needed. We were so happy and thankful that we made it this far without a flat tire! We were already so relieved that all we laughed about the crazy road we just left! But then suddenly I saw something weird on the road but I couldn’t tell yet what it was exactly.. I screamed as loud a I could THERE IS SOMETHING ON THE ROAD!! My parents saw it last minute as well and we were already super close.. we were doing close to 130 km assuming we left the outback … wrong … highway here is different than in the Netherlands.. it was an giant cow in the middle of the highway! And on left hand side of the road even more cows!!
I had prayed for angels to protect us during this whole crazy road and they definitely intervened at this very moment! We all couldn’t believe it but we managed to miss the cows with just a millimetre distance on both sides. Pffff what an unbelievable and unreal day.. we arrived at our hotel very late. Happy that we made it, we got a treat from MacDonalds and could finally go to bed after an energy draining day.
Thank you Jesus for looking after us! For your protection all the way! We couldn’t have made it without you. We love you!
