Thierings on Tour

Today was the big driving day! I’ve been researching this part of the journey for weeks, joining various groups and tracking road conditions. My only hope was that as it gets closer to Garma, the roads are being graded and improved. 

The kids have been prepped on it potentially being a 10 hour driving day, which was a frightening prospect for both parents and kids alike… it also doesn’t help when you type it into Google Maps and it tells you it’s going to take 18 hours and that you will arrive at 2.27am 🤪🫣

Pack up was as fast as we could get it and we rolled out of the park at 7.50am. There were some nervous faces and grumpy looks from the back, but it’s all part of the journey. 

We had heard that the first part would be some of the worst, because a lot of it is rock and you just can’t be silly. So we took it slowly and got through the first 80kms of rocky road in about 90 minutes. Chris said we would try to stop every 100kms today for both passenger and driver sanity.

The iPad limit rule went out the window today and we also had all the snacks for kids and adults. 

It was a wonderful moment when we had finally ticked over the halfway mark, but it still seemed like a long way there. 

Another hard part of the journey is the dust. Some inconsiderate people coming the other way just don’t slow down and the dust is insane, you literally have to slow right down until the dust settles and you can actually see where you are driving. We were lucky we didn’t encounter too many road trains on our drive up, as you wouldn’t want to be eating their dust!

We had a longer stop for a late lunch to enjoy frankfurters and noodles (not the finest nutritional dish), but one that is quick & easy to do. 

Then everyone was determined to see it through and we finally pulled up to Manyimi campground at 16.40. So all in all, I reckon we probably had a solid 7.5 hours of driving today with the 3 stops we made. 

I must say I was scared to open the van and see what the inside would look like… needless to say, there was red dust everywhere! Our mattress was a next level of red on the outside and the fan on my side of the bed had completely ripped off the wall🫣

After a quick set up we decided to go next door to Gove Boat Club for dinner and a few drinks. Gosh that first sip of ginger beer tasted good! Cheers to enjoying the next 5 nights here and exploring the area.

The girls were also in their element enjoying the beautiful fig tree playground in the pub garden. The big girls were climbing and swinging for hours.

Kms travelled – 486