Having left Hugo, our trusty Britmobile in Auckland and travelled the past few weeks in hostels, Bianca our beautiful new Britmobile is a lovely lady. She likes to go fast, and she can manage the hills unlike Hugo. Being a lady she likes her creature comforts, so she has a fridge, a microwave, a hob, a sink with running water and enough room to have a whole party in there!

Bianca was there and waiting for us at the campavan pickup point and from there we set off for our long drive up to Darwin. It's just one highway the whole way - The Stuart Highway which was built next door to the first telegraph line in Australia which goes all the way down to Adelaide. The first leg of our journey took us to Devils Marbles (the picture with this blog). Lots of big round stones (that look like giant marbles) glow red amidst the desert backdrop. We watched an incredible sunset here that evening, which wasn't grafittied by clouds like the sunset was at Urulu. The few people that were at the campsite with us sat up on the rocks with a few tinnies and soaked in the moment. I have to say this is another moment that I will bring up when I am bored and cold at work on a monday afternoon.

The next morning we headed up to Kathrine where we got signal for the first time in over 1500km (our mothers were very happy to hear from us - although my texts didn't go through so my Mum was still having kittens at home for the next few days!). Kathrine was full of drunken aborgines so Vick and I didn't linger there for long...instead we headed for a set of waterfalls in Kathrine National Park where it is safe to swim. Well, I say it is safe to swim - there are signs saying there are crocodile preventatives. After swimming in a waterhole for ages Vick and I went round the corner to discover that the only preventative there was a cage with a pigs head at the end of it. I definately hope a pigs head is more appealing than a tasty English bottom that's for sure.

The Stuart Highway has a speed limit of 130km per hour, however it is very very very straight. So straight that the end of the line just disappears off into a mirage. So you can really just put your foot down as does everyone else. They are about to reintroduce no speed limits out there again, so as long as you are aware of road trains and don't drive past dusk (remember all those splangeroos) you're fine.

Road trains are well, to put it simply frait trucks that drive up and down the stuart highway. They are about 50m long and often have about 4-5 frait boxes trailing after a huge truck front. Not something to mess with. You know the oil tanks you get at home...well imagine 6 of them in a row all being towed by one truck and that's what you have to contend with on the road. But it's easy enough to overtake when you can see for literally the next several hundred kilometres!

As we got further north there were many more trees that started to appear on the side of the road, and apart from all the skeletons of cows, kangeroos and whatever else, Vick and I had a bit more substinence to play eye spy. So far, we had spied rocks, shrubs, eagles, flies and that's about it. We had also played guess the road kill game - yup we became quite desperate. To be honest with you, we didn't expect the drive to be anything more. We did it because there is nothing. To say we have now driven through the Australian desert is quite something to us, although I never got to fry an egg on the bonnet like I wanted to (Bianca doesn't have a bonnet just a flat nose).

We spent our last night on the road in Litchfield National Park where there was another croc free waterhole - though this one had freshwater crocs but they don't have attitude and shy away from splashes. Unlike Mr Saltwater Croc that have anger issues and need to go to their local anger management class. I will tell you more about these prehistoric creatures when I get to Cairns though.

The next morning we drove into Darwin, a welcome sight of civilisation after the last few days in the outback. And boy, was it hot! The desert had reached 50 degrees when we had been there, but it had been dry (which meant there were flies constantly buzzing round your head and flying into your mouth, up your nose, adding protein to our salads and so on). Whereas Darwin is tropical with many palm trees and funky looking birds...therefore mozzies are back on the menu as well as poodle hair styles and constantly sweaty backs (sexy). It really was a microwave as it was about 38 degrees but added to that humidity pretty steamy too!

Nonetheless Vick and I parked up and went exploring as well as making those all important phonecalls home to let the parents know we made it. That evening we sampled crocodile, which is actually really tasty. Tastes like chicken believe it or not. We even went to the cinema to see Captain Phillips (if you haven't seen it go it's amazing!) We then tried to find our campground...all of which were closed and no one would pick up the phone...so I have to admit that we might have spent the next two nights in a carpark, waking up every hour panicking that the cops were after us, and every car door we heard close we jumped up and pretended not to be sleeping...!

The next morning I decided to go for a run, forgetting that I had no shower available and it was already pushing 35 degrees. As you can imagine, Vick's next thing to do was to find me somewhere I could wash so she wouldn't have to cope with smelly sweaty indie the next few days! And our chance to wash was the sea! Despite being as hot as a bath it did have showers nearby so we spent the day like a couple of seals in the sun. I got talking to an aussie called Tom who took us to the local markets that evening then out to town for a few drinks so it was nice to meet some new faces before our next few days in the outback.

And so the next day we waved goodbye to Darwin and welcomed back the stuart highway. Despite heading to Cairns and the east coast we still had to drive 10 hours back down the stuart highway where the road splits in two and you can either go down to alice springs or turn east towards the coast. This was our new road for the next 3 nights and all we wanted to do was smell the sea so we just stopped off to rest our heads on the way. We stayed at three ways house the first night, drive 6 hours the next day to Mt Isa, and drove 10.30 hours the next day to Paluma National Park. By then we had reached the east coast but it was night so we couldn't actually see the sea despite having a competition that the first person to see the sea could get the last diet coke!

Nonetheless, here were were, between Townsville and Cairns on the east coast staying in the rainforest with a lot of cane toads hopping about the place. Cane toads were introduced to eat a pest on the cane plantations out here, but turns out they never actually ate the pest and just bred like wild fire. So as you play splat the weasle in the fairground games at home, you can play real life splat the cane toads on the roads out here. It was great fun after driving for 10 hours....

So there we have it. The long drive. Thousands of kilometres, thousands of dollars on petrol, a lot of red sand, a lot of flies and a big memory that we will never forget.

Oh, and hello east coast.