"Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul..."

Vincent, Don McLean

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious s***."

Back To The Future

The Nullarbor Plain is a couple of thousand kilometres of just about nothing, apart from one straight road, a lot of outback on the left and a lot of outback on the right.

Signs on the side of the road frequently warn you of the dangers of roving Kangaroos, Emus and..... Camels.

It's easy to forget Australia has wild camels. Kangaroos, pretty obvious really - cornerstone of their culture you could say. Emus too.... Doesn't really come as much as a surprise. But Camels.... Maybe it's something about Camels, but you don't expect them to be running across the road in Australia.

Unfortunately though, the only big animals we've seen have been dead ones. Dead Roos litter the roadside and we did have the rather surreal experience of seeing a dead camel at the side of the road, crumpled up on itself having been hit by a car. Again, hard to get your head around. Can't help but picture the scene in some Australian home; "Hi Honey, I'm Home! Work was great, I got the McKenzie contract - oh, killed a camel on the way home. What's for dinner?"

Anyway. The weather for the next two days was a little more forgiving than it had been, and we were able to drive all day without either Lola catching fire or the three of us melting. Which was nice.

At night we would pull into one off the frequent lay-bys along the way, complete with picnic tables and, in some cases, toilets, and cook ourselves dinner on the trusty camping stove. Then it was a case of watching the stars come out, listening to 'Vincent' by Don Mclean and then getting ourselves off to bed. They do say you've not seen a starry starry night until you've seen it in Australia, and they certainly do a good job - with no lights for a hundred miles in all directions, and no cloud cover at all, it can be quite an impressive sight. Plus, the fact you're in the Southern Hemisphere means you're not even supposed to know any of the constellations so you can make them all up.

Plus, we got to make a wish on a shooting star. Well, Vinny and I did - Tom was looking at something else.

By day three of our trek we were heading towards the border between Western and South Australia - and were rather surprised to learn that there would be a fruit-fly search at the border. We were further surprised to learn that we couldn't have any fruits or vegetables in our possession, and if we did we would be fined $2,500 for the luxury.

This led to us driving towards the border with Vinny in the back frantically peeling carrots while the three of us stuffed them into our face with as much gusto as we could manage. Although we were nearly detained for not stopping in the exact right place (my bad), we managed to negotiate the hardest border crossing we've encountered since entering Russia and continue with our freedom and cavities in one piece.

Then Tom shared with us his dream of skateboarding the Nullarbor. When it comes to dreams, I'm not all that critical of what the dream is, I just respect anyone who's making the effort.

So after a couple of runs up and down the road (on a nice stretch where we could see a mile in each direction) he upgraded to the 'Back To The Future' style of play, holding onto a rope attached to the back of the van, while Vinny drove and I took photos.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that hanging off the back of a moving vehicle on a skateboard, without any protective clothing on, is a really stupid thing to do. I agree wholeheartedly. You may also claim that Vinny and I shouldn't have allowed such a reckless disregard for human life. I agree also.

All I can say in our defence is.... It was funny.

It lost it's humour for a moment when Tom, rather recklessly but not completely unexpectedly, fell off his skateboard at about 40km/h and rolled up the road for a while, but we were soon back on track, agreeing that as funny things go, this was one of them.

We arrived in Port Augusta the night before last, and due to it being a town had to pay a few dollars to park up in a caravan park overnight. This would have been fine, butt it was raining quite hard, and the mosquitos were out in abundance. It was also hot and humid, and pretty much no fun at all. We went out for a drink and found that here in South Australia they have 'pints' that are actually about 330ml, and that's the most beer you can get at any one time. Just as disturbing, it appears it may also be the place where music comes to die, as we heard not only the Spice Girls but also that Bewitched toss coming from the juke box - and all the other punters in the bar were lapping it up.

So we kept it to one drink, and then retired to the least comfortable night's sleep since China - at one point Vinny actually went insane for ten minutes or so. And despite sweating the night away in the van with the windows open but a crack and insect repellent on an inch thick, we woke up bitten to bits.

But now we're in Adelaide, and Melbourne is only a day's travel away (not that we're going to do it in a day - we're going to spend some quality time along the Great Ocean Road along the way). We've effectively made it, and Lola has done us more than proud. We've clocked up well over 4000km, and bless her, she's not so much as complained.

Despite the amount of Australians we've met on our travels, I only know one person from Adelaide and can't remember her name so a reunion seems unlikely. Just as well, because we're off tomorrow.

Lola is getting an other service, and we've stripped out the carpet and now need to try and find a new one. There were a couple of holes in the bottom of the van from a couple of bolts we hadn't needed to bolt in, and the carpet got soaked driving through the rain. It didn't help that the previous owner had dogs, and the smell, when blended with that of three blokes who hadn't had a shower for three days, was practically weaponised.

And in other news, we've been joined by Richard "Ako" Atkinson from Nottingham, who's living in Melbourne but has come over to join us on the GOR. Not only is he a legend in his own right, but he may well be letting us sleep on his floor for our first night or two in Melbourne... can't grumble, really.