Dress Rehersal for the Outback

Originally Published on March 5, 2024

 Tori frowned while staring at the HiLux. "Is it supposed to be bent up like that?" she asked, referring to the rear axle and wheel. She was the spotter as we were driving along a technical part of a trail. 

Now ordinarily, this would be a very concerning question to hear, but at that moment, we were crossing an area with deep ruts. The ute's suspension was fully articulated, with one rear tire stuffed into the truck body, and the opposite hanging down in the air with the ute's body teetering. So, in other words, everything was going great and Tori earned her certificate of completion for Off-Roading 101 by the end of the afternoon, which I just made up. 

Our goal right now is threefold: to put our lil ute to the test to see how it handled, spend a couple nights out camping to see how good of a system we had, and to brush up on navigating and driving with little cell service in tough conditions. 

I would say its been a success so far since we are both enjoying ourselves in a couple of cheap folding chairs overlooking the Moffitts Pagodas, a string of rock outcroppings high about a small pasture along the Ben Bullen Trail in the Blue Mountains of NSW. 

Yesterday, we solved for our accommodations (read: house). We turned to ARB who outfitted us with their Flinders Roof Top Tent. Its very roomy* which is nice in case we get confined to the tent due to rain, and to have the extra space compared to an ordinary ground tent for how often we will be using it. Oh, also the crocs... nice to be up and away from them when camping near water. Apparently snakes are only like the third or fourth reason why one would rather be up on the roof here, but crocodiles are number one. 

After ARB installed our tent, we hit the road for the aforementioned Blue Mountains. About thirty minutes later, we received a call from an unknown number, which we declined, only to receive a text from that same number a few minutes later... from ARB. We had left our car keys there and they were confused how we were able to drive away. Well, that was because Ethan had the second key in his pocket and the HiLux is a keyless ignition system. 

So, in peak rush hour, we turned around. Womp womp. After the quick one hour and twelve minute detour to pick up the keys, we headed back for the mountains. Before, we were a bit behind and now, we were way behind. In the dark, we pulled into what we thought was camp. We ate a quick bite, popped up our accommodations, and drifted off to sleep. 

We woke up to large engines roaring to life, heavy equipment backup alarms, and the chatter of a not-so-distant group of construction workers. Turns out wewereat a campsite (well, near it... hard to see at night), but little did we know that it had been commandeered by a road work crew to use as their laydown yard and muster point. We felt like we were invading their home, so we got got out of there quick. 

*I originally used a quote from the movie Stepbrothers "There's so much room for activities!" but upon further review, Tori nixed it. I was thinking there was plenty of headroom inside to sit and work on our laptops. Whatever.