We got up just before noon, with no real plans for the day other than
to drive to Longreach. This meant we could take our sweet time and take
the scenic drive on Muttaburra Road, a 325km drive on dirt road through
the middle of nowhere. It was only fair that I drive, as Jason did the
long drive up on day one.
I was given’er pretty good when I
crested the hill and plowed through an outcropping of grapefruit sized
granite rocks on the backslope. “Please only have one flat tire! Please
only have one flat tire!” was my first train of thought as I skidded to
a stop. After all, we had just driven for 2 hours, and had another 2
hours to go, with not a single form of life in sight. Thank god it was
only the front left tire that blew out. We were pretty quick with the
swap, but as we lowered the jack the full size spare also lowered.
Turns out the rental company failed to notice that the spare only had
about 10psi when they gave us the damn car. Great. The upside of doing
30km/h for 200km through the outback is that you see things you
otherwise wouldn’t, and you’re quiet enough that sleeping animals next
to the road don’t even hear you coming!
We did 30km/h for several
hours before we reached the 200-person town of Muttaburra. We topped up
our tires, fueltank and cupholders and booked it (a little slower) to
Longreach. We got in fairly late, though not too late to grab a bite at
the pub. Our flight back to Brisbane is at 2:30pm tomorrow, so we
figure we’ll sleep in and spend the morning packing our way around
bite-size domestic airline luggage restrictions. Off to bed, it’s been
a long day.
