Australia

“Let’s carry on a bit further to the next one.”

This has become the motto of our Australian road trip. Five weeks of setting off at first light, driving through the red dust for hours and pushing ourselves to go that bit further before we camp for the night. We started off in Melbourne, stopped off at beaches along the east coast and here we are at the red centre. One van, two people, 10,000 kilometres and even more flies.

And so we continue along the Explorers Way, passing arid plains, road stations and road kill. We’ve definitely seen more dead kangaroos than live ones now.

Every so often we pass a car. Our new game is guessing who will return our bush greeting, a lifted finger from the steering wheel. It seemed funny at first, but after days of driving through unchanging landscapes it’s a tiny human interaction that helps us feel connected.

The horizon is flat, until we see boulders in the distance.

Just behind Karlu Karlu (the Devils Marbles), 105 kilometres south of Tennant Creek, is a campsite. It’s as basic as they come, pit toilets, no water, no rubbish bins; welcome to the bush.

We pull up at the entrance and drop our coins into the payment box. $6.60 to sleep next to ancient rock formations in one of the oldest religious sites in the world.

As soon as the engine is switched off, hot, dry air creeps through the doors. The heat hits you first, and then the flies. They crawl under my sunglasses and aim for my mouth. Those fly mesh hats look ridiculous, but what I wouldn’t give for one right now.

There are two other campers pitching a tent, but we’re alone as we walk around the rocks. Piles of huge, red granite boulders, 1.5 billion years old, are scattered long into the distance. Some perfect spheres, others split in half or weathered into slabs. There are so many more than I had imagined.

We’ve got our set up down to ten minutes now, park in the shade, attach the mosquito net, slot in the bed. As always, the challenge is to finish cooking dinner before the insects arrive. Life has condensed into the essentials, everything we need in one place.

As the sun sets, the shades of orange multiply until everything is glowing. And then come the stars. They keep on coming, and suddenly it’s light as we creep past a dingo sleeping under a tree to the long drop out in the bush.

So few experiences live entirely up to expectations, but this is the place for that Australian outback trip you’ve been dreaming of.