Off The Beaten...
from the Outback to the Coast
view from our campsite at Wiligi outstation, Arnhem Land NT, June 28, 2019
About Us
With drought biting hard by mid 2019, the one thing we have found ourselves with more of is time. So with our oldest kids nudging adulthood, we decided to take one last shot at that epic Australian outback road trip. This site began with an attempt to chronicle our run from Darwin through the Top End, Red Centre and Simpson Desert back home to Toowoomba. Kit and I had spent plenty of time in some of those back blocks in our 20's - both working and traveling - and we felt it was time to go back and show the kids. But struth.....it was a tight squeeze in the back of the Hilux.
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So....do we know what we are talking about? Dunno. But we do love travel - and are no strangers to road tripping. As a uni student, Kit and I worked summers (yep summers) at Queensland's iconic Birdsville Pub. In the early 90's we criss-crossed the Centre, Top End and North West WA working and playing, just before the whole 4WD touring thing really kicked off. And as a rural journalist (and extremely average bush rugby player) in Moree through the 90's, and now running my own ag-commodity business in Toowoomba, its fair to say I've kicked up my share of dust through North West NSW and the guts of Queensland.
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If you do take the time to read on, hopefully you find our musings useful - or at least entertaining. It has been a lot of fun to chronicle....and has helped take my mind off the weather! Hopefully it might help inspire someone to get Off The Beaten track.
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Pete Johnson
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About Me
With an agricultural commodity business struggling through drought....what's an ex rural journalist and long retired mediocre bush rugby player supposed to do?