Desert Preamble, The Road To The Simpson
After Finke I got my second real taste of sand riding on the way into Lambert Center, a loamy and twisty ride of 12 kilometers to the geographic center of the world’s largest island.
Carl offered some good advice on negociating the blind corners;
“Imagine there’s a car coming around every corner. If you’re not in control going around the corner, there’s no point in going around the corner at all.”
Making it both in and out of the Center without coming off or colliding with another vehicle, I finished another day feeling satisfied.
***
Our next stop was Dalhousie Springs, a beautiful swimming spot kept at a toasty 30-something degrees Celsius by geothermal heat. But once again I found the parking lot more interesting than the point of interest, as I spotted a late-90′s Defender with French license plates and just about every accessory you can strap to a Landy.
The family of four traveling in it were indeed from France, having shipped the vehicle to Melbourne they had driven it to the Red Centre and were planning on driving home through Asia and the ‘Stans after a lap of Australia.
I had a hard enough time overlanding with my family to Prince Edward Island from Boston ten years ago… can’t imagine how these Frenchies will get on, but good luck to them.
Two roof tents, an awning, hood-mounted tire, and a quarter-panel jerry can mount… Magnus reckoned whoever built this did a Google search of everything cool you could stick on a Land Rover and bought whatever he saw. I could do without the stickers, but looks nice in white.
But despite having the entire catalog of off-road accoutrements, the only way you can be sure it’s a Land Rover is the fact that the hood is up.
