Survivors' Photo: The CUER team after their night spent camping along the Stuart Highway
Last night CUER had a practice race day, along a section of the Stuart Highway on our way to Darwin. This involved getting on the road at 7am, meaning an early start, getting up at 5.30 am (though we had been doing this for a few days anyway) and then driving the cars through the outback in convoy. We even went so far as to have a half hour “media stop”.
The team also made notes, as we will be racing along this section of road, and it is useful for strategy purposes to know where there are cattle grids and regions of ascent and descent.
The most exciting part though was that we had to pull over within 10 minutes of 4.30 pm to find an appropriate place to spend the evening camping. This turned out to be a bit of a problem, and we ended up going back slightly, however by around 4.50 we were pitching our tents in the outback.
I found this very exciting, though also pretty nerve racking. There are loads of huge anthills, and ants everywhere. I didn’t see any live snakes though, but I did find a chunk of spine from a dead one. I am quite hoping to see a snake in the wild, but from a safe distance!!
Mike
