thinking out loud....

Its been a couple of days since I've first posted and we've started telling a few people what we have planned for our holidays. You get a mixed reaction telling people you've decided to ride up the middle of our wide brown land. Some people respond with 'that's so cool, what an adventure!', while others go for the 'oh my god, you're probably going to die out there in the middle of nowhere, you'll get hit by a camel or a buffalo or a road truck. what if something goes wrong?' option. Personally I prefer the first option - its a little less depressing for one thing. But I haven't told my parents yet - and this is where the trouble may lie. Okay okay I may be 36 and old enough to make my own decisions but my mother has that quite common theory of 'your time is up when your time is up, but your time is up much quicker if you ride a motorbike'. My dad had been a bike rider for years and as a little tacker i spent loads of time in a sidecar wearing a helmet that was way too big for me. But he doesn't ride anymore and is a bit more worried about it than he used to be when he was younger. But there's no need to worry, I have st. christopher on my side! When ro and I went on our tea towel tour of tasmania, my mum decided that divine intervention was required and bought me a st.christopher medal- the patron saint of travellers. So i've got a little st.christopher medal, complete with its own glow in the dark halo and i keep this in the pocket of my bike jacket, where it exists quite happily and kept me safe all the way around tassie. It isn't however legal tender to buy a coffee with as I discovered when I dragged it out of my pocket instead of a gold coin. But I digress, I need to tell my parents of this trip. that is the crux of the matter.
So having decided to make this little road trip, preparations need to get underway....luckily for me, ro is a big-time hoarder and in the study we have all his old copies of road rider magazine and it was to bear that i turned first of all....I began by trawling through the mags finding state specials on s.a and the n.t and reading all the letters pages for other people who have done big trips as well. this could be a good thing or a bad thing and i'm sure its only a matter of time before ro decides which way it goes. When I read other people's letters this is when I start going 'can we take a spare clutch cable? what happens if ours goes in the middle of nowhere?' ro gives me that 'I'm a mechanic - hopefully I'd know before it happens' look and I keep reading, trying to find other possible emergencies that could eventuate and mentally planning how we might fit a spare engine into a backpack incase it gives up the ghost....

Being a book nerd, the mags are not enough for me and i go looking for hardcopy evidence that this trip can be done. then i find this link http://www.exploringaustralia.com.au/book.php?s=stuart which is an entire book dedicated to travelling the stuart highway from adelaide to darwin. Its on my to buy list and I look forward to snuggling up in my pj's with a cup of tea and my planning....