• We flew from Sydney to Adelaide, got the Ghan from Adelaide to Alice, where we picked up the ubiquitous Toyota Land Cruiser, insisting on a shovel to dig our way out of trouble, and bought supplies in the market. After a few days hiking and viewing the obligatory sights round Alice, we restocked and drove across the Tamani desert to the Gibb River Road where, instead of going to Broome, we turned right and went north east on the Gibb River Road.

My first advice is, make sure you pull well off the road onto the sand flats when you stop for the night. One's first land train is awesome and if you are close to the highway it's scary. It's even worse trying to overtake one; you can't see a thing past it because of the dust. Fortunately most of them go straight up the main road to Katharine from Alice.

Second - and this is important - make sure your trip coincides with opening times at Rabbit Flat, or you will have insufficient petrol to cross the desert. When we drove that way, it was open two or three days a week only, but the information was in the guidebook we had, bought in the UK. The drive we made across the desert took about three or four days; it depends on how fast you go. As Aboriginal settlements are off limits there is not much to see apart from sandy desert, but it is all very interesting and you can imagine you are Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, as you go.

Bon voyage.

Liz Green