A journey of a thousand miles...begins with a single step

Early morning. My car (VW Polo) is packed with everything that I will need to begin my new life as the Recruitment Manager at Ayers Rock Resort in Yulara...Northern Territory. I crack open an energy drink, take one last look at the house I had called home for the last few years, cycle through Spotify to find myself and appropriate journey starter tune so I can head off. Proclaimers - 500 miles? Crowed House - Better be home soon? Nicki Minaj - Anaconda? I ignore all of these and select Nova 106.9, knowing that I won't be listening to the station again for quite some time. I start my car and begin to drive...3000km to go.

Lesson one: One is the loneliest number

If you know me, you know that I need people. I don't necessarily need to interact with them, be friends with them or even look at them. For me, it is just a matter of the energy that I get from people being around me. I'm almost like a succubus, without the inappropriate behaviour.

Driving long distance on your own can be draining if this is the personality type that you have. I constantly want to have conversations with people just to keep myself energised and going. My solution? Podcasts - Joe Rogan kept me sane as he questioned science with Elon Musk and talked aliens with Post Malone. I even found a podcast that address my faceblindness affliction.

Google Maps and Waze are no longer my friends

While making excellent time in my journey, I came across a road that was a little on the bumpy side, nay, it was almost as if I had found a 4x4 test track designed by Jeep to test their latest rock crawling Wrangler. Kilometre after Kilometre of thick gravel and corrugated roading left me feeling sorry for Marco (my little red VW Polo). Flashes of news articles of cars breaking down in the middle of the outback and the drivers wandering away from their cars to never be seen again, zipped through my mind as BUMP, BUMP, BUMP, BUMP....I got my first flat tyre.

See the postive in everything that is negative.

My first flat tyre occurred on a stretch of road that had more rock than Woodstock and more stones than Mick Jagger. My car told me that it was 58 degrees Celsius (I think the devices were in shock and didn't know whether they were displaying temperature, time or speed any more). Getting out of the aircon to change the tyre, I thought would be absolutely horrible...but I discovered dry heat (it was much more bearable than the humidity I had been living in for the last 17 years and with plenty of water, I knew I was going to be fine). I changed the tyre and saw that some cows had come to visit - whether to examine the vehicle I was in because of its red hue or whether they felt that it was the smallest mechanical creature they had ever seen on the road, who knows...but I thought that I would get the camera out and snap a picture.

When my second tyre went flat just as dusk approached, did I get upset and panic? No...I parked Marco up, got the camera out and focussed upon the beauty that I was able to see...in the middle of absolutely nowhere (ok...a little bit of panic)

Exposure to local community

As dawn arrives, I realise that I am only 6-8km from a local community and that they may have access to phone reception or something that will allow me to get assistance. I change my tyre once more...to the original flat, that was less damaged, and slowly make my way to Bonya community, arriving at 7am with a tyre that has finally decided that enough is enough.

I'm alive

It's amazing how you can contact people if you need to. At Bonya community, there was a community hotspot where you could pay for bandwidth, this and the Microsoft Teams app on my phone, allowed me to call RACQ to arrange for a tow truck - their initial suggestion of sending a unit with a few tyres made me worry about getting additional flat tyres as I tried to traverse the remaining Plenty Highway/4x4 apocalypse road to Alice Springs. I requested a tow truck....

The Tow truck took 5 hours to arrive from Alice Springs, but saw my car quickly loaded and on it's way. The trip to Alice Springs saw me able to gain a huge insight in the territory from an amazing truck driver while also being able to reflect upon what went wrong. I should have stayed on sealed roads and driven through Mt Isa...but Google Maps....grrrrrrrrr....Google Bloody Maps ??????...BUT...I was alive. I had just gotten to the point where I was probably about to run out of water, I was 5 hours away from the next major settlement and I was just lucky that I was close to Bonya community...I was alive.

Major Thanks

Red Centre Vehicle Recover/Outback Mechanical NT - recovered me from the middle of nowhere

MyCar Tyres - Gave me a fantastic price to replace ALL OF MY TYRES and also didn't charge me when they had to drill out my lock nuts....after I lost the key nut in the middle of nowhere. It took them a bit of time to do it and saw me have to stay in the Alice Springs another night, but they didn't charge me extra for it.

RACQ - took care of organising the tow people and some accommodation for me when I needed to stay an additional night at Alice Springs

The Random Gentleman in Alice Springs - while lying on a park bench charging my phone so I could maintain contact with the towing company, my new employer and the tyre shop, my unkempt appearance must have been quite prevalent when an Alice Springs local came up to me and gave me $10...for coffee or "something".

Experience of a lifetime

Sure...a lot went wrong for me in a short period of time. It could have knocked me down for good, it could have mentally broken me, it could have made me just think "stuff this, it's not meant to be" and turn around. That isn't what happened though. I have found that I am more enamoured by the idea of this role, my time in the Bonya community, albeit 6 hours, made me realise that I am looking forward to having greater involvement in the indigenous community and see an opportunity to learn more about the culture, comparing it to what I grew up with in NZ (to see the similarities and differences and educate those that need educating for future betterment of all involved). I realised that these things being thrown at me are just bumps in the road (well...quite literally) and once I got past them, travel is so much smoother, safer and gives you the chance to see more as you go.

So...here I am...living my life in the Northern Territory