Sibba and I are about to embark on another journey to explore this small island, we call home.  This time the 4 wheels will take us to Western Australia and the Northern Territory.  The objective is to visit the Kimberleys in WA and Kakadu National Park in NT.  This time around we have allowed ourselves up to 4 months for the trip.  Yes, 4 months..  We have been planning this for the past couple of years and have both taken our long service leave at work in conjunction with our normal annual leave to make this happen.  Here in Australia you become eligible for long service leave once you have worked in the same place for 10 years.        That is, they let you out for airing once every ten years!
We embark on our Journey on the 13th of July and won't return back to work until the middle of November.  The trip will take us from one end of Australia to the other as can be seen on the following map..

I won't go into any descriptions on why the Kimberley or Kakadu, this is where Google or Bing can enlighten you in much more detail, apart from saying that these are one of the "Must See" destinations for any outback travellers, especially if you like seeing nature in all it's variety and formations.  This trip will be done at a camels pace i.e. very short trips and stops for a few days.  Thus the objective is to take it easy and not rush.  The first few weeks are planned and some of the accommodation booked, but after that it's only a rough plan.  For the most part we will be camping outdoors under millions of stars, but on occasions we will downgrade and check into 3-5 star accommodations.
We will be driving our trusty Landcruiser that has been prepared for this journey as best we can.  We are pretty busy preparing for the trip and trying to get everything crammed into every nook and cranny of the Cruiser before we leave.  Additionally we are trying to set Linda and her boyfriend, Adam, up to look after the house while we are away.  Someone has to pay the bills and keep the lights on and off!.
We will try to keep this journal up to date as much as we can.  The Kimberleys are not an area where it's easy to get mobile coverage.  In fact there is no coverage for most of that part of Australia.  Thus once we hit the Gibb River Road, our connection with the rest of civilisation will be pretty sparse.  This part of the journey will last about 3-4 weeks, so don't panic if there is no update.  We do have some emergency equipment that would allow us to call in the cavalry if required.  This part of Australia is also populated by salt water crocodiles, so entering all rock pools, rivers and beaches is done at your own risk.  A few travellers have been caught out in the past few years and haven't been seen since.  But rest assured, we won't be tempting the crock palate if we can help it.
How does one prepare for a Journey like this, you might ask.  A very good question, which I'll try to put some words to in the next update.
Simmi and Sibba