Madi’s Manouvres Blog – June 2024.

An outback trip across the Simpson Desert via the Madigan Line – June 2024.

---

An introduction – 31 May 2024.

Following our Antarctic adventure in 2023, there was a planned trip Outback across the Simpson Desert, however Mother Nature had other ideas – with heavy rains in Northern Australia causing floods across the desert.

So to 2024, where the plans have been resurrected, which suits me perfectly as I couldn’t juggle the trip in 2023. In short we have 6 vehicles and 10 of us venturing North in June 2024. We leave tomorrow 1st June.

The crew

• Trip leader – Steve in his Troopy with Stef as passenger
• Brian and Ann in a Nissan Patrol. (Ann is Steve’s sister and Brian her son) on their first outback adventure
• Mary and Phil in Yoda, their new Toyota Fortuner
• Mary and Col on their Toyota 200 series
• Kate in her Pajero (Mary and Phil’s daughter)
• Me in Budd – my Pajero Sport.

The Madigan Line is named after explorer and geologist Cecil Thomas Madigan who, leading a party of nine men made an epic crossing of the North Simpson Desert, by camels, in 1939.

I hope to attempt a photo blog, but given the distances to cover and lack of connectivity this could be a challenge.

Tomorrow is departure day so it’s off to bed ready for an early start – our destination tomorrow is Mildura where we will all meet up.