After stocking up (including stocking the built-in fridge/freezer!) we headed south to the loop around Ayers Rock. This is a tourist route, and quite heavily traveled.

A week or so later, we arrived back in Alice and stocked up again. Then we headed off via the Tanami track to Western Australia via Rabbit Flat Roadhouse - the most remote roadhouse in Australia.

1200 km later on what turned out to be fairly easy if hugely corrugated dirt road driving, we arrived at Halls Creek, having collected a puncture on the way, and having all our vegetables confiscated in a bizarre border crossing in the middle of nowhere. From the burnt out police cars, we sensed this may not be Australia's leading tourist destination. We bought a new tyre and carried on, heading for the Bungle Bungles. What a fantastic place, and you can only get there via a 4WD track - even better.

From there we headed north to Kunanurra, then across to the Kakadu, finally arriving in Darwin - dusty, mosquito-bitten, and in search of a shower and a cold beer.

We'd wrecked one tyre, sliced another, chipped the windscreen, jammed a tape in the cassette deck, but that's about par for the course. We'll definitely go back for more.

  Outback travel

I found 4WD travel in the outback very different to NZ, mainly due to the vast distances and the heat. 

The emphasis is more on safety rather than challenging 4-wheeling. You need a reliable, rugged, economical vehicle set up for camping.

Long-range fuel tanks, multiple spare tyres, the ability to fix your own punctures and do your own repairs are important. Survival gear (water especially) and good radio communications are important. The corrugations are hard on the vehicles, so expect lots of wear.

Toyota Landcruisers (70 series) seem to be the most popular vehicles, and the parts are widely available in the outback. The impression I got was that they were the only parts available in some places! Air conditioning is nice to have, even in the cooler months.

There are lots of tourists renting 4WD's - most of them have no idea what they are doing and the rental companies are getting quite wary. Some won't let you take them off the tarseal! Rollovers are quite frequent with novice drivers in rental 4WD's on dirt or sand. They also forget to engage or disengage diff-locks...