Right. If you just leave the mattress inside the swag and roll it all up together it ends up as a pretty tight little plasticky sausage roll. Much better. I feel more certain than ever that tomorrow we’ll be ready to start this rally.

On our final morning we woke up at Tobermorey Station; hundreds of luminescent parrots and swooping raptors, squawking and battling for the choicest spots in the trees around us. Only Australia could deliver so many vibrant birds in the middle of a desert. Well done Australia.

A chap wandered over to admire our ride. He noted the carpeted walls and sunroof and working clutch, and asked after our intentions for her. Unwanted shitboxes get auctioned off at the finish line and it has not escaped a few rallyers that our car is not, well, a shitbox. Just maybe a misunderstood family car with a patchy history and a previous owner who had to flee the country, for some reason, which was most likely not related to the car.

This inspecting chap, in casual conversation, also mentioned that he had previously owned a CRV and that he had changed it from front-wheel-drive to rear-wheel-drive and that was a good thing to do and that he could do it for us right now if we wanted; in the middle of the desert, with no workshop, before breakfast. I don’t even know where to start with this, but just add it to the list of things we obviously can’t do.

So today was a pretty straight stretch, 500km-ish, from Tobermorey to Alice Springs, along the Plenty Highway. Don’t be fooled by the word Highway here, it is misleading… to say the least. I feel like there should be some sort of universal definition of highway, and some agreed standards, to give motorists clarity and comfort. Something basic like “if your road is made of shifting dust and has enormous holes and the occasional lake in it, it is not a highway.” Something like that.

As we meandered further into the centre, the eucalypt leaves gradually became that beautiful lime colour common in the Territory, and the bark smooth and white more often than not. The landscape began to undulate and bubble out of the flat expanse to which we had become accustomed, as the MacDonnell Ranges slowly roused themselves and then leapt out at us from the south.

As we finally hit the tarmac of the Stuart Highway, and turned left, rallyers began to splinter from the groups that had kept them nourished for the past week. Some drivers, perhaps beginning to revert to their real-world selves, pushed up and through other groups, overtaking in dubious settings, determined to travel at the allowable 130kmph despite piloting cars closer to the scrapheap than the autobahn. The radios began to crackle with anonymous, frustrated men demanding that forward groups travel at the allowable speed or get off the road. The outback UHF version of the modern keyboard warrior.

And so, just before sunset, we emerged from the desert and rolled into Alice Springs like Max Rockatansky, if Max had enjoyed a nice drive through the outback in a mid-sized Japanese car, having encountered very little societal collapse, few if any post-apocalyptic wastelands, and zero barbarous killings. We discussed, and agreed, that Miller had made a fine choice going with a black 5.7L V8 Interceptor for Max’s iconic shitbox, rather than a silver Honda CRV with it’s 1.5L engine, 140KW of power, and carpeted walls.

Then we went out to get matching Stackhat tattoos from Alice Springs’ second highest rated tattoo artist. He thought they were rad.

And so a few observations before I end the story of this rally, for which we were never really ready.

Far Western NSW, South Western Queensland and all of the Northern Territory is SO empty. The dirt is so red. The horizons so wide. The emus so ungainly. The sunsets so audacious. The eagles so badass. The dust so relentless. The bakeries so plentiful. The parrots so sublime. The stars so mesmerizing. The road-trains so unyielding. The fires so blazing. The night so silent. The daybreak so squawky. The highways so pot-holed. The ants so industrious. The wandering cows so serene. The swags so fiddly. The clutches so optional… and the pub-crawls so protracted.

Farewell for now outback Australia, and farewell forever to our dear, unremarkable, Honda CRV.

Our CRV riding off into a typically magnificent sunset