RV FEATURE

But there is a good , wide dirt road leading off to the right . That ’ s where the historic site must be . So we follow it .

Rick and I don ’ t go offroad in our trusty old 2006 Jayco motorhome . At 7.2m long , 2.5m wide and 3.4m tall , it ’ s big and heavy , and we ’ ve done enough kilometres to know it ’ s not suitable for most dirt roads . But this is a good , solid track .

Until it isn ’ t .

About 500m in , I get an uneasy feeling . Where is this old hospital ? To the left is a barbed wire fence and a fire track – typical of many properties in Northern Territory . On the right is an embankment and thick scrub . There ’ s nowhere to turn around , even if we want to .

About 1km down the track , I ’ m sweating – more than I already was

Getting bogged is one of the worst feelings when you ' re alone in the bush with few means of communication . in the outback heat . Rick ’ s looking a little uneasy and muttering , “ Where have you taken me now ?”

The road is disintegrating into a goat track . It ’ s narrowed and we ’ re still trapped between the fence and embankment . Why not just reverse out ? Good question . But by the time we have thought that might be a good idea , the hard surface has all but disappeared , replaced by big patches of soft sand . Not great when you ’ re in our heavy beast . And still no sight of the historic hospital site – or anywhere to turn around .

We are longer than the track is wide . So , we plough on . About 8km into our bumpy jaunt , we spot a section that we might be able to mount to turn around . As we slow ever so slightly to look closer , we realise our mistake . It ’ s black sand and we sink .

HARD NOT TO PANIC

You know those movies where ridiculously unsuspecting explorers suddenly fall into a pond of quicksand ? That ’ s what it feels like to us . It ’ s hard not to panic ( and swear ). What do we do ?

We channel the Leyland Brothers or , in our case , TV ’ s bumbling Russell Coight , and decide to dig ourselves out . There ’ s really no other option . We know now that there is no historic WWII hospital site anywhere near us so there will be no traffic heading our way .

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