In Cairns we had been warned by well meaning folk who were on their return journey, but it was in Cooktown surrounded by the scarred and wounded that we had the first portent of things to come.
We had so many returning "heroes" shell shocked and looking at us in complete horror, even pleading with us not to go, ("not in that!") that for a very brief period of time we felt just the teensiest bit nervous about what the next day might bring. One well-meaning soul even warned us that he'd travelled all over Australia, and that was the roughest road he'd ever encountered.
On the other hand, one or two albeit still travelling in monster four wheel drives, had assured us that our contention that it was "just another dirt road" was correct, albeit one which does feature corrugations of an ever increasing size and regularity for a very long way.
No amount of reassuring the others that perhaps we'd seen the likes of this before, could convince them that we were anything but some sort of giant accident looking for somewhere to happen.
I have no idea why we stood out, our shiny little white van in a sea of monster trucks, many of which looked as though the terrain had attempted to swallow them whole, but I suspect that some were already placing their wagers on the probability of our return.
Worst still, we weren't in a Toyota and they thought we were mad.
"You can get Toyota parts anywhere" was their constant refrain. Unsure of why we would need "parts", let alone "Toyota parts" we backed quietly away, retiring to our van to contemplate the horrors of the road ahead.
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