4,157 kilometres

Lenka, Delores, Leanne

I have just had a huge adventure participating in the Shitbox Rally.

At the start

 At the end - notice the dust!

Leanne, myself and Delores travelled 4,157 kilometres together from Perth to Darwin in 7 days to raise money for the Cancer Council.  We raised over $11.5k but the whole rally raised nearly $1.5m which is an amazing effort by 500 people.

Andy the mechanic, Lenka, Leanne

Delores was found by my cousin Tom.  My aunt's mechanic famously said "she'd get a dead man to his grave and back" and he was not wrong.  Our first repair job was on the driver's window which stopped working after Leanne wound it down on the way to Joondalup to see if she could smell the head of a sperm whale that had washed up on the beach.  The truth is often stranger than fiction.........  Dan spent 3 hours taking the door apart and carrying out repairs - thank goodness he is so handy.

For the first few days Leanne and I felt that she wasn't enough of a shitbox.  Fortunately once we hit dirt we remedied that by destroying the shocks and suspension.

Leanne and I had a lot of fun decorating her with vintage sheets and artificial grass for the footwells on the inside and lots of daisies on the outside and the names of the people we were doing the rally in honour of.

Whilst in Perth we came across quite a few animals who clearly approved of Delores.

 Fergus -before she was decorated

 Mawson - check out the artificial grass

Bella, Andy the mechanics dog

We started the rally from King's Park in Perth.  It was 6.45am and there was a beautiful sunrise.  We had been put into Buddy Group 1 which was with James the Rally Organiser.  There were various advantages to being with the rally organiser: sometimes we got to head off first, he knew exactly what to do and where to go, he had the most powerful UHF radio so could easily call for help if necessary. However there were some disadvantages too: his car was a real shitbox and we spent a lot of time by the side of the road trying to get it fixed, he is having a documentary made about him and so we often had to wait around to do special shots, we had a smaller buddy group so didn't get to know quite so many people.  Having said that our buddy group was truly amazing - all wonderful people who we will stay in touch with for a long time.  Sadly I don't have photos of everyone but there was:

Team Shitbox - James the rally organiser and co-driver Mel.  We spent a wonderful afternoon with Mel in the backseat of our car discussing a huge range of issues whilst snacking on baby food mixed with nuts.

No Coffee No Likey - Scott and Mel (good friends of James')

The Adventourists - Freddie (a frenchman) and Michael (an unusual german with a sense of humour)

Ol' Mates - Sean and Emma.  Sean was our groups mechanic and his knowledge of bush mechanics was amazing.

Angry Birds - Jodhi and Nicky - 2 mums from QLD

Royal Descent - Iain and Josh - a couple of 20 year old uni students who became our adopted sons for the week

On the third day we did our first river crossing.  It wasn't a big one but The Adventourists stalled in the middle and were wrongly told to try starting the engine.  Their car died and was pulled out of the river and towed to camp that night where it was totally stripped of parts.  In fact that one little Ford Festiva allowed another 5 cars of all makes and models to continue on with the rally - the skill of the mechanics was amazing.

The Adventourists stripped bare

A familiar sight each evening - what's useful in this pile of parts? 

Because we were now short a car in our group Leanne and I gained Michael as an additional passenger and driver.  He was a complete champion, did any heavy lifting for us and tolerated our incessant questioning.  In fact we ended up fully welcoming him to The Daisy Bushells team by updating our logo.

We did a lot of driving and a lot of stopping by the road whilst people carried out repairs.  We had 2 flat tyres and one evening the engine overheated a bit but that was it for us.  Even the big river crossing went smoothly once we'd tarped up our engine and disconnected the air filter - that was one of my proudest moments.

Delores in her wetsuit

Crossing the Pentecost River

Stopping by the side of the road was one of the fun parts as it allowed us all to have a break from the continuous driving, find out more about our buddy partners and watch the other Shitboxers drive past.   The driving itself wasn't too hard.  There was a lot of it, with our longest day leaving camp at 7am and getting in to the next camp at 12.30am, but we were lucky that the Gibb River Road had been graded 3 weeks prior so we lost a lot fewer cars than we might have done.  And I was reminded of how much I love driving on dirt - I had to continuously remind myself that I was driving a sedan rather than a 4WD!

 A Boab tree

 Red dirt

 Dusk - we had to stop as visibility was so poor

 A quick stop to pump up our tyres after being on dirt

Each morning Leanne would tape two "thoughts of the day" to the back windows of the car and it became a habit for people to come and read them every morning.  The one for our first day was 

"A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world" 

which I thought was particularly fitting given the large amount of money our small group managed to raise.  And I loved the one on our last day which was 

"For all that has been, thank you.  For all that is to come, Yes!"

Day 3 sayings

So what is to come for Delores?  Just prior to the auction the rally director approached me and explained that a girlfriend of his is due to drive round Australia soon and he'd like her to do the drive in Delores - what an amazing testament to Delores!  This is our last shot of us with her.

That's a petticoat sticking out of her boot - we often wore them so wanted her to have the same on her last day.  

And what is to come for me?  I feel like I was given the most incredible gift in being allowed to participate in the rally.  It was an amazing way to honour my mother's life and I received so much in return.  Mum would have loved the raw beauty of the place and she would have enjoyed trying to capture it on canvas.  I was able to rediscover who I am, not being "mother of", "wife of", "colleague of" for 2 weeks, and I was amazed to find that I am no different to my 20-year old self.  However, as I was driving through this awe-inspiringly beautiful countryside I felt my soul being cleansed and wished that Jules and the children were there to experience it with me.  In the meantime I'm back home counting my blessings with my amazing family and life - it is good to be reminded of how fortunate you are.  

Australia is an amazing country for contrasts - the red earth and the turquoise sea but always that blue sky that goes on forever