History of our Oka Travels

We bought our Oka in late 2003 as a rather decrepit 9 year old tour bus that had spent most of its 500,000 km working life in the Kimberley. We spent all of 2004 converting it to a motorhome, a task which is still going on and will probably never end.

Click here for a timeline of our Oka Ownership.

In March 2005 we set our on our inaugural trip on which we completed a 9 month, 30,000 km circuit around north, east, central and southern Australia, including Tasmania.

In 2006 we did a 2 month, 8,000 km trip around southern Queensland and northern NSW.

In 2007 we did a 20,000 km trek across Western Australia and the Northern Territory, mostly outback tracks. Plenty of action, excitement and memories to share on that 5 month trek.

In 2008 we headed west across the Anne Beadell Highway in the company of David Hallandal and family in their Oka and Craig in his Patrol. Then north up the Great Central and Sandy Blight Junction Roads to Alice. Then up to Darwin, across to the Gulf and down through outback Queensland. 3 1/2 months and 14,000 km altogether.

In 2009 we were kept at home with a succession of problems but we did manage a 4 week, 5,000 km very hot trek to Brisbane and back in late November. A long way for a birthday party.

In 2010 we attacked Cape York. We got back in September 2010 after a long and arduous trek up to the Cape and then across the Gulf to Kununurra and back south, but one full of interest and moments of excitement. 3 1/2 months and 14,000 km again! Check our blog entries for details.

In 2011 we went west again since we've decided we prefer the empty western deserts to the rain forests of the wet tropics, even with their heat, dust and flies. See our blog entry for this trip. We first went to Melbourne to visit our son and then headed west. We had a few dramas but some good new experiences as well, 9000 km and about 17 time zones over 2 months.

In 2012 we tackled the Kidson Track from Kunawaritji at Well 33 on the CSR to 80 Mile Beach, but not only those tracks. Starting at Yulara, we headed west to Tjukyirla Roadhouse on the Great Central Road. There we turned north up the David Carnegie Road, crossed the Gunbarrel Highway and continued north on the fast disappearing Eagle Highway to the Talawana Track. Left on the Talawana Track took us to the CSR near Well 24 then up to Well 33 where we joined the Kidson Track out to 80 Mile Beach. 2500km of outback tracks and you can read about it here.  We also went to Ningaloo again, did the Gibb River Road, the Old Andado and Oodnadatta Tracks. 13,000km in total in 3 months.

During July to September 2013 we travelled 11,300km (mostly) across Western Australia:

• Adelaide to Uluru and westwards on the Great Central Road, Hunt Oil Road, Gunbarrel Highway and all the way out to Steep Point on Shark Bay. Along the way we got our Oka bogged for a day on the Hunt Oil Road.
• Southwards from Shark Bay to Perth and the south west corner of WA.
• Central WA eastwards back to Adelaide, along the Anne Beadell, Connie Sue and Old Eyre Highways.

In 2014 we completed our most challenging trek yet. As part of a 2 month trip, with 2 other Okas we successfully crossed the Great Sandy Desert in northern WA, a 700km trek across mostly trackless sand dunes and scrub. It took us 13 days of difficult slogging, during which we saw no other travellers, and in doing so we achieved a couple of major objectives: to explore the McLarty range of hills and to reach the Dragon Tree Soak in the middle of the desert (and to return safely to earth).

This was not an easy trek, somedays we only managed 25km, and we ran very low on fuel and water. Although we avoided any major mechanical breakdowns, the difficult, overgrown terrain severely damaged 5 of the 6 spare tyres we had between us.

During July to September 2015 we retraced a previous trip across the Gary Junction Road to the Rudall River National Park, crossing the CSR at Kunawaritji in the process. We entered the Rudall River area from the northern Telfer mine entrance and that part of the country was actually more scenic than the park itself further south.

We carried on west and spent a week on Ningaloo Station, then up to Dampier/Karratha/Pt Hedland and then south (because it was getting mighty hot) through Marble Bar all the way to Kalgoorlie and home across the Eyre Highway, 3 months and 11,000km later.

Even though we retraced quite a lot of previous tracks, we discovered more than enough new things to still make it an interesting trek. (eg Telfer Mine, Paraburdoo, Ningaloo Station, Roy Hill Mine, Coolgardie Day, Newman Rocks, Nuytsland Nature Park, Olde Eyre Highway).

2016

What happened in 2016?

Well, we did go to a big Greek family wedding in Melbourne in February, which was really good, but sadly we didn't do any outback travel during 2016 due to Janet having a serious medical problem that required her to be in hospital for a total of 8 weeks over a 9 month period for 3 major brain operations leaving her with a titanium plate in her head.

That meant we had to put all our plans on hold and we lost most of the year as she slowly recovered her health. Apart from our plans, most of the essential home and garden maintenance had to be abandoned as well. And the car packed up so I had to quickly replace it for the daily hospital and rehab visits.

So it was been a difficult year, full of doctors appointments, scans and neurosurgeon visits, physical and cognitive rehabilitation sessions and home care assistance programs, but fortunately we have a very supportive group of friends and family and she made a slow but steady recovery.

2017

2017 was better but not quite as easy as we had expected, progress has been slow but we did fit in a couple of trips to Melbourne to visit the grandkids and a week in Toowoomba for Janet's cousin's 50th wedding anniversary party. Airport security was a bit of a trial though, with a lump of titanium in her head.

But later in the year Janet suddenly had a brain flash and things which had been difficult and frustrating suddenly, almost overnight, became good again, if not perfect. The brain is a wondrous thing and even the neurosurgeons don't fully understand it. She even got her driving licence restored after 20 months so she now has her independence back.

So we are now quite buoyant about the future. There are still follow up scans and some possible treatments on the cards but we will definitely be out and about in the Oka during 2018.

Summary of our journeys

We've now lived in our Oka for a total of more than 3 years over the past 11 years of travelling and covered around 170,000 km. We've gained a lot of experience in Oka travel in remote locations and problem solving and fixing breakages on outback tracks, not to mention the gigabytes of photos and memories collected along the way.

This is our 2007 trek superimposed on a very early 1644 map of Hollandia Nova...

...and the rather more modern Google Earth

But even before we bought our Oka, about 30 years before actually, we undertook a round the world 4WD trek in an old Land Rover from the UK to Australia (where we ran out of money and have lived ever since).

In the Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghanistan

It was a great trip over  9 months and 30,000 km but the best part was the month we spent in Afghanistan in 1974/5. You can read our account of the month here.