‘Beyond The Black Stump’ is off to a fabulous start with $6,386 already under their belt! Last week they held an event at Speido Bar & Restaurant in Sydney. They were fortunate to have all of the wine and bubbles donated by Treasury Wines (through Cellarbrations) and Spiedo generously adjusted their costing to cover food and labour. They also had a significant amount of support from a number of others for raffle items i.e. Yellow Tail wine, Lucy’s Run, Shortys Liquor, Endota Spa & the Bottleo team. The night was a great success with 50 people making it on the night.

‘Mike’s Angels’ also held a glitzy and glamorous fashion parade on the Gold Coast last Friday. The girls also managed to secure some great coverage in the Gold Coast Bulletin’s ‘Coast Confidential’ section. You can check the coverage out on our Facebook page.
Good work guys!

Additional special mentions go to ‘Into Thin Hair’ and ‘Bouly Boys’ who have already smashed the $4,000 minimum!

The teams will be getting in different major cities across the country in November. These are organised intro nights and a great way for people to meet each other before spending a week together in close quarters.

So – what has been happening? The route is sorted and we will have the map up on the site hopefully next week, we have 180 teams and you can check them out on the ‘Team’ page of the site.  As you can see we have raised about $45,000 and we have a target this year of $1 million – wow.  Last year we reached $700,000 with 109 teams so hopefully we will reach our 7 figure sum.

We really want to get as many people that want to do the rally into the rally but we are limited by fuel, food and facilities especially as we travel to some of Australia’s most remote locations.  What we have done is removed the ‘hitch hiker rule’ that gave teams the opportunity to have 3 people in their car so now the teams are limited to 2 people which means we can say yes to more teams whilst still keeping the same numbers.  We are also looking into other ways to increase our numbers from 2013.

There are a bunch of other really cool things that we are currently working on for the 2012 and beyond rallies – all will be announced in the not too distant future.

Thank you for all of your support and stay tuned.

As the rally grows we will make a number of changes to it to ensure it is everything that we believe it should and can be.  The 2012 rally will be the 3^rd Shitbox Rally.  It has already grown massively from the 17 cars that initially started the Shitbox adventure with 109 teams in 2011 and an expected 150 teams for 2012.

The success of the rally really comes down to the people who are a part of it.  Everyone involved works together to get as many of the cars to our destination as possible whether that be with mechanical help, friendship, a few laughs or the overall camaraderie that everyone in the rally shares.

So – bring it on.  Can’t wait for April 2012!

We were greeted at Katherine Gorge by some very tame wallabys and noisy bats that reminded me of The Domain in Sydney. Breakfast was served on the banks of the river as the sun came up and we were grateful for the piping hot cups of tea.

The river cruise was a chance to stop, look around and take in our majestic surroundings. The gorge itself is a collection of pathways through Nitmiluk National Park carved in ancient sandstone over millennia by the Katherine River.

We had our eyes out for crocodiles but we didn’t spot any.

We stocked up on coffee and picked up our lunch from the café and it was time to hit the road again for the last time in our trip.

The plan was to drive up to Darwin via Jabiru and hopefully take in some of the Kakadu National Park. Lunch stop Anbangbang watering hole.

From there we travelled in convoy into Darwin, what a sight we must have been for the other motorists, mostly 4WD’s and road trains with the odd caravan here and there.

One of our cars Pain Train stuck it out as far as it could but conked out on Mitchell street just before the last turn on to the Esplanade, Otto the diesel ran to the rescue with a tow rope and made sure they crossed the line.

Darwin welcomed us with toots and waves from people on the street and in bars, we got a high five from a lady in the middle of the road and when we reached the esplanade we lined up like we were making an entrance on the red carpet, with friends, family and fans of shitbox rally there to wave us in.

Such a proud moment for us all and the love we felt for our shitboxes was as vast as the great country we had just traversed. Many of these cars had been sitting on the bench when we picked them up, banished to the back yard, under a cover of dust or literally on the scrap heap (as ours was) but with a lick of paint, a polish and a radiator flush they were given a new lease of life. Those shitboxes had just seen us through almost 4,000km of endless highway, bone shaking corrugated dirt roads, treacherous potholes wide enough to roll you over, death defying kangaroos, sweltering heat, bull dust and thigh high river crossings. Those that didn’t make the journey had donated parts to their fellow shitboxes. The spirit of rally is about support, teamwork, camaraderie and hope. Our shitboxes had made the long difficult journey and many more would do it again and again.

Our car was practically dead and needed a new alternator and a battery charge to get going but Alex and the support teams had him going in record speed and we set off at about 11am.

The road out from Heartbreak hotel was mainly bitumen but had suffered some flood damage lately causing great pot holes and sections of the road to be covered in dirt and gravel from the land surrounding the road. There was still a lot of wildlife to watch out for as well. We made a couple of stops one to refuel – woops and another to do some push ups, woops again.

Our little convoy had no problems mechanically that morning except for a bit of overheating, but then we were pushing the limits of those cars after quite a gruelling day the day before.

Our lunch stop was the Daly Waters pub which I highly recommend, it reminded me a little bit of the William Creek Hotel in SA one of our stop offs last year. The pub is very remote and those tourists lucky enough to pass through always like to leave something behind. Our Mystery Machine team girls had some excess costume attire which I’m sure the gentleman of the establishment will be pleased to stare at every now and again.

After a cold drink and a Barra Burger we got back into our rides and set off on the next few hundred kilometres to Katherine.

On the way we were passing the Mattarinka thermal pools which just sounded too good to miss after our last few sweaty and dusty days so we stopped in there for a quick dip.

By the time we made it to Katherine it took quite an effort for our organiser to summon up the energy for a bit of lawn bowls. Team Wacofi go into the spirit of things by treating his rally mates to the sight of his alter ego Phil-icity.

All in all it was a short night for most and a bit of much needed rest for our rally goers.

Hells gate is a very remote roadhouse 52km east of the Queensland – Northern Territory border, population 4. That’s until 250 + shitbox rally participants dropped in and camped in their back yard. What a beautiful back yard it is too. The drive up was the first time we’d hit the dirt road and gave people a sense of what was to come. It was a great day because the cars behaved very well on the whole and so we all got a chance to relax and put our feet up.

The Mystery Machine team organised a little impromptu fundraising with the pandas and shaved one of their backs on the roof of their car. Those pandas are good sports, not only are they sweltering in their panda suits everyday but now sacrificing the comfort of some winter insulation for a itchy back for the next couple of weeks. They raised an extra $500. Go Teams.

Bill cooked a great barbie for us and kept a massive campfire going to help us through a chilly night. The moon looks like a half full teacup at the moment and the stars are so bright out here you only have to take a glimpse at the sky to see a shooting star.

Don’t look up too long though as we spotted one of Australias most potent venomous snakes in the area, the Taipan.

The bathroom sign warns

“Please turn off the light.
Light attracts insects.
Insects attract frogs.
Frogs attract snakes.

Snakes Bite.

Flying doctors are 2 hrs away.”

We stopped off for a cleansing ale and some sun warmed sandwiches at The Walkabout Creek Hotel.

The pub was featured in the film Crocodille Dundee so Muff drivers dressed up like Mick Dundee. Complete with ‘that’s not a knife, this is a knife’ and blow up crocodile.

The local brew is XXXX which comes in various forms I discovered XXXX bitter, XXXX Gold and a special state of Origin XXXXX, It seems that the ladies go for Gold.

We arrived at Gregory Downs just after the sun set and quickly put up our tents and headed over to the pub for some dinner. Our hosts at the Gregory Downs pub had made some massive buckets of pasta which we lined up in an orderly fashion for. The carb fest begins, remind me to weight myself before and after next year. It would be interesting to know quite how unhealthy rallying can be for you.

I think we have a vegan in the group, I’m curious to see what outback delights are rustled up for her.

I found a new place to dwell,

It’s down at the end of lonely street

on Heartbreak Hotel….

Well I can tell you at the end of that lonely street there were a lot more than broken hearts. Some of our shitboxes were the luckiest, jammiest speed freaks out there and they managed to get back to the Heartbreak Hotel sometime in the afternoon.

I’m wondering if we took a wrong turn somewhere because our group of teams light blue and green plus the support crew were on that road for 15 hours straight. We didn’t even stop for lunch. The only stops my team (Vipers) made were in the middle of the croc infested rivers and thankfully they were brief as our support team pushed us out of the river from behind.

My team alone had 3 failed river crossings taking in water up to our seats before admitting defeat and being towed across by the 4WD. We lost about 5 cars in total and it would have been more if it weren’t for the heroic mechanics on hand.

The A Team after losing 2 cars in the drive up to Brisbane from Adelaide were in trouble again but our shitbox support crew were able to rescue the car by using a part from the deceased crash team monkeys car.  A number of volunteers lifted the crash test monkeys car on it’s side and used an axle grinder to cut out the fuel pump, they then replaced the defunct one in the A teams car and set off down the dirt road again.

The last cars to arrive were waved and cheered in by the other shitboxers at the hotel and we were all glad to arrive safely and in relatively good condition. The laser from Team Vipers was a bit of a worry since it made the last 1km of it’s epic journey without lights and the failing lights inside the car was a sign that things were not well under the bonnet.

But tomorrow is another day.