Tiny cotton bushes line the Kidman Way with healthy balls of cotton on them. We buy meat at Milnes Butchery in Hillston, NSW and the butcher is so proud of his caramelised onion sausages that he opens the bag wide for Elle to smell them.

Back on the road it’s hard work being a navigator as our next camp isn’t easy to find. To make things worse there is a lot of chatter on the CB radio. There are warnings to give our mates behind of ‘roos and emus and carcasses on the road. Woody keeps asking where the turnoff is and to cap things off a familiar voice comes on the radio, not the CB radio but the ABC in Melbourne, yes, my old schoolmate Beth is on the radio, a guest on the Conversation Hour with Jon Faine, again. God that girl loves to chat. Our third grade teacher always said that she was vaccinated with a gramophone needle. All these voices are doing my head in. Oh hell is that the turnoff?