A very early 430am start. We loaded the Ranger onto the back of the flatbed tow truck, for the long trip from Kiwirrkurra to Alice Springs, a distance of almost 800km. It would be at least a 10 hour trip over mainly corrugated roads.

Leanne and I squeezed into the cab of the tow truck, preparing ourselves for the relentless corrugations to come. We had made a coffee for both us and our tow truck driver Al, and got a few snacks to have in the truck whilst we were driving. We chatted alot and listened to a few podcasts, but those bloody corrugations were relentless.

This trip is the 3rd time we have been to Alice Springs, and the second time arriving on the back of a tow truck. It was very sad to look out of the back windows and see the car on the back of the flatbed.

We crossed quite a few dry creek beds and roadworks in sections, even having to briefly stop as a herd of 6 camels stood on the road in front of us. We also stopped a couple of times for a pee break and to buy something for lunch at the Papunya Community store.

Overall, the trip back to Alice took us around 10 hours to travel the nearly 800km, and we were all pretty exhausted when we arrived. We had booked ourselves into a caravan park as we were traveling and also rented a hire car, so Al dropped Leanne at the caravan park where we offloaded from the car some supplies for the next few days, and then he dropped me at the rental car place so that I could collect our hire car. Then the phone calls to repairers began.

We have to thank Outback Vehicle Recovery for coming out to pick us and the car up and return us to Alice Springs. They are a great business with excellent customer service. Also NRMA Premium Care and Club 4x4 for helping us to organize everything and following up to make sure we got back to Alice safely and that our car got to the repairers OK.