Society Expeditions. I had thought traversing the vast, remote, waterless deserts of Australia would be the hardest part of my journey across the country with camels, but now I was facing a completely different challenge: traffic. I only had one more week of walking until I reached the most easterly point of mainland Australia, Byron Bay, and the shores of the Pacific Ocean, the end goal of my trek across Australia. I hugged the far left of the road, pushed up against a guardrail that squeezed me and my five large camels between speeding cars and a steep drop below.
The scene was quickly becoming more chaotic. Just as we had begun our ascent, the UHF radios my partner, Jimmy, and friend, Keirin, had been using to communicate with one another and direct traffic safely around the camels had gone flat. Jimmy was running ahead of my slow-moving camel string, his shirt drenched in sweat as he rounded the blind bends in advance, frantically waving his arms to slow the speeding oncoming traffic. Without communication between my two-person support crew, neither knew when it was safe to let cars pass.
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Drivers were becoming impatient and overtaking with complete disregard for my nervous animals; at times their legs were only inches from the wheels.
I turned my head to check on my camel Jude, who was second in position; his eyes were wide with terror. I could see a truck approaching from behind. Jude could hear it too. He was panicking, twisting sideways, a dangerous habit he had developed that pulled the three camels behind him into the middle of the road. With me up the front gripping the lead rope, I found it virtually impossible to control the 12m of fishtailing camels stretched out behind me. I was tense with fear, praying for the cars not to hit them.
Many camels and I had been on the road predominantly dirt tracks for 13 months. Most of Australia went into lockdown. The tracks and roads were deserted, and I often walked for weeks without seeing a soul.
