It’s all too easy to pack up the family car and hit the road in a hurry, but in Australia, it doesn’t take much for you to find yourself in the middle of nowhere. Speaking from experience, we too have found ourselves in this predicament, with a broken down car, two small kids and no phone reception on the side of a dusty dirt road.
Here are some tips to deal with the unexpected on the remote road:
Share your Itinerary
Tell someone your itinerary and check in with them as you go. This step can be easily overlooked, but a simple text message, email or phone call to communicate where you are and where you plan to be at a certain time, can eliminate a lot of guess work in the event of an emergency.
Satellite Comms
Carry a satellite phone. Sometimes it’s hard enough getting good phone signal near town let alone when you’re hundreds of kilometers away from civilisation. A sat phone can be used to call for help where there is poor or very little reception.
Roadside Assist, fine print
Have top level roadside assistance from a reliable company. Who would you call if were to breakdown? With a top roadside assistance cover, you can get to the services required to fix your broken down vehicle. They can even cover accommodation costs etc.
Emergency Water & Food
Carry plenty of drinking water and some food. Even when you have called for help, that help may not be arriving as quick as you expect and you may have to wait around a bit. From our experience, we had to wait half a day to get picked up and then overnight on another instance. Thankfully we had some supplies to see us through that time.
Hopefully these tips might help you out if you ever get stuck out there while exploring this great southern land.
Check out these awesome RAM camps!
Discovery Parks – Roxby Downs, as seen on What’s up Downunder
Winton Wanderers Caravan Park, a beautiful new park in Outback Queensland’s fabulous dinosaur trail
Simpson Desert Oasis, a charming camp in Bedourie