Turning off the main road towards Wiseman's Ferry, there's no warning about the 59km of unsealed road that awaits. It's not like taking a short-cut through some country lane in Somerset, it's 39km to St Alban's, which is the first opportunity to take an alternative route or buy a drink and even then, there's no petrol station.
The road, however bumpy and uncomfortable at times, is stunning. Hand-built by convicts, half-starving and hauled up through the Hawkesbury region in the 40 degree heat of the summer, it hugs the rock side, twisting and turning through the forests, your car kicking up red dust clouds as you drive. Each turn of the road reveals something new; wild flowers, rickety wooden bridges over dried-up creeks, gnarled, blackened gum trees. This place would be a terrifying prospect on a dry and windy summer's day, a tinderbox.
I checked my mobile - definitely no reception. "This is bush, isn't it?" I said to Darren as I tried to tune the radio. Not a single station to be had across the entire frequency range. "This is proper bush now. What if we break down? We still haven't joined the NRMA".
"Will you pack it in?"
"But I'm a mother, I have responsibilities". I looked at Ella in the back and imagined us surrounded by dingoes, the car found abandoned except for the distant Scottish tones of Edie McCready, who drives the Balamory bus.
100 clicks from civilisation and suddenly not such a tough outback cookie.
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