Expedition Route

 

The Tropic Of Capricorn almost evenly dissects Australia. I used 1:250 000 topographical maps for navigation, and there were 26 of these stretching from coast to coast. These maps are very accurate as they are drawn from aerial photographs, and it wasn't until I reached the settled areas (Longreach) that I occasionally used other road maps for navigation. Remember that GoogleEarth didn't exist in 1999, not that I would have used it anyway. Whilst digital maps are an excellent resource for outback travelers in Australia, as I wasn't following roads, the good old fashioned paper map is king. Similarly, my GPS was very basic compared to todays models, and though it gave me accurate position fixing, it didn't record my track/route - that was up to me to do via drawing on the map. Nowadays of course, you can track your expedition route and upload it to various platforms so people can follow you from their armchair.