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If Treks have themes, this year we have two - old friends and small towns. Reaching 21 years of age is a big achievement by any standards, and in 2010 the Trek will celebrate our 21st birthday in grand style. We are going to drop in on lots of old friends and visit some of the most favoured towns of the past 20 years as we wind our way towards Hamilton Island - the destination of the very first Trek back in 1990.
The week will start in the town of Hay located in the western Riverina region of south‐western New South Wales. Located half‐way between Sydney and Adelaide, Hay is an important road hub, where the Sturt, Cobb and Mid‐Western Highways meet. Hotel beds are in plentiful supply in the town and the Crown Hotel will be the focal point of the pre‐Trek party, and of course the traditional Just Cuts, Cut‐O‐Rama.
We leave Hay on the Sunday morning and head north‐west across the Hay plains through the World Heritage Listed Mungo National Park and Pooncarie, to the first night at Broken Hill, where dinner will be in the RFDS hangar. Day two sees us continue our north‐westerly passage, and after breakfast at Silverton, we cross into South Australia as we spend night two at Copley. |
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We then head northward on day three, as we travel the length of the Birdsville Track, enjoying lunch at Mungerannie roadhouse on the way and spending the night at old favourite, Birdsville.
We then start to move in an easterly direction and will spend night four at Stonehenge, a Trek favourite town from many years back. The next night sees us travel to the major town of Barcaldine where everybody who wants to, can enjoy fresh sheets in one of the towns many hotels or motels. Then it’s off further north to spend another night in a small and inviting town - Ravenswood.
The 2010 Trek will finish on beautiful Hamilton Island, the destination of our very first Trek way back in 1990, where we will celebrate our 21st birthday in grand style under the balmy & tropical Whitsundays skies, and announce the donation totals for the 2010 Trek.
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The Royal Flying Doctor Service |
| The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) is well known for its emergency retrieval services. Each year over 4,500 patients are rescued following accidents or emergencies that happen in remote areas. What many people don’t realise is that those services make up less than 2 % of the comprehensive healthcare provided by the Flying Doctor. |
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Most of the Flying Doctor’s work involves the provision of an extensive range of healthcare services to remote and rural cities, towns and home-steads across more than seven million square kilometres of Outback Australia. Those services include Australia’s only flying dentists, community health nurses, a rural women’s GP service, regular GP clinics to remote towns and stations, Aboriginal health initiatives, mental health counselling, over the phone consultation services and specialists flown to remote locations as part of the Rural Area Health Service.
The Flying Doctor works in some of the most socially deprived areas of Australia, where life expectancy is shorter and access to medical care is severely restricted. Chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, renal disease, and chronic airways disease are a serious problem for people living in remote areas, in both the Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal population. The Flying Doctor works to combat those diseases.
Funding for the RFDS comes from governments, organisations, community groups, volunteers, auxiliary groups and many thousands of individuals, whose support is vital in helping the Service continue its life-saving work.
The RFDS needs to raise over $25 million in public donations each year.That’s why events like the Outback Car Trek are so important. Since it started in 1990, Trekkers have raised over $15 million, which has been put towards the purchase of replacement aircraft and vital medical supplies.
The Outback Car Trek now raises well over $1 million each year.
It has become the most important event in the Flying Doctor’s annual fund raising calendar.
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Telstra Country
Wide |
Safe travelling in the Outback is all about effective communications.
To ensure that all those who run the event, especially the medical
and mechanical support teams, are in constant contact, Telstra Country
Wide equips the Trek's official vehicles with satellite phones and
sends along a back-up crew who can provide internet access, even in
the remotest areas.
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