What a nice story to read. I love road trips. Both doing them and reading about them. I have been all over South Africa in our Holdens and even on bicycle (I've toured 6500 km's on the bicycle ). Also toured Australia twice (by car) and can recall a lot of those names from Alice down south. It is always fantastic to experience the kindness of people you meet along the way.
I did love the sunrise pictures of the EK too. They remind me of an evening in our equavilent of your outback. Got to the top of a mountain ridge and everything had a red tinge. As I went over this was the scene.
Good luck with where ever you are heading.
Alastair and Andrea
Great pics Gaz 
Good on ya Bill and Anne for helping out a friend in need
