It was my turn to drive from Derby. We planned a short drive (120kms) at the beginning of the Gibb River Road before camping at Lennard River Bridge, but missed the turn off and had to keep driving. Our second choice to camp for the night was Silent Grove near Bell’s Gorge. The Gibb River Road is a combination of sand, gravel, rock and corrugations, so a lot of care is needed when driving it. We had already let some air out of the tyres.

The near miss happened not far passed a sign that warned of 14kms of very windy road. As I drove round a bend, I came face to face with a car towing a caravan in the other lane and a white ute overtaking it at high speed in my lane. I had nowhere to go.  I slammed on the brakes. John screamed at me not to brake because of the gravel but I knew if I took my foot off, I’d slam into the ute. Although he kept yelling, I just couldn’t not brake. Our car began to skid and I felt the caravan skidding too. I tried to drive into the skid but we were going towards the bush. Unbelievably, we screeched to a halt with the passenger wheel hanging over a swamp. We must have missed the ute by a hair’s breadth and it took off into the distance, without stopping to help.  John told me to reverse but he didn’t think there was any chance of us being able to get back onto the gravel road. I reversed hard, keeping my foot on the pedal trying to coax the car and caravan to move back. Finally they did and we got safely back onto the road. It was then John told me we had come to a halt just inches from a ditch.

The caravanners, who had been coming the other way and had been overtaken by the ute,  had stopped to help and to see if we were okay. They were furious that the driver of the ute had been so stupid and hadn’t even stopped to help.  They and John were very shaken but I felt very calm and had done throughout the incident. John checked the car and caravan. Everything seemed fine. Once everyone had calmed down, we went our separate ways.

Although I was calm throughout,  it wasn’t until I went to bed that night that perhaps I had delayed shock. I slept for twelve hours but woke a few times with an image of the ute coming towards us. Needless to say I was happy it was John’s turn to drive the next day.