Geraldton hosts WA Outback Car Trek 11-day driving event, raising funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service

An 11-day outback trek is gearing up to go this month, with more than 170 participants driving from Geraldton to Darwin to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The Outback Car Trek is an annual town-to-town drive, considered a premier charity car rally in rural Australia, having raised more than $32 million for the RFDS since 1990. This will be the first Outback Car Trek in northern WA, with the only other WA event running from Esperance to Alice Springs in 2005. The annual Cut-a-Rama night will begin on Tuesday, May 30, with a hairdressing team from Just Cuts styling trekkers and the community’s hair from 6pm at the Murchison Tavern. Outback Car Trek drivers will journey to Kalbarri in older two-wheel-drive vehicles on Wednesday, May 31, making their way to Denham, then Carnarvon, Onslow, Port Hedland and Broome, where drivers will take a rest day on Tuesday, June 6. The route will continue from Broome to Mt Elizabeth Station, Kununurra, Top Springs and Katherine before finishing in Darwin on Sunday, June 11. “People in these communities can live hours and hours from medical care,” Just Cuts founder Denis McFadden, who will complete the Outback Car Trek in the Just Cuts Cut Mobile with wife Jenny, said. “The RFDS are the GPs of regional Australia, with a waiting room that spans millions of kilometres. “There’s a huge buzz around our Cut-a-Rama event this year. I love seeing everyone get involved in the festivities as we let our hair down and embrace the excitement of the trek.” Outback Car Trek organiser Bill Patrick said COVID-19 restrictions had kept the event close to home in previous years, but he was looking forward to trekking out to the Mid West-Gascoyne. “The tTrek community is so excited to be able to travel up the WA coast and across the Gibb River Road, injecting hundreds of thousands of dollars into communities who were hit so hard by the pandemic,” he said. The event raises awareness of the disadvantages regional Australians face accessing medical treatments that those in metropolitan areas may take for granted.