I Had This Idea............

Hello People,

First thing's first, a quick introduction! My name is Dale Mervin, I'm 37 years old, I have two awesome little boys and a very awesome and beautiful wife. I work in a pretty awesome job that I love (freelance photographer), I live in a pretty awesome house, in a pretty awesome street, in a pretty awesome suburb. My life so far....pretty awesome. I have travelled and lived over seas, I have worked in several different industries, been a surf lifesaver for 15 years and I'm now my own boss doing my own hours. It's just great, although, the work Christmas Party this year consisted of me, a 6 pack of beer, a pizza, a Santa hat, and a few episodes of Mythbusters!

So, that's me in a nutshell...........not very interesting! Despite having a great life, I haven't really done anything interesting that anyone else hasn't done! I reckon I saved quite a few people from drowning as a lifesaver, but so has every other lifesaver. I have travelled to about 35 countries, but so has almost everyone I know. I have worked in a variety of jobs and finally work in the one I like.........it's all a bit familiar, I'm just missing the 0.4 of a child I need to become the real 'Mr Average'.

As incredibly grateful as I am for my life and how incredibly lucky I am to have it, I need something else, I want something else that when I'm 90 I can tell my grand kids about and they won't say, 'So did I!'. It's all a bit cliche I know, but what do you expect from an almost Mr Average? Hang on, does that make me Mr Below Average???

And so, we come to the crux of the blog, the reason you have endured my banal life-story to this point! I, yes me, am planning a trek across The Simpson Desert unassisted and carrying all my supplies for the 17-20 days it should take to cross the 1100 dunes and almost 450km! Crazy? Possibly. Midlife crisis? Definitely! But as strange as this may sound and having never been to The Outback in my life (unless you call the year 9 school trip to Hill End 'Outback') I have always felt a hunger to spend time out there. I think, without sounding too cliche again, it has been calling me all my life and the time has come to answer the call. Maybe it's the fabled and very much unproven indigenous bloodline, maybe it's my ability to circular breath on a didgeridoo (I don't know how, I just could), or maybe it's simply my life long love of that mighty Aussie band Midnight Oil! Whatever it is, it's getting louder and the opportunity has finally presented itself, so I'm going!

'The opportunity?', I hear you ask? Well, an old mate of mine is currently about half way through his bucket list of '100Things' he wants to do before he dies, and one of those things is to raise $100,000 for the children's charity Camp Quality. Not only is Seb on a quest to complete his own 'bucket list', he is also helping other people complete some of their own bucket lists, and I happen to be one of these crazy people!

To conclude my brief opening blog and hopefully tweak your interest in returning to it, I think a rundown is necessary!

My main goal is to raise as much money as I possibly can to help Seb Terry raise $100,000 for Camp Quality and at the same time, cross the famous Simpson Desert, off tracks and unassisted, ending up in Birdsville (more specifically, The Birdsville Pub). To do this, I will need to raise approximately $10,000 to build a cart, pay for a support vehicle to 'shadow' me via tracks that may well be 100km from where I am at any time, supplies, safety gear, emergency beacon, sat phone, flights to The Alice and out of Birdsville etc etc. Now, of course I will try and get as much of all that donated as possible, so any money that I raise over what I spend will go straight into the kitty for Camp Quality.

At the moment, this is a solo trek, however, there may be a mystery special guest appearance accompanying me in an effort to tick off his Number 57 'Cross a Desert' and raise even more money for Camp Quality. No clues as to who it is, I'll let you work that one out for yourself!

My goal in dollars is open ended,  but whatever the final outcome, this is a fairly ambitious task and I hope you will all stick with me through what I hope will be, the journey of a lifetime. Not just the trek itself, but the whole fund raising process, the building of the cart, the training, everything. I even hope that when I get back, you might want to join me for a beer at the charity auction that I hope to run where I sell prints of some of the images I intend to capture in the outback.

The window of opportunity to do this trek is June/July. Outside these times is too hot so I really need to get cracking. To the fund raiser!

Can't wait to get my hands dirty!

Dale