In July 1994, I happened to be at the 12th European Experimental NMR. Conference (EENC 94) in Oulu, Finland. There, I met my former lab director at the CENG in Grenoble, Pierre Servoz-Gavin, where I did my Ph.D. I had always kept in touch with him and we were good friends (I was his favorite student: going to Germany, the US, starting my own company, you get the picture). The next meeting,  the 12th meeting of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance, was goin to be held in Sydney, Australia in July 1995. We decided to do "something" together: 2 weeks through the outbacks. I was in charge of organizing it.
I decided that crossing Australia south-to-north in a 4x4 was a good idea, which was accepted.

On Friday July 21, our spouses Lauren and Maria arrived in Sydney, and we flew the next day to Adelaide to start our trip through the unknown. Game of "pétanque" (with local colloquintes) at Mulga park in the middle of nowhere. Servoz knocking down a parking meter in Normanton, climbing the water tower in Forsayth so that we could shower, nothing out of the ordinary. Wonderful 2 days in Cairns for us, they went to Port Douglas and back. Then back to Sydney and civilisation. Wonderful trip.