There was a point yesterday when the Camry and I reached an understanding. The point was the Daly Waters junction where we finally hit the long straight run up to Mataranka on the Stuart Highway where the speed signs say 130 and the tarmac is like silk after four days of single lane highways and dirt roads. The understanding was that the Camry, after two decades of going to the shops and back, had risen to every challenge the road could throw at it and was in all likelihood going to Darwin to die. So, I granted a condemned machine’s last request, opened the throttle to 150 and we flew up the highway to Darwin.

After an overnight stop in Katherine and a river cruise to view the spectacular gorge, we turned off to Kakadu for the final leg. Disaster struck 200km in, with the front passenger side wheel rim shearing in two at 110km/h after a pothole, but we stopped safely and installed the spare that the Queensland cops had pinged us for being too bald.

We made it through Kakadu with the CV joint knocking at every corner, stopping at Humpty Doo for a cold one before heading into Darwin to join all the other shitboxes at the mustering point 5km out of the city centre.

As the sun set, the call went up and the battered, multicoloured pandemonium of a hundred-odd cars pulled out onto the highway, horns honking, for the victory parade through Darwin to the finishing point at the Holiday Inn on the Esplanade. There was a mixture of excitement, joy and no small amount of relief as we all cruised up to our parking spots and turned the engine off for the last time, ready for the auction. Our car, bought for $790 in Sydney, fetched the princely sum of $80, which valued the car itself as worthless since I threw in about $80 worth of jerry can and petrol…!

Some time later in the night, I happened to pass through the underground car park where the shitboxes were being held after the sale. The life and unique character that had been so evident in them out on the open road was gone. New owners were milling around them: tradies who had picked up a Ute for a bargain, wreckers looking for parts, eighteen year old kids who spent $200 on three cars to take them out on the flats, smash into each other and finally drive the shitboxes into a tree before abandoning them. Ours apparently was bought by an old bloke looking for a runaround, so at least spared a worse fate. I wish him well with the Camry. Given the state of the transmission after going underwater, CVs and shocks I also wish him luck.

The rally gallery is available on Shitbox Rally Gallery.