General News
12 June, 2026
Done and dusted
TELEVISION icon Mal Leyland has returned home after completing his last Outback road trip, recreating his historic 1966 “wheels across the wilderness” journey, retracing parts of the route through Central Australia.
He was accompanied by his daughter Carmen and her partner Jon Evans, with the family describing the adventure as a success despite unexpected challenges along the way.
The trip, which aimed to raise funds for a planned museum celebrating Leyland’s life and career, took the group through remote parts of Australia, including the Gunbarrel Highway and the Simpson Desert region.
Ms Leyland said one of the most memorable moments came when the group managed to get her father, 81, onto the desert sands after flooding forced them to change their original travel plans.
“We weren’t able to cross the Simpson as planned because of flooding,” she said.
After reorganising the trip at short notice, the group arranged a helicopter flight over the flooded country.
“We were able to fly over all the flooding and all the rest of it, which then showed just how extensive it all was,” Ms Leyland said.
“We touched down on the sand and Dad’s first foot on the ground – it was quite a moment. He just lit up.”
While flooding created logistical challenges and forced last-minute changes to accommodation and travel plans, Ms Leyland said the journey otherwise ran smoothly.
“The biggest thing that came out of it was that Dad just really turned a corner,” she said.
“He sort of started to open up, he started talking and laughing and joking around, and, yeah, it was great to see my Dad kind of waking up and sort of coming back.”
The journey also renewed Ms Leyland’s appreciation for Australia’s remote landscapes.
“It’s been a while since I’ve travelled through a lot of that country, so for me it was a reminder of just how much I love this country and that I’d forgotten just how beautiful it was,” she said.
One surprise was the condition of the Gunbarrel Highway.
“On the second day, it took 10 hours to actually drive 250 kilometres, so that was something that we weren’t expecting,” she said.
Although the trip’s costs exceeded expectations, reducing the funds raised for the proposed museum, Ms Leyland said the family remained committed to the project.
She said the experience had provided valuable lessons for future fundraising efforts and that the family hoped to get Mal, who now lives at Gordonvale, back on the road again.
“We still want to do the museum,” she said.
“We kind of went, you know, what we really want to try and get him out on the road a little bit more if we can, so that’s sort of our priority as well.”
Ms Leyland said supporters had closely followed the journey online and the feedback had been overwhelmingly positive, with many already asking for another adventure.
