FORD AUSTRALIA

CLIENT

Ford Australia, via Organisation Unlimited

DESTINATION

Darwin & Katherine, Northern Territory Australia

The Brief

In its fourth consecutive year working with MAD, Organisation Unlimited brought the team back to deliver Ford's Off-Road Drive Training & Incentive Program: four back-to-back waves of 35 participants, four days, guiding a convoy of 17 vehicles across remote country between Darwin and Katherine. The brief called for genuine 4WD expertise, a level of difficulty, tight safety margins, and a program that had to run the same way, four times, without cutting corners.

WHAT WE DELIVERED

The Northern Territory had just come off one of its wettest seasons on record, and a week before the first group arrived, two of the core off-road tracks flooded and became impassable, taking roughly 80% of the planned route with them. MAD redrew the itinerary from scratch, calling on years of contacts and route knowledge across the Territory to build an alternative that kept the same distance, difficulty and spirit of the original plan intact.

Each wave opened with a full driver briefing the night before departure, then a fresh one each morning as the convoy pushed south. The rebuilt route began on the Great North Australian Railway Track, a stretch so rarely driven that on the recce the week before, the team had to clear fallen trees and lay markers just to find it again the second time round. From there, the convoy pushed onto a private cattle station, one of the largest combined stations in the Territory and closed to the public, access only possible through relationships MAD has built over years of working the region, for lunch at the station's homestead, a working property spanning a million acres. The day closed in Katherine with dinner under the stars and a working dog demonstration.

Day two paired a morning cruise and tour of Nitmiluk Gorge with lunch at the Katherine Hot Springs, a swim and a barbecue, before an afternoon of mud, dust and technical terrain on a private property. The final day opened with morning tea at Edith Falls, then pushed on to the Marrakai Track for lunch beside the Adelaide River, an afternoon croc jumping cruise, and dinner back in Darwin to close out the trip.

All four waves ran as scheduled: seventeen vehicles, four times over, with no major incidents.

Guests guided through remote Northern Territory off-road country across four waves.

Of the route rebuilt in the week before the first group arrived.

Collective kilometres driven, with about 48,000kms of it off-road.