CAIRNS, Australia, July 10 (UPI) -- A young English veterinary nurse may soon be the first woman to cross the Australian Outback on horseback.
Anna Hingley of Stourbridge in Worcestershire left Broome in Western Australia in March with her boyfriend, John Ostwald, who guides tours of the Outback. For company, they have six horses and Tom Guerrier, an English filmmaker doing a documentary, and a support truck.
In a telephone interview, Hingley told the Times of London that she met Ostwald in Australia in 2004. At the time, she was planning to stay for a year.
While the expedition is traveling under conditions more benign than those of early explorers, including many who died in the Outback, Hingley said it has still been tough at times, especially the crossing of the Great Sandy Desert.
"But I've found that the Outback changes with every horse change," she said. "The landscape changes, the vegetation changes and the terrain -- that has been the most amazing thing."
The couple are using the trek to raise money for Angel Flight, an air service that ferries poor Australians to medical care.
Ostwald and Hingley expect to arrive in Cairns on the east coast in early August.
