Departing from Adelaide on 17 July 1924, journalists Vida Burns and Freda Sternberg travel by train to Oodnadatta, 'a distance of six hundred odd miles, with the idea of connecting with the Ford car that was to carry' them 'the remainder of the nine hundred miles of the journey' to Alice Springs, Burt Plains, Hermansburg and the Vale of Palms. Their 'Mission, according to newspaper telling, was "to see the country from the woman's point of view".'