It was the Opposition Leader's first time on one of the four-wheeled contraptions. That didn't stop him from speeding to the front of the group, charging through the low scrub and bouncing manically across small gullies and obstacles, relishing the experience.

After traversing about 60 kilometres, the convoy reached its goal.

Fossil Creek, as Mr Conway called it, was a dried up creek bed full of 500 million year old fossils, crustacean creatures from the pre-Cambrian era, possible evidence of an ancient inland sea.

After inspecting this site, Mr Conway and one of the Aboriginal owners decided to make a side trip into the bush in search of pitchuri, a native plant with kava-like properties.

Two hours later the two Aboriginal men were yet to return and that is when Mr Abbott, as he put it, started contemplating his own "Burke and Wills" moment: clad only in trousers and a T-shirt with the chilly Northern Territory night drawing near.

"It makes you realise how easy it is to get lost. And how ill-equipped we are," Mr Abbott said. "We have this sat-phone but between two senior politicians and three journalists, none of us knows how to make it work."

Just as well then that Mr Conway reappeared as the sun was setting. He hadn't been able to find any pitchuri but he knew the way out.

A moderately hair-raising three-hour quad bike journey in the pitch dark followed. Two of the bikes ran out of fuel and had to be left behind.

But like Ernest Shackleton, Mr Conway got his team out.

Mr Abbott and his group arrived back at the truck that had taken them into Watarrka country at 9.20pm, having been lost for five hours.

"We were one jerry can of fuel, six bottles of water and about three hours of daylight short of what we needed," was his verdict on the experience when he arrived back at Kings Creek station for a late-night feast of scotch fillet and camel sausages.

Mark Davis is the Herald's National Editor.