Australian Jenna Brook completed a 15 day walk across 435km of desert this week.

Jenna set off across the Simpson Desert (which spans across the South Australia and Queensland) with hopes of raising $24,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

As the fourth largest Australian desert, it was home to numerous challenges for Jenna to combat.

The nights were bitterly cold, reaching freezing, and Jenna often a woke to ice. However, has the day continued and the temperature rose, she was faced with stinging headwinds and the dangers of the sun.

‘Walking up sand dunes 40 metres high wasn’t as bad as slogging through soft sand. You really have to work to get your legs through it’

But these are challenges that Jenna had expected. Surpassingly, local wildlife proved to be a problem.

‘I saw three dingoes behind me, only no more than 40 metre and another three sort of appeared over a short period of time. So that was a little bit nerve racking I suppose, but we made it through so that was good’

Then there were the camels, who didn’t take too kindly to visitors to the desert.

‘I was walking and I actually spotted a camel in the distance and thought nothing more of it I thought that it would continue on its way’

‘But unfortunately it didn’t and it spotted me and assumed that I was in its territory or doing something that I shouldn’t be, and proceeded to chase me and forced me to take shelter behind a couple of trees and some Spinifix bushes’

But despite all of the challenges, Jenna maintained her focus on her chosen cause. Like The Wild Geese, this gave her a perseverance that couldn’t be beaten.

‘You get more out of it than you do driving. You notice the flowers, and the different colours of the sand. You can actually hear the birds’

‘It was a really special thing to be able to do and I think it teaches you, in a way, to just take a moment and look at what is around you’

When Jenna arrived in her local Birdsville, ‘a good cheer went up’ to welcome her and the crowd joined her for some celebratory drinks.

Perhaps the best part of the adventure, however, is that she has managed to raise $25,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which is a lifeline for rural Australia.

‘Without them it’s a 1,400km return trip for us just to see a doctor and that’s the nearest one’

Mr Di Marco, from the Royal Flying Doctor Service said that ‘this is not only a remarkable individual achievement, but also a wonderful fundraising result. On behalf of the RFDS, I sincerely thank and congratulate Jenna’.

‘What she has done has really captured the imagination of the public – people have been very supportive and watching with great interest as a young woman takes on the desert’