Joys and tribulations of the Tanami Track

July 21:

We’ve been sitting outside, watching the stars and tracking satellites as they criss-cross the sky. The reason we can see everything so clearly is that we’re in the middle of the Northern Territory, about one-third of our way across the 1046km Tanami Road.

Beside the Mt Doreen homestead ruins, and just look at
those hills in the background.

We’ve camped the night at the ruins of Mt Doreen station, just off the main road. We had hoped to have it to ourselves, but a posse of 5 Victorian 4WDs arrived almost at the same time as we did.  They’ve kept to themselves, ate early as they have little outside lighting and have retired to bed in their vehicles.

An important section of an Alice Springs
supermarket, with many Aboriginal
 people buying the tails.

We left Alice Springs this morning, a day later than intended. That was because on Saturday afternoon, John was checking everything, including tyre pressures, ready to leave on Sunday, when he found that one of the inside dual tyres on the rear of the Isuzu was dead flat.

He was struggling to get it off when he remembered that the NRMA has reciprocal services with other states, so called AANT and sure enough a chap in a breakdown truck arrived very promptly to help. They wrangled the bad tyre off, as well as the outer one, replaced the flat one with the spare and put the outer one back one. This meant we couldn’t go anywhere until Monday morning when we could get a tyre place to look at the flat tyre which had no external damage.

The three tavern patrons left holding the snake.

So Sunday was a restful day, culminating in a roast meal at the tavern next door, with extra entertainment from a chap from the local reptile park who’d brought some of his lizards and snakes to show off. The major hit was a big python that he set crawling along the backs of volunteers’ necks, leaving the final three to hold the python while he chatted.

We were at Beaurepaires when it opened at 8am, someone tested the tyre and found the inside had shredded, probably as a result of a slightly broken grid John remembers driving over as we returned to the highway from Tower Rock. A replacement was soon stowed in our spare wheel slot, we finally had breakfast, high on Anzac Hill overlooking the town of Alice Springs, and we took off north for the Tanami Road turn-off.

The first 167km were a doddle as it was a bitumen road, but after that things deteriorated. Lots of corrugations, some mud patches from rain a week ago, and it was a pretty bone-

shaking experience. We called at a roadhouse to top up with diesel and went into the Yuendemu Aboriginal community to do the same. As we found in the outback in 2012, all the roadhouses and community stores are being run by backpackers from overseas and the price of diesel at Yuendemu was $2.60 a litre . . . but when you need it, you pay. Water is still dearer, as we saw a 1 litre of water at Alice Springs for close to $4.

We’re carrying four containers of extra fuel as there won’t be any more now for about 500km.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the corrugations and bulldust, with more of the same the next day, but by then we’ll be in WA and almost at Hall’s Creek.

 

July 23 (Halls Creek)

We finally made it to Halls Creek, driving all 1046km of the Tanami Road (commonly known as the Tanami Track, and we can see why). It is a seriously bad road, full of corrugations, bulldust, sharp stones . . . but incredible outback vistas.

We spent our second night on the road camped just on the NT side of the WA border, all on our own. It was lovely, with some recent rain bringing all kinds of small shrubs into flower and the spinifex was looking all green and roly-poly . . . but that’s not to be advised as it’s seriously sharp all over.



Meeting a road train on the track.

On we went into WA this morning, calling after 158km into the Aboriginal community of Billiluna for the first diesel fuel we’d been able to buy since Yuendemu.

We saw our first wild camel beside the road, then we decided we really should leave the main road and drive 20km to see Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. That 40km return was definitely the worst road we have encountered in Australia but the place was actually quite crowded. There were two groups of 4WDs there, all headed for the Canning Stock Route, accessed south through Billiluna.

I suspect that particular outback track is like a traffic jam at present as every second person we’ve met was heading for it.

 

Just one section of the huge Wolfe Creek crater.

After we’d duly climbed to the lip of the crater and marvelled at the sight we had lunch and set off back to the Tanami road . . . where about 10km further on, one of our inside dual tyres blew out with a dramatic amount of noise.

So we proceeded fairly slowly to the end of the Tanami road . . . finally, bitumen, and white lines! . . . and checked in to the Halls Creek caravan park. It was a blistering hot afternoon so while John researched the various tyre suppliers in this little town, I indulged in the (quite cold) swimming pool.

The tyre will be sorted by tomorrow and we’ll head for Fitzroy Crossing where we’ll stay a couple of nights, visiting some of the local gorges and really getting into the Kimberley experience.

John will be having deep and meaningful discussions tomorrow by phone with auto electricians in Broome, where we should be by Sunday, ready for their services on Monday, as the corrugations seem to have shaken something loose in our electronic/electricity system, fed from four solar panels as well as a relay from the engine when it is going.

We discovered yesterday afternoon near the WA border that something was wrong and opted to turn one bit off, so we only had the occasional beeping from the inverter rather than ear-splitting screeches during the night. Tonight will be much more serene as we’re on full 240v power from the caravan park, so no beeping or screeching.

John, as always, is philosophical about these bits being affected by the horrendous roads we’ve travelled as everything else continues to work well and we live in deep comfort.

The final road sign in 1046km.

We’re pleased to have put the Tanami track behind us . . . and if ever either of us suggests we do it again, the other is sure to call the men from the funny farm.