The Tanami Test - Shake Rattle and thankfully no Roll!

The Tanami Road/Track...1032kms from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory to Halls Creek in Western Australia was a test on our equipment, and our physical and mental endurance.  We completed the journey in two days, the second a 9hr marathon with the fuel light flashing as we entered Halls Creek! (thank Goodness for Scott's mathematical calculations along the way re-assuring us we'd make it) Talk about cutting it fine...."We didn't cut it fine (Scott's saying) we still had a 20ltr jerry can!"

                                                                                                                Goodbye bitumen

The track is wide, usually 3 lane width, but is heavily corrugated with fine red dust sections, steep dips, pot holes and surprisingly the odd stretch of bitumen to give some relief.  We found our comfortable cruising speed at around 70-80km on the corrugations. Tyre pressure 26psi on the front and 28psi on the back.

       Corrugations!                                                                         Taking precautions covering our new window 

                Overtaking a road train near impossible                       What we saw after one had passed

We felt the real brunt of the corrugations when the road trains came.  The huge plume of dust in the distance indicates their approach, and as it bores past it covers you with a  cloud of dust that completely wipes out your vision for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately this means we had to slow down to a complete stop and in the process felt each corrugation rattle every bone in our body. Thankfully we saw most on the first day (about 5) and only one on the second.

What road rules?....Basically you forget the road rules and drive on whichever side is more comfortable.  It took me a while to get used to Scott traversing back and forth all over the road in search of the best line. 

The first 180km to Tilmouth roadhouse is bitumen.  After that I was looking forward to stopping at the Aboriginal community of Yuendumu. They are renown for their Aboriginal artwork.  We were also going to top up with Diesel as the only other road house (Rabbit Flat) on the track closed in January this year. Anyway I remember reading somewhere how the community are very proud of their land and culture....I don’t want to paint a bad picture but lets just say as we drove through the streets the image didn't quite match the marketing spiel.  The streets were laden with rubbish, broken down cars and mangy dogs.  There were people sitting on the grass in their front yards with rubbish all around them.  The Art centre was surrounded by high fencing,  gates  heavily chained up. Maybe it wasn’t open on a Saturday...needless to say we high tailed it out of their without filling up! (not that we could see any diesel)

Camping Alone in the Tanami Desert....Floodout Creek..............

It was getting late in the afternoon so we pulled into Floodout Creek, rest stop No. 83 in the Camps Australia Wide Book.  It was a nice spot a couple of hundred metres off the Road.  We set up under the watchful eye of a rather large kangaroo, went for a walk, then had dinner and marshmallows around our campfire.  It was an eerie feeling camped alone in absolute silence which was only broken by a car that drove past around 11pm...strange time to be driving the Tanami....and a herd of cows that decided to join us in the early hours of the morning.                                                  

                    Our Floodout Creek camp                                          Ben collecting firewood

                           Sunset                                                                          Marshmallows for desert

                          Breakfast at sunrise                                                    On the road again

Tanami Tip....Don't travel on Sunday! After an early start on day two we rang ahead to the Aboriginal community of Billiluna (that was marked on the map as having fuel) to make sure they had diesel. Unfortunately they were not open. So if you don’t have a long range fuel tank make sure you top up at the Tilmouth Roadhouse and travel during the week,  as the small communities (some up to 36km off the track) have very limited opening hours! We do have a long range fuel tank but thought we'd be getting fuel in Yeundumu then got stuck with the Sunday thing. As a result we couldn’t do our side trip to Wolfe Creek Crater as that's the last place we wanted to run out of fuel, so decided to try to make it all the way to Halls creek.

                         Ben looks happy                                                               The long road ahead

           We saw so many roll overs including 4wd's                            Obstacles

It definitely was a long tiring day. Usually I'm reading, writing or looking at the scenery but that was impossible.  Scott and I had to concentrat 100% of the time, looking for the changes in the road or for stray cattle and camels.  I even had to hand feed Scott as he couldn’t take his hands off the wheel.  At the end of the 9hrs we were in no frame of mind to set up camp in Halls Creek and have to cook dinner so we cheated and stayed at the Kimberley Hotel/Motel which was very nice.  The kids thought the change was fantastic and kept using words like, "Oh luxury, how civilized, a real bed and TV!"

               One of the Gold mines along the track                          Our Halls Creek campsite/hotel

So we survived the Tanami Test....The Prado's Old Man Emu suspension got an extreme work out. The only thing that happened to the car was not being able to open the rear door which was clogged with dust, nothing that a few squirts of water couldn’t fix.

Our Complete Campsite Camper Trailer handled it well too.  It is definitely sealed tight as no dust got in.  We only had one screw come loose on the front cabin lid.  Oh and silly me forgot to get rid of the eggs!

After our one night stay in Halls Creek we moved on to Fitzroy Crossing for a couple of nights. The Fitzroy Crossing River Lodge campsite was really nice.  The sites were very spacious and grassy!!!! Our first grass for ages.... Its funny the things you get excited about.  The Geikie Gorge is the main site in the area.  We did the reef walk and the gorge river cruise.  The reef walk is named so because the huge rock formations aren't actually rock they are remains of an acient coral reef! 

                   Enjoying the change in temperature                               Touching the coral reef

Talking about coral reefs, we are very excited to be heading towards the ocean for our next stop Broome!