24/7 to 26/7 crossing the Tanami

G: How many spare tyres do you need for the Tanami Track? This was a question that plagued me in the middle of several nights. Before we left Alice Springs, I bought one more. So now we had 2 spares for the car and now 2 for the trailer. Not to mention the satellite phone, extra fuel, spare water and food. The expedition set forth with great trepidation and relief.

The Tanami Track is the 1,000km short cut from Alice Springs to Halls Creek. I’ve longed wanted to do it ‘because it was there’. The track is really an outback highway that carries tourists, a few locals and road trains ferrying cattle and supplies to the communities and mines. The track is sealed in part, mostly over floodways to reduce washouts. The majority of the road is dirt, some significant sections well formed but otherwise corrugated to varying degrees. We would all collectively sigh when the juddering of the corrugations was suddenly silenced by bitumen. The sounds of silence would generally only last a few moments before we ploughed back into the machine gun rattle.

The trick with driving on corrugations is to find the sweet spot which is a combination of the best surface and speed to minimize the shuddering. The best bit of road is usually on the opposite side. The Tanami was once considered a horror road however you could now drive it in a two wheel drive vehicle. (I wouldn't recommend it especially towing). The local aboriginal community guys drive around in Commodores but you wouldn’t buy a second hand one off them. The Tanami is littered with abandoned cars, mostly rolled and burnt out. Presumably this is the final resting place for the above cars. The road is also littered with tyres and carcasses. Tyres and rubber fragments and exhaust pipes that highlight that you still need to take the road seriously.

However, like all the roads up here, the real danger is animals. You could almost consider yourself lucky if you hit a kangaroo instead of a whole piece of prime beef, a horse or a camel. There are carcasses and plenty of live ones from all of them here. (We saw some fantastic looking wild horses next to the road). It does make great close up viewing of eagles. Unfortunately, eagles also become victims.

Once the Tanami crossed into WA the road conditions changed from a 6 car wide graded road to a 2 car wide track with nasty corrugations and washouts. A road without rhythm. There was no sweet spots. Fortunately this improved as we got closer to Halls Creek.

The major refueling point along the way is Rabbit Flat, Australia’s most remote road house. Petrol was $2.08/litre.

Our first bush camp was just in off the road out of the shawl of dust was thrown up by passing vehicles. We lit a fire and Noah made a scrumptious apple damper in the camp oven.

The second bush camp was next to the Sturt Creek in WA, a postcard picture of white gums and billabongs. In the night, Robyn and I listened to wild horses galloping by moonlight down the drive river bed next to our camper.

After two and a half days we arrived in Halls Creek with all our spares intact.