We’re on a road to nowhere…….well, to Halls Creek actually!

Written on Monday 28th July - posted on Friday 1st August - when we again have mobile reception.

You know when you arrive in a new, foreign country, and you’re getting a transfer from the airport to your hotel? Do you find yourself looking out the window of the taxi, at everything that’s new and different, getting excited trying to take it all in?  Well, about 50km out of Halls Creek, travelling up the Tanami Road, I got the same feeling.  Suddenly, we were in the Kimberley!  This is what the whole trip was about.  The landscape changed remarkably, and so did our excitement levels.

But I need to back-track a couple of days, because the Tanami Road should not be just a short cut from the centre to the Kimberley.  It’s an adventure and a destination all of its own.

We left Alice Springs pretty sharp on Thursday morning, turning onto the Tanami approximately 19km north.  That was the last turn we would make for the best part of 1100km.  A road that didn’t deviate for 1100km!!

The start of the Tanami Road

From what I had read, the Tanami Desert was a vast expanse of nothing, and the sooner you got through it the better.  We had also read various descriptions of what the road conditions would be like, and were prepared for a pretty rough trip.  In truth, it wasn’t that bad.    The condition of the Tanami was variable – sandy and smooth one moment, hard and rocky the next, morphing yet again to firm, fine gravel.  There were monster corrugations which went on for what seemed miles, dry creek beds and occasional wash-outs to trap an unwary driver, but on the whole we had little cause for complaint and were able to maintain a reasonable speed of around 70kmh.  I’m only glad that we were travelling in a Discovery with air suspension!!  How do the rest of the travelling public cope in mere mortal cars???

Road trains on the Tanami

We were glad of the long range tanks in the Disco, so buying fuel at Tillmouth Well Roadhouse at $2.25 per litre wasn’t necessary.  After Yuendemu Community, that was the last fuel before Halls Creek. We did stop for a coffee break at Tillmouth Well, and an interesting “comfort stop”.  I’m sure there’s a reason for the toilets not having any doors on them, but it made you focus on the task at hand, and get out quick.  We passed an uneventful day on the Tanami, spotting birds of prey as we travelled, before thinking of finding a place to camp for the night.  Taking a small track off the side of the road, and following it for a bit, we found a sheltered spot and set up camp.  Still within sound of the road, we could hear the road trains thundering past well into the night.  In the middle of nowhere, when the sun went down, the peace descended, and we spent a good while lying back in our chairs and spotting satellites and shooting stars in a sky that seemed to go on forever.

 

Day 2 on the Tanami dawned beautiful and clear and we headed off again on our journey north.  We spent the best part of the day playing leap-frog with another group travelling the same direction, all trying to avoid travelling in each other’s dust.  We had our lunch stop at the turn off to the Balgo indigenous community. 

When I had originally planned this trip, I had planned a side-trip out to Balgo as I’d heard there was a vibrant art centre there and that it was definitely worth a visit.  I guess I didn’t really have an understanding of the true distances involved, and how the road conditions can play on your travelling time.  We had planned to stop at Lake Stretch for the night, another 90km further on, and we needed to get a permit to camp from the Billiluna community store.  The Billiluna store closed at 4pm, and we weren’t sure of the road conditions in and out of Balgo, so we made the hard decision to keep going and not visit Balgo.  There would always be next time, we assured ourselves.

So having called into Billiluna, we headed out the first 17km of the Canning Stock Route, to their campsite at Lake Stretch or Nyarna .  When we arrived, we drew a collective breath and exhaled.  After nearly 900km through the desert who would have thought we could have found a campsite on the banks of a long lagoon, where bird life and shade were plentiful.   We couldn’t really believe our luck, and more so, that we had it all to ourselves.  We quickly set up camp, and then sat back to watch the show of the kites, brolgas, pelicans,  ducks, ibis and all the other birds that I can’t identify (cause I haven’t bought myself the field guide yet!!!) go through their motions for the end of the day.

Lake Stretch

 

Brolgas in the morning

The campsite was rustic, to say the least, and the people of the Billiluna community do their best to maintain it.  Doug was a bit worried when he first checked out the amenities.  But was relieved to find that a newer, and more efficient model had replaced this.

The map said there was facilities!!!

We were on the road again sharp the next morning, travelling the last few hundred kilometres to Halls Creek.  We were a bit out of kilter with time zones, thinking that we had crossed the border into Western Australia the day before, and as such, the time zone must have changed.  But until we got into Halls Creek and got mobile reception, we couldn’t confirm anything.  We said farewell to our wonderful campsite on Lake Stretch, and headed back out onto the Tanami for the last haul.

We did make time for a short side trip out to the Wolfe Creek crater.  We had thought of camping there the night, but I’m not sure my nerves could have taken it.  We climbed to the top of the crater rim, and marvelled at how something this big had gone undiscovered for so long, only being documented by white Australians in 1947.  The local Aborigines knew of its existence way before that; their dreamtime stories telling of the two serpents who made the Sturt and Wolfe Creeks lifting their heads out of the ground at the site of the crater.

Doug doing his best John Jarratt impersonation

As we approached Halls Creek, the whole landscape started to slowly change.  The long, wide roads of the lower Tanami started to narrow and get windy (unfortunately, no less corrugated).  The vegetation changed, and the colours changed.  I swear the colour of the sky was a different blue.  I just was overcome with the feeling of “we had arrived!!!.”

Halls Creek is predominantly a service town, for the local pastoral industry, and all the tourists that pass through on a daily basis.  We had planned to restock on supplies and fuel, and find somewhere to camp for a night or two.   Unfortunately, or fortunately (cause it was extremely interesting to people-watch), this was the weekend of the Halls Creek Rodeo.  The town was over-run with denim-wearing, big hat wearing lads and lasses from all the stations in the rather large outer-area.  This thing was huge!!!   It would have been fun to watch, if we hadn’t been concerned about where we would find a quiet spot to camp for the night.

We made the decision to head out of town for a bit, heading south on the Duncan Road.  There were several bush campsites along this road, so we decided to check them out.  We stopped at the first, Caroline Pool, a short while out of town, but it was pretty crowded, and the bus load of back packers sent warning bells a-ringing.  So we continued, hoping that Palm Springs might be a good spot.  Lovely as it was, it was right beside the road, and the road was full of bull-dust, covering anything within a hundred metres or so in a fine layer of its talcum powder shawl.    Shortly after Palm Springs, we took a turn off to Sawpit Gorge.  The track to the gorge was rough and windy, but after a steep creek crossing and climb out, we found ourselves in a magical (yes, I know, magical again!!!) spot.

The view from our campsite at Sawpit Gorge

 

My morning view

Sawpit Gorge was a small gorge cut out by the flow of the Black Elvire River.  The area, when the river is in full flood during the wet season would be under water, but just now, there’s room for about four or five vehicles.  When we arrived, there was only two others, and we found a spot to camp, over-looking a plunge pool in the shade of the cliff face. 

Again, another collective breath was drawn.  To think, we were about the abandon the search for a campsite out this road, and go and camp in the dust-bowl that was the caravan park in town!!

Sawpit Gorge was to be our home for the next two days.  We sat, read, talked, swam, ate, talked some more, read some more, walked the river bed, watched the birds, cleaned off all the dust………………..it was just perfect.  There was the occasional visit from a passing tourist, but because of the rough road in and out, I think the majority thought it was too hard.  Their loss.

Cold, but so nice on a hot afternoon.

When we left home we had arranged with the kids to call them at 10am on a Sunday mornings to catch up on news and let them know we were still alive.  All very well if we had reception, so we called them on the sat phone, with quick instructions for them to call us back.  All very well if we weren’t sitting in the base of a gorge, surrounded by towering cliffs.  So we quickly climbed to the top of the nearest hill, and pointed the sat phone aerial to the sky, and spun in a slow circle until we picked up signal.  Next thing to try would have been standing on one leg with the arms outstretched over the head, so luckily this wasn’t necessary.  It was great to hear from them though (and lovely to hear Tom chatting away) and to hear all was going well. 

It was hard to pull ourselves away from Sawpit Gorge this morning, but because of the change in time-zones, and thus the sun coming up way too early, we were packed up and on the road back into Halls Creek at 7.50am. 

We stopped in Halls Creek again to blow up tyres, grab a last minute coffee, watch the hungover cowgirls and cowboys get their munchy-supplies at the servo, and spend ten minutes catching up on the internet, before heading down the very unusual road surface (bitumen), making our way to Purnululu National Park.  After almost three days on the Tanami, we’re now up to “T” in our songlist (after a bit of replay of “S”, cause I couldn’t remember where we’d left off!!!). 

We’re now ensconced in our campsite at Purnululu, and tomorrow (and the following couple of days) plan to spend our time exploring the wonders of this place.  There’s walks a-plenty and sunsets to experience – my only hope is that we can avoid the crowds of tourists that also think they have the right to explore this special place.  Wish us luck!!