The next morning I had a quick breakfast; Weetbix  (what else). Then it was back into the car and grinding along the dirt track. The corrugations were getting worse and worse. Like everybody I was concentrating on the road ahead to ensure that I slowed down when the road became worse or there was a corner to be navigated or the gravel layer was thicker, ie the possibility for a dry skid increased. I was basically looking for signs of increased danger so that I might slow down from my already slow 80 km per hour. I was also driving in the middle of the road as there was no oncoming traffic.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see in the rear view mirror, the cloud of bull dust I was creating. Then suddenly from out the bull dust I saw a blue Ford Falcon emerge which shot past me on the driver’s side at speeds exceeding 120 km per hour. I got such a fright that I almost pulled off the road. I just managed to see that there were 5 black fellas sitting in a car and they seemed to be in a hell of a hurry. They were doing this passing maneuver on the gradient or sloping side of the road. I shook my head in disbelief. They could have easily rolled their car.

Some distance further I saw an obstruction in the road ahead. As I got nearer it became clear that an emergency vehicle with flashing lights was parked across the road. There were other vehicles behind. I slowed to a crawl to pass the vehicles and had a quick yak to the person directing traffic. He informed me that a group of 8 cyclists had set off from the northern side of the track on large road bikes. On the loose gravel one of them had lost control of his bike and crashed. He had broken his back and now the group was waiting for an air ambulance to take him away. Luckily one of them had a satellite phone and was able to call the emergency services. As I drove off I saw the bikes and not one had off road tires (knoblies). They all had hard top tires. And they were going to drive 1000 km of bad gravel roads on that??? They must be crazy.

I had to turn off the track at Rabbit Flat Roadhouse to refuel as this was the last refueling point along this 1000 km long Tanami track when heading north. When I filled up I was astounded at the price of the fuel which was $2.26 per liter. This was 50 % more than in the cities. Talk about stealing! When my eyes scanned up the street I was even more astounded to see a bottle shop (grog shop) with the blue Ford Falcon parked in front and the black fellas filling up the boot of the car with many  slabs of beer. That is why they were in such a hurry, they must have been very thirsty.

I returned back to the track and continued north west towards  the Wolf Creek Crater which was still a few hundred kilometers away.The crater is some 15 km off the Tanami track and is well sign posted; you cannot miss it. It is also close to the north west end of the track.  At some stage of the day I crossed the border from the Northern Territories to the state of West Australia. Immediatelythe condition of the road went from terrible to very good. It was clear that West Australia (WA) was spending more on road maintenance than their neighbor state.

Wolf Creek Crater

About 300,000 years ago a meteorite, weighing thousands of tons, crashed to earth here. The crater formed by that impact measures 850 meters across and is the second largest meteorite crater from which fragments have been recovered. Only the Arizona crater is larger.

The area is a national park and has a camping area with a log-drop toilet. I set up for the night, made a fire and cooked some meat. I turned in very early as I was tired from climbing around the crater wall and driving all day. I had enjoyed a spectacular sunset with stunning color changes, so all was good. Just for the record, there were four other groups there as well.

Day 8 – Onto the bitumen and down to Broome

The title says it all. The small print was as follows. The Tanami track joined the bitumen when it reached the Savannah highway some 125 lm further on. The Savannah is also known as the Broome to Kununurra road. The other detail is that there is another 675 km to go to reach Broome, once you reach the Savannah highway. The road was quite busy with a good number of large trucks transporting mining equipment.

Just shy of Broome, just for old time sake, a caravan threw up a stone a cracked the windscreen of the Patrol. Another 30 minutes I had reached Broome and pulled in at the home of my mate Jacko. I was to remain here for a week and have some fun with the boys.

What happened to day 5??   Aah yes; we had an issue. I keep saying that the gods laugh at the best laid plans of mice and men. When I got up on day 5, I could not unlock the driver’s door on my Patrol. I also found that the rear door on the same side did not open either. I had to get in from the passenger side to shuffle to the driver seat to start up my car. Needless to say, I could not do thousands of kilometers like that.

I did some serious begging with the local Nissan dealer to get my 4WD booked in for a service that day. It turned out that an overload of dust had stopped the locking mechanism from working. After a good clean and some oil the doors were as good as gold once more.

So I left early on day 6 to head north of Alice on the Stuart highway to head for the Tanami track. 20 kilometers north of Alice I reached the turn off heading northwest through the Tanami desert towards Broome. This is the shortest road to Broome from the southeast of the country.

The Tanami track is just around 1100 kilometers long and is mostly unsealed and in average to poor condition of corrugation. The distance from Alice to Broome is just shy of 2000 kilometers. The track has been improving over the years because of the mining development along this area. As a result the road looks like a ‘W’ with a raised middle section bordered by a culvert on both sides that catches the water if and when it rains. That water is then diverted at drainage points. If it is wet and you end up in the mud in a culvert it is game over. You are not going anywhere in a hurry.

The tricky bit is that the trucks that carry the ore from the mines come in the shape of road trains with 3 or 4 trailers. The total thing is over 100 tons on the move and it is not able to move off the center of the road as the gradient would cause the train to roll over. So one plays chicken with the road train and eventually you get the message to pull off the road and wait for the monster to pass. These trains kick up so much bulldust that you are not able to move until the dust has settled a few minutes later.

The corrugations at times are so bad that you are not able to drive faster than 50 kilometers an hour. Once again the scenery along the road is stunning with many trees, grassy flat areas and dry countryside in other places. You are travelling through the Tanami desert. However the land does not look like a typical desert. There is a good deal of vegetation around. The other thing one notices is that there are very many, very large termite hills all over the place. I love their color which is a rich ochre and looks grand in the setting sun.  The backdrop to the landscape is one of long hills and mountain ranges. Once again this is not a flat country.

By now the sun was getting lower and I had done less than 500 kilometers. The road conditions made it impossible to travel at any decent speed. In looking for an ideal camping spot I had noticed during the day that at every 50 kilometers along the track there was a microwave repeater station/mast. The spots were some 50 meters away from the road and had a cleared area around the masts. There was evidence of fires where travelers have used these spots for overnighting. This seemed like a gift to me and I pulled over at one of them and set up camp for the evening.  I put down my swag  at the rear of  the car and set up the requirements like table, chair, gas for cooking and collected some fire wood.

A good meal and a beer  later I turned in for the night and went to sleep. A while later, it must have been around 1:00am, I was woken up by the strangest noise: grrrcunch, grrcrunch, silence, then again grrcrunch. I gently lifted my head without making any noise and saw a dingo in the moonlight, not 30 meters away from me eating a small animal that he had caught and killed. As I lifted my head my sleeping bag made a slight noise which caused the dingo to look at me and disappeared amongst the grasses. I went back to sleep until daybreak.