Tackling the Tanami: 1-11 June 2014

After our night on the Tropic of Capricorn Lea decided it was time to read Simon Reeve’s Book “Tropic of Capricorn”  as a decent amount of time had elapsed since watching his TV series; and, we’d be recrossing the Tropic of Capricorn again as we headed out on the  Tanami Track north west of Alice Springs. In fact the Tropic of Capricorn will feature high in all our travels this year as we were to discover during the reading of Simon’s book. The Tanami Track is another of Australia’s central roads that evoke a sense of mystique. There are few highlights along the route to make it a specific destination – it’s really a challenging "shortcut" from the Red Centre to the Kimberley where we were to meet Cousin Alison and Amanda from Tasmania. We had been talking about doing a trip together for some time and almost a year ago they chose The Kimberley. By September 2013 dates were set and flight bookings made. As June arrived the A’s took a flight to Broome and hired a 4WD ......  we took to the Tanami Track. The plan: to meet them on the Great Northern Highway, north of Halls Creek on D Day - 6 June.

The innocuous looking Tanami Track

Over past months we’d mentioned to fellow travellers that we were taking the Tanami Track only to be warned of potential problems in particular the criminal activities of young Aboriginals (don’t travel alone) and of course, the state of the road. We heard all this enough times to give rise to a concern despite our natural disregard for ‘talk’ that easily blows out of proportion from one mouth to the next. The Tanami Track traverses the third largest desert in Australia, the Tanami Desert. A 1077 kilometre journey required 4WD to get through a remote and arid area; it wasn’t considered suitable for caravans (although Camps Australia allowed for off-road caravans). Naturally, we prudently sought advice the Roadhouse; watched the weather forecasts, checked Road Reports and enquired at Alice’s Visitor Information Centre (There are half a dozen designated camp sites along the route and VIC suggested we camp well off the main road out of sight of ‘trouble’ at night and give road trains wide berth. George had ascertained that our first day as far as Tilmouth Well Roadhouse would be a single-lane sealed road. Thereafter, the Tanami road was reasonably well maintained by mining companies although parts could become badly corrugated. According to the roadhouse the road as far as the State border had been newly graded – the job completed that very week. We recalled seeing machinery at the Stuart Highway/Tanami Turnoff a few days previously -.  What luck! There has always been an abundance of gold out in this desert but due to logistics and the harshness, mining was sporadic over the last century. Now major mines dominate the region considered Australia’s last under-explored mineral province after they gained access to large areas of land through negotiated agreements with the traditional Aboriginal owners.

The 1^st day of winter – and with temperature in Alice Springs reading 8.5⁰C at 8.00am - it certainly felt like it never-the-less we were swift out of bed ready to be off on a new adventure... thrilled to be taking up the challenge of the Tanami and a modicum of nervous excitement for what lay ahead. We only felt well and truly on our way when we turned onto the Tanami Track, 18km north of Alice. The West MacDonnell range, beautifully illuminated, now lay to our south and six wedge tailed eagles feeding on a dead kangaroo was something we had not seen for a long time. Forty kms along the road we recrossed the imaginary line of the Tropic of Capricorn – nothing to mark the spot just our own interest.   Another point of interest- George had his forensic investigator’s cap on as the Tanami Track was of course the very road that the drug-runner Bradley Murdoch, serving sentence in Darwin for the murder of Peter Falconio (the British backpacker) in July 2001, was suspected to have dumped the body (as yet never found) ….  As we trundled along, the narrow strip of tar with frayed edges naturally took us back to our youth in Zimbabwe although most often, Rhodesian strip roads were two very narrow strips to just span the tyres comfortably. Fragments of shredded tyres and discarded rims were numerous. These constant roadside decorations were to remain along the entire route of the Tanami as an unnerving sight! We made Tilmouth Well easily and pulled into a modern looking roadhouse for our first night in their caravan park. A convoy of grey nomads with their off-road camper trailers had stopped for fuel and lunch in the courtyard and the men were in the midst of lowering tyre pressures in readiness for the gravel ahead. While George booked in and topped up with fuel Lea observed body language as the group looked askance at our lone caravan! Inner reminder - we’d done The Great Central Desert Road alone and confidence returned. We pulled into the empty park and set up overlooking the dry but most attractive Napperby Creek and spent a lazy afternoon in an overpriced campground ($30 unpowered). We had felt a loyalty to supporting the Roadhouse owners for their road status information and fuel out here we just hadn’t reckoned on such a steep cost. On our evening walk we found a swimming pool and a large carpet of thick green grass fronting the chalets and guessed this alone increased the price!

We arose next morning ready to face a total of 753 km of unsealed road and were surprised to the tarred section we’d followed the previous actually continued past Tilmouth Well; mindful of deflated tyres to 30psi   we took it gently until we reached the reality of the Tanami Track. Newly graded? In actual fact we saw little sign of such treatment but with the occasional stretch of bitumen (one about 14km long) and SKV in 4WD we rattled and bumped our way along sticking well left of the ‘red gash’ especially after a yellow saloon car with flashing roof light sped past us. Not long after another three vehicles hurtled past and we realised a rally was in progress. We were to ‘eat their dust’ for the rest of the day – We’d catch a brief wave from the cabs before the red dust engulfed us. Others, more friendly or perhaps apologetically; gave a toot with gimmicky horns as they came up beside us, shocking George from his reveries. Bad, blue Tosca talk emanated from his mouth as we slowed even further in the blindness of dust. We turned off to Yuendumu, an Aboriginal settlement which professed to be the last place for fuel before Halls Creek, 757 km away. We drove around the typically scruffy looking town festooned with dogs, rubbish and wrecked vehicles. Failed to find the filling station for a last ‘top up’ and decided to push on regardless. Shortly thereafter George stopped to check how the van had fared thus far … only to find the “usual”; a door off the grocery cupboard and in many pieces; the fridge door open and our goods all over the floor; even the computers had come out from under the bed and were being coated in spilt yoghurt!  We were under attack from the Tanami Track and at this stage not doing too well! The mustard and curry paste jars had not only lost their lids they’d upturned and deposited much of their contents down the door of the fridge and naturally drizzled out. Smeared across the floor was a new concoction mixed with red dust coating other fridge escapees. Despite every effort at control there is no knowing what a good shake up will do! While Lea cleaned up the floor and repacked, George did a few running repairs and taped the fridge and the cupboard closed. Eventually he had to slide a piece of wood between the handles and tape that to the doors.  The Drive for the Flying Doctor Rally had clocked in at Yuendumu so another bout of souped-up cars all with flashing lights roared past us, once again.

6 hours and 263 km later we pulled into Renahan’s Bore, feeling a little worse for wear and very ready for a night stop. A couple of rally drivers were taking a breather in the scruffy  rest area and we drove into the bush behind and found the dilapidated windmill and bore giving the rest area it’s name. We stopped there with an old car wreck directly outside our door. It wasn’t the finest of campsites. Of course there had to be another round of restoration and cleaning inside Getaway with seven black ravens looking on and plaintively cawing.

A new day began with a flat caravan tyre … a puncture on the van being the last thing we wanted this early on in the trip. After pumping it up George suspected a slow leak and we set off with heart in mouth wincing at every sharp or rocky section. Only one spare tyre for the caravan’s set of four and barely half way across the Tanami had Lea’s imagination perceiving all kinds of scenarios. We stopped every 20km or so to monitor the pressure and were relieved to find the tyre holding up well. Not so the caravan, 80kms on George took a peek inside and found the door of the deep freeze had fallen off – our frozen goods (bread, ice creams, frozen fruit scattered all over the floor! The container of chopped onion had  smashed on hitting the floor and we found ourselves slipping and slithering on the onion deposit as we gathered up dust and onion stained packets containing our foodstuffs before launching into another major clean-up operation  before replacing the deep freeze door as quickly as possible. The catch of the drawer containing our precious convection oven had disintegrated and that too had to be repaired. Leaving him to it, Lea returned to SKV and before climbing aboard dropped her pants for a quick wee. A sixth sense had her look up and in utter astonishment there was a dingo, just a metre away. She leapt in the open door before double checking her eyesight...

The dismal young dingo that curiously watched Lea!

This was the second time within the short day Lea had been caught with her pants down. The first occurred at Renahan’s Bore while George pumped up the tyre Lea straddled her legs to park a quick pint when shock – horror a small white ute unbelievably appeared out of the never- never heading straight towards her. How she wished she’d had the panache to wave rather than scramble and mortifyingly, hide behind her husband.

Thus the Battle of the Tanami continued … grinding over more bone-shaking corrugations, limping ever westwards, worrying about tyres and the road ahead. The term desert means different things to different people.  We, like many others think of the Sahara or the Namib as desert because of the lack of vegetation and presence of wind-blown dunes. The Tanami Desert was neither. Nor were we seeing bare expanses of parched earth...

Instead, we marvelled over the never ending sight of knee high golden grasslands dotted with conical termite mounds that easily recalled our images of Botswana’s Savuti Plains. 

Happily the road began to improve the moment we reached Granite Mine (a gold mine run by the Newman group) and we were in time to see two large passenger planes preparing for take-off after delivering their loads of fly-in-fly-out miners. We allowed the mining buses collecting the staff to pull out as we reached the airport turnoff knowing they would be speedier than us. The infrastructure to these fly-in-fly-out mines is temporary, yet immense. We could only see a small part of Granite Mine to the left of the track and we were to see just as little of the Tanami Mine another 100 km further on and yet, they are amongst the largest gold-producing mines in Australia and likely to remain operational for many years on.

Truly characteristic Desert dwellers excited us further along the drag...

Apart from a few bad patches, we came across evidence of the recent Labor Government ‘Nation Building’ expenditure in greatly improved road conditions as we approached the NT/WA border, 8 hours and 270 km after leaving Renahan’s Bore. Other than signs to indicate a change in State we were amazed not to have the usual WA Inspector check our contents. Even the Quarantine Bin turned out to be another 300 km inside the state. We camped at the Border beside a borrow pit used by the Roads Dept. and relished the stillness and the quiet.

With our sights now set on reaching Wolfe Creek we were up and away early especially as we’d heard the WA section of the Tanami Track was the worst of all, through lack of maintenance. Not long after passing the Coyote Mine settlement we came across a beautiful black headed python thermo regulating itself on the road.  We drew to a rapid halt and leapt out to get a few photos. In turn, we noticed a good few hairy caterpillars hot footing it over the corrugations. 

Hope the beauty survived lying in that vulnerable spot!

The first 100km of the road was not all that bad and the roadsides were thickly lined with golden wattle flowers mixed with we had come to call ‘Holly’ due to its holly like leaves, red flowers and green berries. Another interesting observation was the sheer numbers of Puff Ball fungi popping out of the soft sand in the road margins.  Out in the flat, flat, landscape small rolls of hills began to arise towards the horizon. On nearing the Balgo Hills range our attention was drawn to the very distinct transition between grass-covered foot-slopes and the barren crest. Thereafter the road became very sandy and severely corrugated. The rig held up well although during a routine check George noticed the fridge load hadn’t registered for a second time on the Solar Charge Controller. Inside all appeared cold and good. At the junction to Wolfe Creek we stopped to stare out to our right, searching a geological feature that harboured mystery, murder and mayhem thanks to the film Wolfe Creek!

 

March 2006 while we awaited collection of our new caravan and searched out a towing vehicle in Melbourne, we’d offered the spare room in our Park cabin to Justine and Dan’s friends touring Australia and coincidentally in the city at the same time. Irish Nuela warned us not to watch a recently released film Wolfe Creek as it was likely to raise the hairs on our neck when it came to ever stopping in lonely places. By sheer coincidence we arrived back in Perth a few months later with the brand new rig to find Saxon and Paul had hired ‘Wolfe Creek’ for the night. It left a lasting impression... Never-the-less, each time we travelled the Great Northern Highway across the top of Australia  we thought longingly of the 131km route out to Wolfe Creek only to be thwarted for one reason or another and shelve it with the promise we’d do the Tanami Track one day. Approaching from the south our day had come... Twenty kilometres northeast on a cattle station, Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater Park had been excised with cattle gates to open and close along the way. We threw suspicious glances at the concealed Station homestead near the first and the ruins alongside the second gate. Crossing Wolfe Creek itself had black tailed cockatoos dramatically fly upwards out of the creek bed squawking vociferously and before we’d reached the third gate – quite out of the blue we had a rally car streak past... the Fly Doctor drivers were back on our scene. An innocuously looking hill had come into sight – no different to many that dot Australia and we found it hard to believe this could possibly be the “spectacular meteorite crater we’d come to see.  At the third gate, a Ruby Plains stockman had seized an opportunity to raise funds for School of the Air by welcoming the Drivers for the Flying Doctor and ‘fleecing’ them of $10 for an on the spot raffle. Our support had us leave with a sweet from the ‘Poor Buggers’ tin! Upon reaching the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater campground the first thing George did was recheck the Solar Panel Control; then the fridge fuse and finally seeking he knew not what, opened the back of the fridge to find a loose pipe (a broken solder joint) –  the fridge had lost all its gas! The Tanami Track had struck its final crippling blow because heaven knows when we’ll be able to get it re-gassed. Under the circumstances we transferred as much of our frozen goods as possible into the Waeco freezer in the truck and brought into play the electric cooler we had stowed away under the bed to keep milk, cheese, butter going off  and resigned ourselves to a new way of life.  

 

From afar the walls of the Wolfe Creek crater, one of the largest authenticated meteorite sites in the world; discovered in 1947 did not look like much. Curiosity got the better of us and in the heat of the day we walked up to the Crater Parking lot and established we hadn’t really beaten some of the drivers to Wolfe Creek! The Rally had spent the previous night in Halls Creek, were now on a loop road that incorporated  a lunch stop at Wolfe Creek; their end destination being Margaret River in the far south of Western Australia. Much jocular comment arose over the magnetic forces stopping watches and car ignitions not to mention the tunnel of sadistic torture per se the film.  However, once on top of rim all thoughts of this being a sinister place evaporated as we overlooked a beautifully benign scene

Said to be the second largest crater in the world at 880m in diameter, the floor of the crater 60m below contained a distinctive concentrically shaped wetland. It was a stunning sight.

That ‘peek’ allayed any doubts of a wasted journey and we returned to Getaway until evening allowed for cooler exploration. Later, clambering down the inner wall of the crater and walking out to the wetland – the path through a growth of Salt Wattle into exposed saline soils and waist high purple mulla-mulla made for the unexpected discovery of a little Garden of Eden filled with the melodic twittering of birds. The red wall surrounds of this perfect crater provided lovely photographic opportunity.  By the time we had climbed back up the wall of the crater the sun was starting to set. We sat among all the rust coloured meteorite fragments, watching the shadow of the crater slowly creep across its floor George commented  on how lucky we were, given its origins (the impact of a 50 000 ton meteorite) and age (300 000 years), to be looking over such an extraordinary feature.

 We may have paid dearly for tackling the Tanami but the magic of a place like this made it worthwhile! 

Although Halls Creek was only 120kms away the Tanami Track hadn’t quite finished with us yet. George got up next morning to find the faulty caravan tyre completely flat and a dent in the rim obvious enough to have him wonder if this was the cause of the problem. First job of the day was to remove it and fit the spare. Furthermore, the last 120kms of the Tanami was in a dreadful condition so much so that after 3 hours of hard driving, fighting to control the forever shuddering steering wheel, we were very glad to finally reach the Great Northern Highway. There was one highlight however – an unforgettable one! A ‘Mad Cow’ standing close to the road at first sighting appeared to be ailing with a l-o-n-g tongue lolling uncontrollably out of its mouth (rather like an animal after anaesthetic). Lea most certainly didn’t believe George’s outburst “That Brahman’s eating a kangaroo” as he brought the rig to a sudden and slithering halt. He shot out with his camera and Lea opened her door to look back while he captured the ‘evidence’. Sure enough – utter disbelief became reality as an unconcerned bull swung the earlier wet and slimy length of ’tongue’ and at the base appeared two back limbs of a kangaroo. Visualising George moving cautiously ever closer to the Brahman, taking shot after shot until the bull took fright and dropped the slimy mass before heading into the bush. The scientist was then to be seen closely inspecting the ‘remains. Back in the vehicle Lea could barely wait to see George’s evidence! Utter Frustration ...He aimed for one shot; the best shot and ended up with NO SHOT!         

Excuse us - ‘domestic’!!!! 

Confirming kangaroo... rather like biltong after a child has given it a good suck and chew was our only evidence.         

Take heed, in time to come George will dine out on this tale; beginning by asking “Whether cows eat kangaroos? The answer surely, will be NO, they eat grass.  BUT...   You will have to believe us when we say we saw a Brahman standing beside the road chewing on the remains of a roo, hind legs and all – and he has a photo to prove it???  

              

Macadamised road of 11kms quietly took us into Halls Creek from the Tanami Junction. George promptly pumped up all eight tyres, filled our empty tanks with diesel and dropped off the faulty tyre for repair (the workshop verified a glancing blow from a rock had unbelievably dented the high tensile steel rim allowing air to leak out of the tubeless tyre); before we settled into Halls Creek caravan park to lick our wounds and conduct a massive clean-up / repair operation in the caravan. After eight years on the road Getaway has become increasingly prone to dust invasion particularly around the fridge area. Never quite as much as this though and the grocery cupboard had to be totally cleaned and washed down. Prior to Tanami these shelves had been carefully repacked to allow for limited movement. No matter what you do – severe vibration allows for marathon games of Chinese Checker’s to take place each day. Lids unscrew, labels on can are shredded to smithereens – while other cans dent as they leap from tight confinement on one side of the cupboard and travel to the furthest corner. Organization totally upturned! Simultaneously the dirty clothing hits the laundry as we took a long overdue shower.

70^th Anniversary of the D-Day landing, grand-daughter Kiki’s 9^th Birthday and thirdly our rendezvous with Alison and Amanda all on schedule.  Craving a fresh apple and a tomato Lea dashed into IGA while George collected the repaired tyre before heading north along the Great Northern Highway to find a site in either Spring Creek or Leycester’s Rest. Spring Creek- a favourite place for leaving caravans prior to entering the Bungle Bungle had been closed off.  We couldn’t help surmising whether the Caravan Park on the Bungle Bungle road had a hand in this... wanting the usually high numbers here to use their facilities at hefty prices $20 per day storage. Unpowered sites $35 and $45 with power!  We returned the short distance of 7kms to Leycester’s Rest adjacent to the Ord River to await the arrival of the A’s   

Reunion at Leycester’s Rest

We spent the afternoon walking amidst the wide sandy channels of the shady Ord riverbed, with an eye on the bird life. We were delighted to have our best sighting ever of an immature male Mistletoe bird clearly flitting around on branches above our heads literally moments after mentioning this elusive feathered creature. Ever since our visit to Scott and Sue Lebish followed by the NSW/SA and VIC Corner in December we had a renewed interest in the parasitic mistletoe and in particular the agent bird that spreads it. This tiny culprit had eluded us until now... 

 

After all the motion and shaking up of past days we’d planned on ‘still’ time and encouraged the A’s to set off early for two or more nights if they so fancied, in the awe inspiring Purnululu National Park (Bungle Bungles) while we stayed put for another night in Leycester’s Rest. And relax we did. Nervously Lea took out the old computer George had bequeathed to after receiving a new one from Justine and Daniel on our last visit to England. Early in May this computer began warning the battery needed replacing. Compounding this, George accidentally dropped it cracking the screen.  Thankfully it still worked although after the Eastern Loop around Alice gentian violet smears had arisen as a result of vibration. George had promptly backed up Lea’s huge store of family history. It was time to see what damage the Tanami had inflicted... All seemed unchanged and thankfully we had no need to share one computer as yet and spent the day happily writing.... Come evening, when George was  putting the Waeco freezer into the back of Skiv prior to setting off on our evening exercise he  noticed an orange light flashing and the temperature sitting at -8⁰C instead of -15, and steadily dropping! Anxiety levels screamed up and much later, after consulting the manual George concluded the deep cycle battery was delivering insufficient power to the freezer and started the truck to see if the freezer would run normally with the engine running. Instead it cut out all-together!  Panicking at the thought of yet another fridge packing up on us we rapidly brought the freezer into the caravan and ran it off the van’s deep cycle batteries. That solved the immediate problem. However, why Skiv’s batteries had suddenly failed remained a mystery.

Come morning more problems were awaiting us. This time Skiv that would not start, suggesting something had drained both batteries regardless of the isolator switch! The Honda generator was connected up to the start battery for an hour of charging  … yet still George could not start the engine. Consultation with another camper followed and he had listened and looked around made the suggestion the cells of the batteries could be dry and gave George a bottle of distilled water. It transpired that all six cells of both batteries were indeed bone dry. All the metal straps that hold down the batteries had to be removed to access the entry to refill them. Once again, the generator ran for another hour. There was still no response and George was becoming increasingly desperate as there was only our one man left in the 24 hour stopover and he was hitched to his caravan.  George sought the aid of another traveller he saw pull in for a coffee break closer to the main road and requested a ‘jump start’ before he moved on. In George’s super-efficient manner, he dashed back to SKV to prepare for his arrival and in short shift ‘cooked’ our set of jump when the ends on the ground accidentally touched. No time to think and adrenalin assisted, George scurried down to the caravan neighbour and asked to borrow his set. Finally all in place for a jump start - Skiv still would not start.  However, the cooking of jump leads did at least suggest the start battery wasn’t dead!  A new fear arose – that way out here the starter motor had packed up reminiscent of MT Carbine prior to catching the Cargo boat to Cape York last year. With three heads peering into the engine the use of a hammer to tap the starter motor and possibly free up the bendix was suggested. Still ignition just clicked over. The truck departed and in the long silence following – our kindly neighbour said he’d go and unhitch his caravan and see if a pull-start would help. George too, unhitched his van and   found his heavy duty tow- chain in the bowels of SKV.  Somewhat ludicrously, Lea crossed her legs and fingers and waited with bated breath. Thankfully almost immediately thumbs up appeared at George’s window –SKV’s engine was running again. The relief was palpable as we nervously hitched back up and hit the road north for 170km to fully recharge the batteries. Even left the engine running over a brief stop for lunch in fear of being stranded! Pulling into Dunham River 24 hour Rest-stop we looked at each other before turning off ignition and then restarted- whew no problem. Another lesson learnt the hard way as usual, in battery maintenance.  With familiar Kapok tree out in yellow blossoms along with and purple turkey bush, typical of the Top End of Australia; we were able to relax once more and happily await the arrival of the A’s in their own good time.

Alison and Amanda were back by Monday afternoon after a wonderful visit into the Bungles. Battery problems came back to hound us that night and again, the freezer brought inside Getaway. Next morning SKV required a jump start from a Good Samaritan before we could get going to Kununurra. Once we’d booked into Kimberleyland Caravan Park on the edge of Lake Kununurra George went in search of an auto-electrician.  Our year old Century starter battery had failed us! Over past days it has been draining the deep cycle battery. With no Century dealer in Kununurra to meet our guarantee we unfortunately had to buy a new battery.  

The following day the A’s went further north to see Lake Argyle and spend a night in the Keep River National Park over the border in the Northern Territory. We   stayed ‘put’ in Kununurra to prepare for the next onslaught! Just as well... George’s first job of the day was to clean the solar panels. Up on the roof he was to discover the pop rivets attaching one of our solar panels to the roof brackets had all sheered; the cover over the air conditioner was hanging on by a last remaining screw and there were many stones lodged in many places... By the end of the day we had battened down the hatches in readiness for our next escapade: The Gibb River Road  and the upper Kimberley.