Across The Top 2016: The Tanami Road

We started down the sealed part of the Tanami Road (over 1000km long) in bright sunny weather. Our first stop was at Tilmouth Well Roadhouse where we met up with James and Kath from Newcastle. They joined us as travel companions for the long journey through the remote area traversed by the Tanami.

The sealed road ended about 20Km before Yuendumu where the gravel road was very corrugated. We topped up our fuel in a town that I found fairly depressing. You can see a lot of government money has been spent on not very old public buildings but several appear dilapidated and unused. There is rubbish everywhere and the public toilets are a disaster.

After Yuendumu the gravel road had very few vehicles and was fairly corrugated but occasionally had some good stretches where we got up to about 80Kph. Our next camp was at Floodout Creek where we enjoyed a big campfire.

The next day, the road improved considerably after getting past the mines. Our camp was at the romantic setting of Sunset Gravel Pit. Another campfire and another sunset with very little traffic on the road.

The following day we visited the aboriginal community of Billiluna so James could get fuel. We were too late for a pie because the store shuts from 11am to 2pm. We had a few spots of rain as we drove to our last camp at Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. At camp the spots of rain continued and the clouds looked ominous but the real rain held off. We enjoyed a fine evening with beer, wine and champagne accompanied by roast lamb and a double helping each of vegetables. Thanks James.

Next morning we reached the end of the Tanami and parted ways with James and Kath.