Yulara to Mt Augustus

Yulara to Mt Augustus 14th - 21st April

Well we've arrived aon the West Coast at Canarvon, tired, hot & dusty but somewhat proud of ourselves. We've traversed a country the size of North America, driven approximatley 5000 km of which 90% have been dirt roads and desert tracks. These have varied from wide, well maintained gravel roads to two tyre tracks in the sand heading out into the desert with waist high spinifex grass growing in between them.

To give you an idea of how remote we've been crossing the west, we went for over two days without seeing any other people – and that was when we called into the Carnegie Farmstead. We went for three days without seeing another vehicle on the road or picking up any sort of radio traffic!

We've seen some amazing remote country but there's also been times when I've been covered in sweat, dust and grease, lying on my back under the car with flies swarming round me, trying to clear the underside of spinifex grass before we got a nasty underside fire, that Manly Beach has seemed like an an attractive option!

Sitting on the roofrack, having a beer, watching the rock change colour. Happy Days

Stop 19 Warbuton Roadhouse, WA

Sandy Sandy on the way west

The time had finally come to leave the comfort of Yulara. We'd had a good break, done some good walks and had experienced the famed Ayres Rock Sunset. We were also now well stocked and prepped for what will potentially be the toughest and most remote leg to our whole trip.
In all honesty there's not a lot to say about this first day – we put in a good 5ook+ to take us to the roadhouse of Warbuton on the Great Central Highway, a major unsealed road between Perth and the Red Centre. Once past the sandrifts and deep corrugations of the Northern Territory section it was plain sailing down to Roadhouse through unchanging scrubland.
A long day but we gained some time with the 1 ½ h time difference between states. Interestingly we found a scouser and a south african backpacker working in this middle of nowhere place – being on Aboriginal land you couldn't even buy or consume alcohol so I guess it was a good money saver for the them

A Thorny Devil - we managed not to run this one over

Stop 20 Camp Beadell, The Gunbarrel Highway

We woke the next morning to organised chaos as the local aboriginal population were getting fuelled up to go about their daily tasks. Dusty cars rammed with aboriginal folks were everywhere and our start time was delayed as I had to wait out the worlds slowest ATM queue behind about ten aboriginal ladies who seemed to be all a little confused by the machine.
About 30k down the highway we turned onto the Heather highway, a bit narrower but in still in good nick. Another 40k and we came to a t-junction, of sorts. On the right a set of corrugated tyre tracks led off through waist high spinifex fields, on the left the option was similar, the fun had begun.

Sun set at "Camp Beadell"

(Outback Traffic)

The next stretch saw us taking on heavy, heavy corrugations, numerous rocky washouts and dry creek bed crossings. Our average speed dropped to about 20/30kmh and it took us the best part of a couple of hours to do this 40 k stretch.

The "Highway"

We were somewhat relieved (prematurely so) to reach the junction of the Gunbarrel Highway where we would turn to head west. Some godfather of outback road construction – Len Beadall – blazed this trail some 40 years ago whilst looking for sights for military weapon testing. There hasn't been much road maintenance since and “highway” is definitely meant in an ironic sense – the scratches down the side of our car from close encounters with gum trees show. Whilst we had some relief from the corrugations the washouts took a turn for the worse requiring some serious attention on wheel placement and then the corrugations returned, worse than ever requiring us to drop to 10 k t avoid both the truck and ourselves being shaken apart. Somewhat frustrating and although we came out for these roads the corrugations just aren't fun. There was a distinct lack of any life on route although the vegetations remained green for much of the track. We happened upon a couple travelling the other way. With his and her trucks – supposedly so they could take on harder tracks and have means to recover each other. We think they'd probably just had enough of sitting in one truck together. They were the only people we saw for the next 48 hours and the only vehicles for the next 3 days.

Outback Pedestrian

The Gunbarrell wasn't in great condition in parts!

Camp Beadall was essentially just a bit of desert where people had camped before and previously had a working water bore pump, but apart from ourselves and the flys there wasn't another living thing in sight. So we settled down for a peaceful nights sleep – that is until the Dingos started howling.

Pumping up water from 16m down and getting some good exercise with it !

It's not called the "gunbarrel" for nothing

Stop 21 Mt Lambert, The Gunbarrel Highway
Despite the worry of marauding Dingo's a reasonable nights sleep was had and we were up early to carry on the battle along the gunbarrel. First stop was Mt Beadell where a short climb gave us incredible views over the savannah like landscape we had been travelling through. Simply breathtaking and it was suddenly all worth wile.

Views from Mt Beadell

Coming down to the motor a cursory inspection led to the discovery that our Injection Pump was leaking diesel, faced with several unattractive options of being broken down in the middle of nowhere and likely 400k or so from the nearest settlement we decided to go with the carry on and hope approach.

Outback Roadsigns

The drive continued to be an exciting, technical affair interspersed with long sections of bone shattering corrugations. At a place called “Everard Junction” we signed what is surely the world's most remote visitor book. Quite bizarre really, you get to this junction in the middle of nowhere and suddenly there's this tin box with about four years worth of visitors book in.
Shortly after we suffered our second setback of the day when we managed to get our first flat, picking up some sort of metal spike that had been lurking under the sand. The flat's not a problem in itself – that's what we carry two spares for – however at this stage we couldn't help thinking “ok, bad luck comes in threes, what's next?”

Demonstrating the correct use of a jacking plate in soft sand

The worlds most random visitors book

As we reached an area know as Mugkilli's Claypan the road finally improved and we were back up to a comfortable 60/70 kmh. We parked up for the night on top of Mt William Lambert, a small rise with panoramic views over the savannah, probably stretching 100k in all directions. With fairly strong winds prevailing we decided to put our car's campervan function to the test and slept on the back shelf, awaking to light of the sun rising over the incredible savannah views, it was one of our top experiences so far.

I didn't envy the guy who had to change these babies

(above - views from Mt William)

The penthouse suite

Stop 22 Imbin Rockhole

We continued on our way with the roads gradually improving as we went. About 3 hours in we reached Carnegie homestead shown on the map as having fuel, camping and supplies. It's easy to forget that these places are still in the middle of nowhere so when we turned up to find a kid on a tractor and everyone else out with the cattle we shouldn't have been surprised. We stayed around for a bit and made a cup of tea whilst being entertained by a swarm of children who appeared out of nowhere. After we watched them fearlessly chase away a bull that had strayed into the homestead we were regaled with their stories about life on the station, dingos, quad biking and going to school if they felt like it. Some of the most articulate and confident children we've met.

Aboriginal Rock Markings around the waterhole (meaning, uh..waterhole I believe)

The track to the waterhole

Bush Camping at Imbin

From Carnegie we had a couple of options – we'd thought we were heading towards Wiluna but decided to take an alternative route in a similar direction described on a painted corrugated sign by the side of the road as the scenic route. Whilst we were a little dubious at that description to start with we came through a lovely rocky valley called Sydney Heads Pass with a steep path up the side. We duly put the truck into low range and took on the vertical path, with the reward of good views and the sight of a large red kangaroo hopping down the road we'd just driven up. Simon swore that he'd seem a place called Imbin Rockhole on a tourist information sheet somewhere. It was marked on our map as being close to Syndey Heads Pass but we struggled to find the turn-off. With a bit of help from the GPS (no not the speaking lady telling us to turn left now but some genuine map reading) and Charlotte's ace navigation skills we followed what vaguely looked like a track off the side of the road for 5km, pressing on with the constant belief that it couldn't be much further and did get to Imbin Rockhole.

We camped up for the night and realised a little late that camping on spiky burrs wasn't such a hot idea but the peace and serenity of the location made up for the prickles in our feet. For a change we were in quite a wide open area and the climb up the rocks once again gave us a great view of the surroundings.

We were getting tired now and were both keen to get back to some civilisation. Apart from the kids on the station we now hadn't seen a vehicle or other people on the road for 3 days, indeed we'd seen nothing but the occasional bird and every now and then an emu or some camels

Stop 23 Meekatharra

The next day we woke up knowing we had at least 300k's to do to get to what we where thinking would be our first “town” for a while Wiluna.

After a long but relatively uninspiring drive down the Granite Peaks road we turned up at Wiluna. The guy at Carnegie had warned us this was what he described as a “blackfella's” town. Pretty typical description by white rural bushfolk out here. We didn't take that much notice even when he told us the last time he'd been there he'd tried to go to the pub and the big aboriginal guy on the doo had told him “not here Whitey, Whitefella's round the back”
However we did get there to find the town deserted other than a group of twenty or so aboriginals sitting on the pavement outside the pub.

Deciding the place was more bronx than welcoming country town we decided to push onto Meekathara, another 180k's or so away. A mixed town of a thousand or so it seemed like the seat of civilisation to us when we got there. We noticed the barbed wire around the caravan park but didn't care as hot showers and a pub meal where top of our priorities and a welcome relief.


Stop 24 Mt Augustus
So that was the desert crossing out the way. We still however had the large expanse of WA's Mid West to get through to get to the coast, a 2/3 day drive at least and still remote, outback territory.

This remote land didn't change dramatically but slowly but surely signs of water started appearing, the occasional grassy patch was seen and at one point we even had to ford a river with water in ! (the first we'd seen for a couple of thousand K's)
We decided to stop for a couple of days at the Mt Augustus National Park and climb the worlds largest rock. Standing 1105m above sea level the Mt is a rock similar to Ulluru but as it's covered with vegetation so it doesn't have the same visual impact as Uluru and as such isn't such a known destination. (the fact it's 500k's from anywhere significant down dirt roads that shut after rain doesn't help either).

down the gully

At the summit

The climb took us five hours return and it's a toughy. The tougher route isn't so much a path as a scramble down a rocky gorge. Good fun but our legs were jelly after. It's a great climb with stunning views. I'd recommend it to anyone but it's quite an isolated spot and a 4x4 is pretty helpful for the roads to and from.

The view form the top

The following day (after another evening being entertained by the resident stick eating dog) we set off on our way to the coast and a few dust filled hours and shallow river crossings later we reached Canarvon. Time to hit the west coast.