Leaving Western Australia

After Warburton, we had intended to stop for the night in Warakurna but we had two reasons for not doing so.

First, we had a real outback experience in Warburton. Even though there were lights on in the campground all night and the facility was surrounded by a fence with a locked gate and razor wire around the top everywhere, three kids climbed the fence and robbed us. We failed to lock the ute and they got into it and took some money (~$20-$30 or so). Elizabeth awoke to a person starring in the tent and when he called out, they all ran away. We were shaken but safe. No serious damage done. However, this make us a bit skiddish concerning another night on this section of the road.

Secondly, we found that we needed only a couple hours to get to Warakurna, so we kept going. On this, the third day on the unsealed road, we travelled on to Yulara in the Northern Territory. We again found camels.

Animals on the Road

On the Great Central Road between Tjukayirla and Warburton, we met a couple interesting friends. One is the Mulga or King Brown Snake. It is the second longest poisonous snake in Australia (second only to the Coastal Taipan).

Tjukayirla Roadhouse

Our first night on the Great Central Road we stay in the campground at the Tjukayirla Roadhouse. Except for us, it was empty. Completely. We took a spot under a canopy so we could have some shade. Near our campsite was a hose along which the ants were traveling.

The Road

I thought you'd appreciate a few views of the road we are travelling here. It is all graded wide and as smooth as possible. The traffic, especially the large trucks for mining traffic, generate the corrugations. This means that it is graded once or twice a year to knock this down a bit. But the bumps remain.

Birds

About an hour before we reached Tjukayirla Roadhouse, we stopped at the Gnamma Hole. This is a small water hole just off the road. Here we found a flock of Galahs.

Cars along the Road

A sight we'd been told of were the abandoned cars along the Great Central Road. I've collected a few to show you the general character of what is out there.

Getting Serious about Driving

We spent the night in Laverton, a small town on the edge of what we softies would call civilization. Beyond here be dragons, arrrgh!

The thing that was scary and uncertain about planning this trip was estimating the time between stops. The first two stops on the sign you see above are, in fact, the next two possible stops. Google Maps gives travel times between these stops as 7 or 8 hours but when I make an estimate based on a sensibly slow driving speed, I get 3-5 hours. How knows how long all this will take. What is the road like? Will there be mud or robbers? We don't know. It's a mystery. It's an adventure.