The Great Central Road

With our Lap done it was time for Steve and I to head east towards home. It was also time to start our next adventure – The Outback Way, beginning with the Great Central Road, dissecting the Gibson and Great Victoria deserts across the middle of Australia. 

After leaving Perth we drove as far as Carrabin, a ‘one horse’ town on the Great Eastern Highway. It was a roadhouse and a bargain at $15 a night for a powered site. It was an interesting establishment with large crosses on the windows of the motel accommodation. 😳

 I felt a bit freaked out! As there was no phone signal and we were the only ones there. Like a scene from one of those horror movies. 

It was the coldest night we’ve had and with the vibration of road trains and the freight trains tooting their horns it was a restless sleep! 

We were up early and in the car to get warm!! We had another big day of driving. After 3 hours we stopped in Kalgoorlie to get supplies. We calculated it would be about 10 days before the next main town so it was a big shop. 

After lunch we were back on the road for a couple of hours and then stopped for the night at Leonora, a small town in the middle of nowhere. 

It did have two pubs. 

When Josh and his friends did a road trip (The Everywhere but Queensland Road Trip) during the wet season, they stayed in one of the pubs. 😳The story goes that there was a big thunderstorm so camping was out of the question so they convinced one of the pubs to let them sleep on the floor for the night. They promised they’d drink lots of beer. 😜 For the trip they all had cars painted in a variety of very artistic ways. 

I’m sure the town of Leonora were amused! 

The next day we had another big drive. We had a short stop in Laverton for ‘excellent’coffee. The guide book promised excellent coffee and it was. 👍 

Laverton was the start The Great Central Road, and thousands of kilometers of dirt!

The early part of the road was actually in good condition and had very few corrugations, so we traveled faster then we thought we would. The wild flowers were out and the landscape was arid and sandy and covered mostly with grasses.  

We had a quick stop at a gnamma hole which is a spring fed water hole in the middle on the desert. The aborigines relied on them for water for their nomadic life style. 

From there we continued along the dusty road and came across some dead camels. We guessed they had been shot for culling. We were hoping to see some live ones but after seeing them dead we were doubtful. 

We arrived at our stop for the night, Tjukayirla Road House pronounced ‘Chook-a-yer-la’. 

It had a TV room with reclining lounges!! We thought we were in heaven. We got our fix of TV and lounges (Steve before me), I was enjoying the lounge!! 

They seemed to like the cutting the tops off their cars. 

The sun setting was again beautiful. 

After dinner we enjoyed some star gazing in the huge sky. So many stars! We’d missed the stars. 

The next day we were back on the road again. It was another big leg. The landscape was the rolling plains of the deserts  covered in spinifex grass and wild flowers. It was a lot lusher than we expected as there had been a lot of rain recently. 

All along the road were abandoned rusty cars of all kinds. Apparently these cars are a part of the Outback Way landscape. Many of the cars have had parts scavenged maybe to repair other cars that may have had some misfortune along the road. Some people think the cars are litter and others think they are like sculptures and interesting for travelers. One was even painted to advertise the Tjukayerla Roadhouse. 

We even saw a couple of recently dumped cars waiting to be stripped. 

Our next stop was Warburton, an aboriginal town. They only sold diesel due to the chronic problem of petrol sniffing. There were signs warning those carrying unleaded fuel to make sure it is secured or ask the roadhouse to lock up for you! 

We had a stop for lunch at the Yarla Kutjarra campground which had an old tractor that was used to make the road set up as a feature. It had a few parts missing even though the sign said not to! 

Back on the road again and to our surprise and delight we saw a live camel! It was on the road and ran off but then stopped and posed for the camera. 

After another long drive we arrived at Warakurna Roadhouse for the night. It was later than we thought because they operated on NT time. So we lost an hour and a half. We were tired from the long drives so we had an early night. 

The next morning we were off on our last leg of the Great Central Road to Yulara!! 

On the way we stopped at a ghost gum that had a plaque attached commemorating the construction of the central desert roads with a list of the crew members names and what they did building the road back in 1960. 

Along the way there were more beautiful wild flowers. 

 

We stopped to take some photos and there were zebra finches everywhere. They’re only 10cm and so cute. We didnt get any photos because we couldn’t get close enough and they’re so small.  

It wasn’t long before we were crossing the border into the Northern Territory again. We figured out we’d been in WA for almost 2 months!! There was so much to see and that was just the top half. 

Not far from the border we stopped at Lassiter’s Cave. 

Lassiter was an explorer looking for gold back in the 1900’s. He apparently took refuge in this cave after his camels bolted. 

We were told that the road on the Northern Territory side was really bad and it was it parts! The photos don’t really show it.

 There was recent rain so there were lots of water filled depressions and muddy areas. Steve drove through one puddle and muddy orange water sploshed up over the bonnet, windscreen and right back to the trailer!! It didn’t look that deep but must’ve been a big pot hole. It looked like paint and getting if off was difficult. At least it looked like we’d driven the Great Central Road. 

It wasn’t long before we were on tar and arriving at Yulara. 

As we approached Yulara we could see Kata Tjuta and Uluru in the distance!! It was amazing!! Such a surreal feeling. 

Over 5 days we had travelled from the west coast to the middle of Australia! It was just under 2200kms and a great adventure through outback Australia.