Tanami I

Today we started our traverse of the Tanami Road which will take us back to Alice Springs 1057 km from last nights camp at Halls Creek. Historically the Tanami Track (as it was called) was a cattle droving route along which pastoralists in the Kimberley moved their cattle to market. In the 1960s (after overland droving ceased, and there was no need to detour to find water for the cattle) the track was rerouted and shortened to approximately its current route. Today it is still a remote 80% gravel road that is almost devoid of services. At the North West end it starts 16km from Halls Creek (at a junction with the Great Northern Highway) and to the South Eastern end it joins the Stuart Highway 20km north of Alice.

While planning for our trip along the Tanami our biggest concern was fuel; there are only 3 fuel stops along the Tanami (if one ignores the aboriginal community of Balgo which is a 35 km each way detour from the Tanami Road). At the northern end the community of Billiluna is 153km from Halls Creek, and at the southern end there is Yuendumu 770km from Halls Creek and Tilmouth Wells 876km from Halls Creek.

To complicate matters we plan on making the side trip to Wolfe Creek Crater which adds another 40km to the distance to each of these fuel stops. A further complication is the the store at Billiluna has limited trading hours (7-12,2-4 daily) so if we happen to miss the trading window at Billiluna we would need to cover (810 km = 770+40) from Halls Creek to Yuendumu; can we do that.

Our Troopy has two fuel tanks with a total capacity of 180 liters and over this trip our average fuel consumption has been 15 liters for every 100km but with a high of 18 l/100km (note l/100km is the European way of stating fuel consumption). Assuming that we can only pull about 160 liters out of the tanks then at 15l/100km we can cover over 1000km so all is well. But if our fuel consumption gets more like 20 l/100km we can only make 800km which is getting tight.

So our fuel strategy becomes buy some fuel at Billiluna if at all possible and if not run the tanks down so as to have more than 160 liters available.

By the way, Billiluna is the first town and fuel supply at the northern end of The Canning Stock Route

Another feature (maybe that's the wrong word) of the Tanami Road is that there is not much to see other than red dirt, scrub and at night blazing stars. However 150km from Halls Creek there is a turn off to Wolfe Creek Crater, a meteorite crater about 300,000 years old. It is the second largest crater in the world in which fragments of the meteor have been found.

It is interesting to note that the Tanami Road is often described as a short cut from Halls Creek (and hence the Kimberley region) to Alice Springs. The alternative route from Halls Creek on sealed roads is via Kununurra and is 2050km, almost twice the distance.