28th and 29th July, 2009
Need spare parts??? Don’t go to a wrecker, just travel the Tanami Desert. This road is absolutely littered with abandoned, burnt out, overturned, completely raided cars. As much as the Plenty Highway was the place for shredded tyres, this is the road for car parts.
It feels good to be traveling north now, knowing that we will finally start warming up – God knows we need it. The Tanami Desert Road itself wasn’t that bad. Some parts of it were pretty corrugated, but tyre pressure takes care of that. Some parts, like near the Granite Mines it was being graded and was almost like highway.
We were a bit tentative about doing this road as quite a few travelers had told us how rough it was, particularly the road to Wolf Creek Crater. This seems to be a recurring theme that we keep coming across but have now learnt to trust ourselves, our car and our skill. Doing the Tanami for us was a bit like the Simpson Desert – it was one of those things we have planned for a long time. Even though the road really didn’t add much value to our trip, it’s another nick we can add to our Micky Thompson’s.
We stopped the night at Renahan’s Bore which is a truck stop. Then hit the road early the next morning. We popped in to Rabbit Flat for some petrol where we found the owners to be absolutely fabulous and talkative. Even while trying to fend off some locals waiting for the 12:OO noon curfew so they could buy beer.
We overtook a motor bike rider just before pulling over for lunch, and after half an hour noticed he hadn’t come along. Steve decided to turn back and look for him. We found him stopped in the middle of the road letting his engine cool down as the road was so rutted for him he couldn’t get out of first gear. After a quick chat, we were on our way but left him with a very slow journey at 5 – 10 kmp.
Need spare parts??? Don’t go to a wrecker, just travel the Tanami Desert. This road is absolutely littered with abandoned, burnt out, overturned, completely raided cars. As much as the Plenty Highway was the place for shredded tyres, this is the road for car parts.
It feels good to be traveling north now, knowing that we will finally start warming up – God knows we need it. The Tanami Desert Road itself wasn’t that bad. Some parts of it were pretty corrugated, but tyre pressure takes care of that. Some parts, like near the Granite Mines it was being graded and was almost like highway.
We were a bit tentative about doing this road as quite a few travelers had told us how rough it was, particularly the road to Wolf Creek Crater. This seems to be a recurring theme that we keep coming across but have now learnt to trust ourselves, our car and our skill. Doing the Tanami for us was a bit like the Simpson Desert – it was one of those things we have planned for a long time. Even though the road really didn’t add much value to our trip, it’s another nick we can add to our Micky Thompson’s.
We stopped the night at Renahan’s Bore which is a truck stop. Then hit the road early the next morning. We popped in to Rabbit Flat for some petrol where we found the owners to be absolutely fabulous and talkative. Even while trying to fend off some locals waiting for the 12:OO noon curfew so they could buy beer.
We overtook a motor bike rider just before pulling over for lunch, and after half an hour noticed he hadn’t come along. Steve decided to turn back and look for him. We found him stopped in the middle of the road letting his engine cool down as the road was so rutted for him he couldn’t get out of first gear. After a quick chat, we were on our way but left him with a very slow journey at 5 – 10 kmp.
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