We always had the plan to take the Tanami Track when coming home. We’d squeezed in an epic adventure from Adelaide to Darwin, then across the Gibb River Road to Broome. We followed that up with a week on the Dampier Peninsula (which was awesome!). Then we had to start making our way home to reality. The last major stop was the Bungle Bungles, and then the most direct route back to Adelaide was via the Tanami Track.
Not just a short cut, the Tanami is an adventure in itself. The extreme distances between fuel stop takes some planning, and the utter remoteness is a feeling not experienced many other places. Of course there is also the Wolfe Creek crater, made famous by the similarly named film.
Track conditions are going to depend on how recently a grader went through, but we got pretty lucky for the most part.
Halls Creek
We start this story at Halls Creek. But for some background, a couple of days earlier, on departing Broome, we stopped at the bottle shop to top up our beer supply. It was early in the day and the shop was still closed for a couple of hours. Rather than wait around, we decided to start making our way to the Bungle Bungles – and discovered that buying beer in this part of the country is very difficult! We had to make do with some Carlton Light at an exorbitant price. The town makes a joke of this, selling stubby coolers that say “Halls Creek – where the beer is like having sex in a canoe; f@#king close to water!”. We laughed (and cried).
So it was back at Halls Creek that we bought some light beers, topped the tanks and jerry cans up with Diesel, and grabbed a new air filter from the Repco shop on the edge of town. We already have spare belts and hoses on board, so felt good that we were prepared for this remote journey.
We had a lunch at the pub (of which the entrance is very hard to find!) and watched an AFL game, and grabbed a pint. The pub does sell all sorts of beer, but you can’t buy takeaways. Since it was getting on in the afternoon, we decided to camp locally instead of commencing the Tanami.
Caroline Pool
Caroline Pool isn’t actually on the Tanami Track, but I mention it here anyway as it was such a nice spot! It’s well worth a stop at either before starting, or after finishing the Tanami. It’s not too far south east of Halls Creek, off Duncan Road. There’s a nice waterhole and it’s totally free!
Whilst we stopped to set up camp, we met a bunch of young fella’s who had just finished their trek up the Tanami, travelling in the opposite direction. We joined them around the campfire and had a great night – making a large dent in our already low beer supply!
A little sore the next morning, we back tracked to the start of the Tanami, stopping off at a cool natural rock formation named China Wall. This line of rocky outcrops looks man made – a nice little geographical wonder to take a quick look at.
Tanami Track Begins; Wolfe Creek Crater
We hit the Tanami track and embraced the dust and corrugations. It wasn’t that bad really – we made good progress and got to the Wolfe Creek turn off with plenty of light in the day. Whilst the Tanami track was in decent condition, the track out to Wolfe Creek was nothing if not bumpy!
The guys back at Caroline Pool camp had said they hiked down to the base of the crater, and found the ground to have an almost hollow sound to it when stomping your feet. We had plenty of time, so decided to scramble down and try it for ourselves. They were completely right! It does sound peculiar down there. And much like China Wall, feels almost man made as you’re surrounded on all sides by steep hills of dirt and rock. Like standing in a massive bowl.
The sun was belting down, and the climb back out was hot to say the least. We took a breather, and a cold drink, and made out way over to the camp ground.
The campground was literally just a bit of scrub carved out with a long drop nearby. That’s probably underselling it a bit, and it would be an absolutely fine place to stay if the timing was right. But we had plenty of light left in the day, so decided to get a few more kilometres done.
The Middle of No Where
With dust billowing from our tyres, we pressed on through the heat of the day. There are a few road trains using this road which makes things interesting when it comes to overtaking. With dust clouds completely obscuring our view, we radio’d to a truck up ahead that we were approaching. The truckie did something so simple and effective I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before. With the breeze blowing left to right, he moved his truck over to the right hand side of the road – leaving a clear view on the left for us to pass through. The experience is telling.
Phone reception is sketchy at best out here, and so as we went over a rise and got a bar of reception, we pulled over to check Wikicamps. Another 4wd pulled up – workers from a nearby mining site who asked if we could spare some fuel for them to make it back. We were already going to be very tight though, and couldn’t spare any. With their worksite nearby, I’m sure (or hope) they made it back without issue!
With the sunlight dwindling, we picked the next campsite Wikicamps suggested. It was only a couple of kilometres down the road. A basic loop off the track, next to a small rise which gave great views out over the desert. True remoteness.
Being a quick stopover, we threw out the pop-up tents and had a bite to eat and a couple of drinks before making it an early night. The silence at night was eerie. Just the sounds of long grass gently blowing from time to time.
Kym swears that he woke in the night to the sound of footsteps. He had gotten up earlier in the night for a wee – and saw some headlights in the distance. Did someone come snoop around camp? We would have heard cars if they drove up. There was no evidence anyone had been at camp, but it was spooky none the less!
End of the Tanami Track – Tilmouth Well
Our second and final night on the track was to be at Tilmouth Well. However, I was getting concerned that my car may not make make it that far with the fuel I had onboard. Kym had given his car a quick top up in Halls Creek after our stop at Caroline Pool but I hadn’t thought it necessary. There is a community I was relying on to get more fuel about 300kms outside Alice Springs, called Yeundemu.
In hindsight, I probably could have made it to Tilmouth Well, but at the time didn’t want to take the risk. Yeundemu was an interesting stop anyway. This place was a bit confronting as (and I’m probably exaggerating) it felt like every third house had a car without tyres in the front yard. Where are all the tyres going?? The diesel pump is housed in a metal cage, so I had to go in and ask for assistance. The lad who served me was from Cairns and had travelled out here to try and meet some relatives he’d never met before. Quite the journey! Diesel was not cheap, so I added enough to get me to Alice and we carried on.
Tilmouth Well is a roadhouse approximately 200km from Alice Springs. This was a ripper little spot to pull up camp for the night and freshen up. There is a very spacious campground and a dry river bed nearby that has oodles of firewood. We had showers and headed over to the pub for dinner, and then settled by the campfire for the night. We were probably in bed by 8pm though – people were still arriving (loudly) after we went to bed!
With our Tanami adventure nearly over, we made a huge mistake. Instead of grabbing more beers at Tilmouth, we decided to get them at Alice Springs because, in theory, it would be cheaper. That is probably true, but we didn’t plan on stopping in Alice Springs, and the bottle shops don’t open until quite late in the day there! We ended up getting ‘supplies’ in Marla, SA. Plan ahead people!
