Mon 30th July – Thu 2nd August - Yulara - Wiluna

(via Great Central Hwy & Gunbarrel Hwy)

Day 15 (Mon 30/7/18)   Yulara – Great Central Highway (just passed Warakurna RH)

Leaving Yulara we toured around Ayers Rock before passing the Olgas and heading down the Great Central Highway.

  

 

  

Visiting Lasseter’s Cave before crossing into Western Australia.

  

And set up for a bush camp along the way.

Day 16 (Tue 31/7/18)    Great Central Highway  -  Along Gunbarrell Highway

After filling up at Warburton RH we turn off the Great Central Road and head towards the Gunbarrel Highway where we run into some camels crossing the road.  Allowing some good close up shots.

  

The so called highway diminishes as we go further but the changing scenery is fantastic.  We set up camp at Mt Beadell which has a monument to Len Beadell, the man who paved the way in this area with his building of a number of the roads out here.  We got a very good taste of corrugations today and they’re not pleasant.

  

  

  

During our evening meal we had a visit by a very surprised camel, who came over the rise next to our cars in the dark to find us eating, he made some interesting sounds and grunts but we managed to persuade him to turn back with the flash light.  But we did hear his gruff sounds throughout the evening close by… a little unnerving for toilet time.

We chose to not have a camp fire tonight as the temperature was good and the night sky is always worth viewing.  And were rewarded with the sighting of 10 satellites and 1 shooting star, still doesn’t match the 17 satellites we sighted on one of our Cape York trips, maybe we’ll match it later in the trip

Day 17 (Wed 1/8/18)    Gunbarrel Hwy  -  Carnegie Station

No camels around camp when we woke up. 

First car part casualty today with Paul & Kate’s UHF aerial succumbing to the corrugations and snapping off.

We then met an interesting chap coming the other way who was riding a Russian sidecar motor bike stocked up with his gear and spares.  As I suspect this would be even less comfortable than our journey we shouldn’t complain.

  

The road continued to be very corrugated, rutted and slow going today until we changed in to Wiluna Shire, where suddenly the track became a wide graded road which was a fantastic relief to cruise smoothly at 100km/hr.

With the wind picking up and some delay in getting some fuel we chose to spend the night at Carnegie Station.  Jim the Station Hand was very accommodating and we had full use of the facilities including camp kitchen and showers.

Day 18 (Thu 2/8/18)    Carnegie Station  -  Wiluna

Well… the wind did pick up, Cold Front came through.  The morning news reports were relaying severe wind warnings of 100kmh winds for South Australia which of course we had overnight.  Unfortunately we were set up side on to the new wind direction, so at 12:45am it had been so bad that Tracey and I chose to bail out of our tent, fold it down and retreat to the Carnegie Station camp “chicken” kitchen.  We managed to snooze a little on the single lounge in the camp kitchen..  out of the wind.  Paul and Kate had their tent facing a better direction and rode it out, the wind dropped off a little around 3am.

Photo of our camp site with the camp kitchen in the background.

Also Tracey chose to take a couple of photos to show how dusty the conditions are out here… look at the inside of my car.

  

 

 

Then, as all of our trips do, we get a slight curve ball.  A tyre deflation alarm alerts us to another tyre failure, we are working them hard, but in this case it looks unrepairable.

    

No worries, swap in the spare and off to Wiluna for a replacement.  Surely being the start/finish of the Canning Stock Route we can get a standard size Landcruiser tyre!  But unfortunately not, they could order one in for arrival next Tuesday.  So alternate options considered, phone calls to other “local” tyre suppliers.  Found some right size tyres available at the Meekathara Corner store, only a short 180km’s away.  So we asked them to put it aside and as it was already mid afternoon chose to spend the night at the Gunbarrel Laager Rest Retreat here at Wiluna and take the side trip to Meekathara tomorrow.

So not sure when we will start the Canning Stock Route??