You feel every corrugation, the going is slow and the scenery of the Tanami Desert becomes monotonous. But its still Amazing for reasons I find hard to explain. This is at the start, notice how clean the van is and compare this with the last photo.
The only other vehicles we saw were hard core 4WD's or 'troupies' (I'm thinking of our Pajero as a city-slicker 4WD) or the odd road trains. There were camper trailers but we only passed another caravan right at the beginning on the sealed section and right at the end, we have our doubts that there were indeed any other caravans on the Track at all. From beginning to end the number-count of these types of vehicles across the Tanami amounted to 16:
Broken down and deserted with no hope of getting them anywhere for repairs, or just not worth it because it is literally the middle of nowhere; so remote, and that's one reason why it is so amazing. There is no-one else but you, for miles. I'd say on average you probably pass about 8 or so cars a day (but often in convoy) so you can go for hours without seeing anyone else, and bar one night when we did have a neighbour, you camp by yourself and you know there is no one else anywhere near you. This is one of our nicer campspots (we had 4 nights on the Tanami), it was a lucky find, given mud-map directions earlier on in the day 'up behind the pyramid bore 160km down the track':
and this is another camp, at the truck resting area, because there was no other choice at that point in time, each night we had a fire and toasted marshmellows, the kids made their own tee-pee fire which they called the 'kids fire':
We were carrying spare, spare tyres for both the car and the van, so 4 spares in total. Didn't need them. One spot of bother (other than the bathroom door falling off its hinges) when a high pitched whining started from the front left wheel. Cem was excellent in diagnosing and remedying the problem. It was a stone stuck in behind the wheel, he eventually worked out, after removing the wheel and was (luckily) able to dislodge something from in behind it. We had a car pass us during this ordeal and as per usual, they stopped to see whether everything was all ok, we had just got the wheel back in place by then.
However, it seems you may be less fortunate in regards to having people stop for you if you are aboriginal. Cem stopped readily, knowing how much consideration and assistance we had been shown throughout this journey. These fellas had some wheel problems but not the right size spanner, we had all but the size they needed. While this was going on three, yes, three other cars flew past, with obviously no intention of stopping. These guys were from Balgo community which is latter half of the Tanami, and were heading into Halls Creek (324km) for a drink. Eventually they were able to do the trick with a bicycle spanner than Cem had in his tool bag and we left them with a bottle of water and wondered how the seven of them were going to cram into that car.
Earlier on in the trip we had stopped in at Yuendumu community and visited another art centre. We were also able to refuel and have a picnic lunch in the caravan where a dog ran off with one of Kai's Blundstones. Luckily we were able to retrieve it not too far off but we did cause some attention. By the time we got to Balgo community, however, which was a further 35km off the track, we just wanted to get some more corrugated miles behind us and drove straight past. The other junction in this area was the Canning Stock Route. This is an hard core track including sand dunes, commencing down near Wiluna in Central WA and transversing through the Gibson and Sandy Deserts. While refuelling at Tilmouth Well (at the start, still on bitumen) we met a son and his mum who had come that way. I have mentally made a note to keep it in mind for the future...... Otherwise there are not too many landmarks or interesting features on the Tanami, just the Tanami Desert, until you get to 111km before the end and there is the turn off to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. Now that was amazing. Natures perfect circle. 800m diameter, now only about 20m deep but originally another 100m deeper. 300 000 years ago this massive meteorite hit the ground. Spectacular to see. It would be great to fly over, its also in the middle of nowhere. Here it is at sunrise.
Massive and many termite mounds were another feature of the track.
The last 111km we just wanted to finish. And we got there eventually. This is the honey sandwich, apple and tomato 'End of Tanami Party' at the quarantine bins at the end of the track, the rest we threw into the bins as we heard the blissful smooth sound of cars and caravans speeding along the Great Northern Highway 50 odd metres ahead of us. While the prospect of smooth roads seemed like heaven, it also bought the realisation that we would again be joining the caravan parade.
It was good to be over, but it was good to do, which is a bit crazy when really it is just a massive amount of slow going and bumpy dusty road. The kids travelled fantastically. The closest we got to a compliant the whole time was when Ayla commented 'we haven't really done anything interesting the last days'... Here we are on the Tanami, and the last 2 shots are at that final junction, turning onto tarmac, with only 16km into Halls Creek.
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