Week 71- Wednesday 11th - Monday 16th October

Tanami Track-WA, NT

The Tanami Track is a remote (and I mean very remote) track that runs from Halls Creek to Alice Springs (the track is pictured below, in red).

Day One

Willare Roadhouse

Star Rating:★★★

★=Full Star ☆=Half Star

Day 1 started off well but after being awake for just over an hour a disaster happened……

This is how our eventful day went:

5:00-6:00am:
Mum and Dad dragged us out of bed to get an early start on the road.

6:00-7:00am:
We were driving along happily when all of a sudden there was a massive bump…one of the caravan tyres had fallen off!!! For the rest of the hour Mum and Dad made lots of phone calls and arranged for a tow truck to come and pick the van up.

7:00-8:00am:
We waited for the tow truck to arrive and take us back to Broome

8:00-9:00am:
We were still waiting!

9:00-10:00am:
Finally the tow truck arrived, and Dad help the man get the van on the truck.

11:00am-12:00pm:

We drove back into Broome (in our car-it wasn’t damaged) and Dad dropped us off at the public library.

12:00-1:00pm:
Mum, Jackson and I chilled out in the air-conditioned library.

1:00-2:00pm:
We were still chilling out in the library when we all started to get quite hungry-we had only had a small breakfast as we thought we were going to be with the van the whole day. After a lot of back and forth we decided to walk up to Coles (about 1 km away) to get some food.

2:00-3:00pm:
We got some food and were about to dig into our mismatched picnic (Bbacon & cheese rolls, ham, mini cucumbers, olives and chocolate) when Dad called to say that the van was fixed, and he was coming to pick us up. On the way out we bumped into our friends from the caravan park and told them about our crazy morning! When Dad had picked us up, we went down to Town Beach where we finished our picnic, before hitting the road.

3:00-4:00pm:
We drove.

4:00-5:00pm:
We drove for another half an hour or so before arriving at Willare Roadhouse-we had meant for it to be our breakfast stop in the morning!!

5:00-6:00pm:
After arriving at Willare Roadhouse we set up and went to have a dip in the pool

6:00-7:00:
We had dinner before having wild mango (collected on the Dampier Peninsula and finally ripe) for dessert.

7:00-8:00:
We all had showers, washing all the day's sweat off us before we all collapsed into bed!!

Our poor caravan!👇

Day Two

Roadside Stop near the start of the Tanami Track

Star Rating:★★★

★=Full Star ☆=Half Star

Because of our disaster day the day before we had to try and make up some ground-therefore we drove for around eleven hours, only stopping four times! Our first stop was Fitzroy Crossing where we all had brekkie, our second one was Mary's Pool where we stopped for around an hour, stretched our legs and had lunch. The third stop was Halls Creek where we only stopped to get fuel and our last stop was where we pulled up for the night.

Our campsite just off the Tanami Track

Day Three

Lake Gregory

Star Rating:★★★★

★=Full Star ☆=Half Star

Forty-three degrees and no breeze-perfect conditions to try and tow a 23 foot van through a four wheel drive track…..NOT!!!!

We started off the day by playing around at camp, as it was still cool. Before long though the air started to heat up and we were glad to get in the air-conditioned car! We drove for around a hundred kilometres before stopping at a small Community to top up with fuel. About half and hour out of the Community we stopped to have a look at Stretch Lagoon, but we did not have lunch as we knew Lake Gregory was only 80 kilometres away. What we didn’t know was that it was going to take us three whole hours to get there! Halfway through the track we were all starving so we jumped in the van and made lunch. When we finally got to Lake Gregory, we realised that the campground was 3 km from the water so we decided to wait till later before setting up (so we could drive down to the lake and set up on the track). In the meantime, we waited up the campground and did some schoolwork.

That afternoon Mum and I walked down to the lake whilst the boys drove down, we set up then watched a beautiful sunset over the lake.

The beautiful sunset (and an interesting, but potentially painful, bindi bush)!👇

When we were leaving we saw heaps of brolgas in the trees and on the ground. They were beautiful! 

Day Four

Quartz Ridge

Star Rating:★★★★

★=Full Star ☆=Half Star

After a beautiful morning at Lake Gregory, we hit the road. After around two hours we crossed the border to NT-we almost missed it as it was a sign on the side of the road made with bottles! We stopped for lunch at a nice roadside stop there was lots of shade, so we stayed there for an hour or so. That night we stopped on top of a rocky ridge, it was beautiful.

At the Western Australia and Northern Territory border.👇

Instead of welcome, we were saying goodbye to WA

Watching the sunset on the ridge.

Day Five

Roadside Stop

Star Rating:★★★☆

★=Full Star ☆=Half Star

Our morning at Quartz Ridge was beautiful, but once it got windy we packed up pretty quick. The day was mostly spent driving but we stopped at some ruins for lunch. That afternoon we stopped at a roadside stop (where we were camping) and there was lots of paddy melons. Jackson and I collected some and played a game of bocce with them!!!

Playing our game of bocce.

The stars were beautiful!