Monday 27 June 2022
Today was not as cold as we were expecting. A low of 4.5° overnight. Not too bad. It was a bit windy so made it feel a little colder. We headed off from Arltunga at about 9.15am with a long drive ahead of us, 860km of unknown dirt road to travel over the next couple of days. The countryside is amazing and the East Macdonnell Ranges are as beautiful as the west. David loves this type of driving, the challenge of getting to our destination as quickly as possible whilst driving safely and smoothly as we both enjoy the ever changing scenery. From smooth track to heavy duty rocks with the potential of damage to our tyres at any time. Lucky me just gets to enjoy the view and DB arrives at our destination exhausted from the concentration involved in driving along the mostly deserted Binns track. We have been dealt an added challenge, the weather man forecasts rain in a couple of days. Hopefully it doesn’t come early as we may get stuck for a few days. Fingers crossed. Most of the drive is on dirt roads so we don’t know how far we will get today. The scenery was spectacular. We left Arltunga with the East MacDonnell ranges in our sights and we drove for a long while enjoying their beauty. The vegetation and road terrain was changeable all day. We live in such an amazing country. As we got closer to the Plenty Highway we approached the Harts Range and had that in our sights for a long while. We drove through stations, aboriginal land, the ranges and plains. Once we finally turned on to the Plenty Highway we started to head east. Over a little bit of bitumen but mostly dirt we continued for hours. The dirt was good most of the way, not as tricky as the Binns Track from this morning where it took a couple of hours to travel 100km. Anyway, it was a most enjoyable drive and we eventually covered over 500km and are within 10km of the Queensland border tonight. We will make it into QLD tomorrow.
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I woke next to saomeone from the Where’s Wally movie this morning. He was prepared for a sub zero night which wasn’t forthcoming. Lucky us..
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As we left Arltunga the road was narrow and dirt but not too bad..
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..it quickly changed to heavily rutted track..
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..we then enjoyed a little bitumen, although still quite narrow. Make sure you enjoy the scenery and vegetation changes in the pics as well.
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One of many gates I was to open today. The passengers duty.
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Look at the amazing clouds as we join the 4WD only track.
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..the grass was so light in colour along this stretch with the east MacDonnell Ranges in view..
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..the cows also enjoy the wonderful views of the ranges..
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..as we head towards a dry river crossing as always the area is abundant with trees..
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Hayes Station along the way..
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The last of the East MacDonnell ranges..
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The road is still quite narrow and we have been going for over an hour..
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..it is very dry now but apparently we are driving through floodplains..
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As the Harts Range come in to view..
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..and we head on to Aboriginal land..
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..the countryside is still amazing as we are almost to the Plenty Highway. We have only passed one car travelling in the opposite direction on the Binns Track this morning…
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The start of our travelling east on the Plenty Hwy – the usual single lane of bitumen, and roadworks..
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..Roadworks – on the unlined new wide bitumen road we travel slowly at 60kmh speed limit..
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..once we leave the new bitumen and head on single lane road we are now allowed to drive at 110kmh..
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..as the single lane road continues..
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..for a short while we have 2 lanes.
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At 10.51am David is breath tested at Hart on the Plentry Hwy. We are their 2nd victim today. There is not much traffic here.
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..the Plenty Hwy soon changes back to dirt but is about 4 lanes wide..
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..we had some cows to negotiate, this one didn’t trust David’s diving skills.
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This was the section I got to drive, beside the new roadworks on a narrow dirt road. Made for a lot slower going, only60kmh.
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A large termite mound along the way..
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I still love the scenery as we continue our long drive today..
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120km to the Queensland Border..
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Our first signs with directions to somewhere in QLD..
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This was amazing, unfortunately you will barely notice what we saw. On the side of the road is some kangaroo roadkill with about 5 enormous wedgetail eagles taking off from, their feast as we get close to them. It was the most magnificent sight. We have never ever seen more than one eagle before, they usually scare any other birds away from their meal.
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Our camp tonight at Tobermorey Station, NT..
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Their rustic bar.
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We had to head west before we headed north east. Over 500km today.