Great Central
Highway Vegetation


One of many Burnt Out
Cars on Great Central Highway


Fueling Up In Desert

Wild Flowers
Great Central Highway


Albert from Germany Stranded 90km's into his Desert Crossing at Cosmo Newberry Aboriginal Reserve


Another Van a little
worst off for the trip

The first 60 km's of the track was very good going and then there was a dramatic change in the road conditions with severe corrugations that slowed us to a crawl of about 15 - 20 km's per hour.

We reached the first Aboriginal Reserve at Docker River late in the afternoon of our second day from Alice Springs. We had a look around, took a couple of photo's and then on we went to reach the Warakurna Roadhouse which is near the Giles Meteorological Station where we stayed for our second night. You can buy fuel there.

Some sixteen kilometers from Warakurna Roadhouse traveling west you pass the turn off to the Old Gunbarrel Highway. We continued onto Warburton Aboriginal Reserve, we were advised not to stop there as there had been some disruption in their community and considered not safe to stay in the area.

Tjukayirla roadhouse was our next stop where we stayed the third night. The roadhouse is managed by a husband and wife team of  Andrew & Susan and is owned by an Aboriginal community some 500 plus km's away. Before coming to manage this roadhouse they managed one on the Tanimi Track and was telling us the hottest temperature they experienced whilst there was 56 degrees. We would encourage anyone who wished to stay at Tjukayirla to do so, you will find Andrew & Susan very friendly and nothing was a trouble to them to cater to your needs. You can also buy fuel there.

Our next Aboriginal community we came across was Cosmo Newberry which was only a small gathering of houses. You could buy fuel there. After we drove around Cosmo Newberry we were heading off on our last leg to Laverton when we came across a German tourist wheeling his bike. He was riding his bike across the Desert but cracked his wheel near the Cosmo Newberry turn off. Albert was stranded with a cracked rim on his bike and he had only traveled 90 km's since leaving Laverton. We helped Albert unload his bikes bags and loaded his bike and bags into the caravan and took him back to Laverton where he started from at 4:30am that morning. The corrugations had taken an early toll on his bike.

Cheap Signage

Another Roadhouse Sign


Another Van that
did not make it

Wild Camel Great
Central Highway

Wild Flowers
Great Central Highway

Wild Flowers
Great Central Highway

We feel we came across a wrecked car about every 5 - 10 km's, mostly falcons with the odd commodore.

After reaching Laverton named after Dr Charles Laver and at the end of our desert crossing we refueled and headed off to Leonora. Leonora is about 100km's further west of Laverton. John Forrest's party camped near and named Mt Leonora in 1869 during his search for the lost leichardt expedition. We decided it would be nice to camp the night near some water so off we set to Niagara dam. We reached there about 8:30pm and set up camp for the night. The next morning it was nice to see a dam with water in it.

After leaving Niagra dam it was off to Kalgoorlie. We stayed at Kalgoorlie doing all the touristy things like visiting the Super Pit Gold Mine viewing area a few times, the Boulder Town Hall which was built in 1908, the Super Pit Shop, a working brothel "Questa Casa", museum and "The Little Boulder Sweet Shop" which not only has a great selection of sweets from around the world but you can still buy the original recipe coca cola when the owner can obtain supplies.

I asked Helen what she learnt from the Madam at the brothel and she answered nothing, I am not sure what she meant with that answer, maybe she new it all. We stocked up with food and fuel again before leaving there on Sunday the 5th November again heading towards Perth. As we traveled down the highway we traveled along side the longest freshwater pipeline in the world. The pipe carries fresh water pumped from Perth to Kalgoorlie. We stayed on the side of the road at a shire gravel dump point at Kellerberrin. The next morning we set off to Northam a town of about 7000 people and is the business hub of the surrounding areas, catering for just about everything the locals require. After having a good look around Northam we set off to York and visited the Automobile Museum which had a great array of vehicles on display and whilst at York we visited the JAH ROC galleries where they manufacture top quality furniture using a lot of Jarrah timber.

Alan & Helen's Links