Way into the WA wilderness

[JohnM]

No flying in this trip (well, I might occasionally get airborne over some sand dunes…) but it may be of interest to some.

Tomorrow morning I’m off on a three-week expedition along the Canning Stock Route (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning_Stock_Route). This is a heavy-duty 4WD tag-along trip of around 2000km from Wiluna to Halls Creek. It’s generally recognised as Australia’s most iconic 4WD expedition.

All-up, I’m allowing five weeks for the trip to provide for a couple of shakedown days to get to the Wiluna start point and for some leisurely driving back to Perth via sights in the Kimberley and Pilbara.



There certainly won’t be any live reporting on the CSR itself. There’s no communication other than radio and satphone out there!

I’ve chosen to get to the Wiluna start over two days via a couple of places I’ve not previously visited. Rowles Lagoon Conservation Park is the only freshwater wetland reserved for nature conservation in the WA Goldfields, while Lake Ballard (Antony Gormley’s “Inside Australia†- Lake Ballard) is famous for an array of 51 statues. It’s been on my to-do list for a while.

(From Wikipedia: In 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Perth International Arts Festival the Inside Australia exhibition was commissioned. The artist and Turner Prize winner Antony Gormley installed 51 sculptures over an area of 10 square kilometres on the bed of the lake. The statues were to be removed after the festival but remain as a tourist exhibition.)

The map gives an idea of the route to Wiluna but I’ll be taking some back roads from Rowles Lagoon to Lake Ballard and beyond to Wiluna that Google Maps won’t easily plot. After that, it’s into the wilderness!

The return route to Perth from Halls Creek will be as whims take me.



The vehicle. Legendary landcruiser ‘Troopy’. V8TD, 2x90L fuel tanks, plus 60L fuel on the roof, 80L water. Once on the CSR, fuel is only available at Kunawarritji.

No place for wussy toy pretend 4WDs or posey Toorak Tractors on this little excursion!



I’ll continue the TR once I’m home in early August.

 

[JessicaTam]

I shall await your TR and return with interest.

Is that a roof-top tent you have there?

I have a friend who works at Denham if your fancy takes you along the coast on the way home.

 

[Daver6]

What? Not taking the Audi?

 

[Bindibuys]

So, I don't need a boarding pass for this TR?

 

[JohnM]

I shall await your TR and return with interest.

Is that a roof-top tent you have there?

I have a friend who works at Denham if your fancy takes you along the coast on the way home.

Yes, it is a roof-top tent Jess. I may call into Shark Bay on the way back, although I've been there plenty of times before.

 

[JohnM]

What? Not taking the Audi?

Nah - thought I'd give it a rest .

 

[JessicaTam]

Yes, it is a roof-top tent Jess. I may call into Shark Bay on the way back, although I've been there plenty of times before.

Hmm, come to think of it I will be there for the first week in August. Our paths may just cross.

 

[RooFlyer]

Good set of wheels. I guess the snorkel is in case of getting bogged (very deeply!) in sand?

Make sure the tyres will come off if you get a flat

 

[love_the_life]

Looking forward to reading about the adventure. I've been to Halls Creek and environs for work but missed out on most of the Canning stock route communities even though we used to deal with them.

 

[casanovawa]

Was just looking the other day at driving from Broome to Perth down via Karajini/Coral Bay, never done much driving or travelling in the interior of WA, but alas i don't think i have enough holidays with all the rest of the leave i've either taken or thinking of taking this year... Perhaps next year?? Or the one after...

Oh to be a bit semi retired eh...

 

[cove]

OK buckle up JohnM.

 

[Simo]

Looking forward to reading your complete review... Have a great trip and stay safe

 

[Major]

Good to see you have 2 spare tyres. A lot of people get into trouble with only 1

 

[JohnM]

OK, I'm back home after a sensational trip.

7564km covered, which includes roughly 2000km on the Canning Stock Route (CSR - which we ended up dubbing C-c-c-c-c-c-c-corrugations, Sand and Rocks ):

View attachment 103411

Basically, the vehicle was put into 4WD just N of Wiluna and taken out of 4WD just S of Halls Creek three weeks later, although there were some smooth sections of track such as dry lake beds.

While the CSR is generally not highly technical or unduly difficult 4WDriving, it is an unforgiving route. As the tag-along tour leader - a 12+ CSR trip veteran - pointed out, it requires the most preparation of any 4WD trip in Australia. The sheer isolation means that salvage of machine or man is a fraught and costly exercise (as events this weekend by a person described in the media as a '4WD enthusiast' (which seems hard to believe based on the reports of his rescue that have just come in) have shown - and they were not doing the whole CSR - only crossing it).

There are quite a few vehicle wrecks, some quite recent, out there that confirm there's not much chance of going back if things go bad.

Three weeks sounds like a long time to spend to cover 2000km, but I think it would be foolish - not to mention a bit pointless - to do it in much less time. We had two occasions where we spent two successive nights in one place; all others were one night. Distance covered each day ranged from 60-135km. It doesn't sound like much, but the days were full without either dawdling or rushing.

The day's routine was: ready by 0800h, short briefing and then on the road by about 0815h, a stop at each well for a description of its history and original technical aspects (eg. water flow, quality, depth, refurbishment) or other points of interest, morning tea, lunch, a firewood collection stop (often, through necessity, well before our designated stop) and then to be setting up camp around 1530-1700h. The days were obviously short at this time of the year, so we didn't want to be setting up camp too late. It also gave time for vehicle checks (tighten wheel nuts, battery cradles and (very importantly) roof racks) or repairs, rather than lose time in the morning.

It has been a great season out there. Good rains about 10-12 weeks ago had the country dried out but just at peak flowering in the plant life. Getting bogged in mud was thankfully not an issue (although there were still some soft spots in lake beds that had the potential to cause grief if straying off the track).

And a track the CSR is. None of it is a graded road. It is single-lane all the way, often with vegetation closing in tightly to the vehicle on each side.

Going with an experienced leader was well worth it IMO. The best places to camp were worked out, making sure we had firewood (too late if the camp area is some distance from a source of suitable wood), some less-than-obvious sights were revealed and the leader knew how to gather intel from other travellers we came across about conditions ahead. As we moved N, there were very few refurbished wells as sources of usable water, so we had good guidance on when to top up water containers. On occasions, we could source no potable water for up to three days.

Going in a group was also good for the backup of 4WD experience, mechanical knowledge and spares (eg. I blew a fuse on my auxilliary power and just the one type I didn't have, someone else did, while I was able to give someone else a spare tube that I had). Plus the company was good. If there was any downside, it was the inability to stop at things of particular individual interest (but calling a stop over the radio for a quick photo was acceptable).

A volunteer organisation called Trackcare is progressively refurbishing wells and installing simple toilets. This occurs more in the S, probably because it's more accessible and generally has more consistently good water. It is a slow and costly process - and of course part of the charm is not to make the CSR so facilitated as to be overrun - especially by amateurs. Unfortunately there are some people going on the track that don't have any idea of camping etiquette and sensible procedures for ensuring no litter from toilet paper in particular.

It is inadvisable to take a trailer (our leader would not accept trailers). In any event, they are not permitted on the southern section (although whether some people ignore that I do not know - there's nobody out there to enforce things). We saw one group endeavoring to repair a badly broken trailer suspension, plus abandoned trailers.

The most common vehicles spotted were, as one might expect, Toyota Landcruisers in various guises and HiLux utes. Troopys like I was using are basic and simple, which is no bad thing out there, although mine did have an aftermarket suspension driver's seat which was a very good modification to have! I did hear of one brave soul who had taken a Range Rover but lasted only about two days out of Halls Creek before the snazzy suspension blew up.

A (manual) Prado in our group performed extremely well. The two non-Toyotas were an Isuzu D-Max and a Holden Colorado. On the second last day the Isuzu blew the front left CV joint casing and the axle disconnected at the wheel. The experienced mechanical types soon had a couple of jacks under it, a series of bolts loosened and the axle reconnected, for the vehicle to limp into Halls Creek in 2WD. One of the guys said he'd seen the same thing before and believes that it may be a design limitation.

The biggest punisher of vehicles out there is the corrugations. Our leader had a thermal measurement gun for checking shock absorbers after punishing corrugated sections. We did get temperatures up to 120deg C (including my front ones) at times, but no failures. Prudence is the byword out there.

Of ten vehicles, we had 6 punctured tyres. Three were fatter radials that were wrecked with sidewall damage. The two Troopys had narrow tyres on splitrims, which although tubeless, were fitted with tubes. The advantage is toughness and field repairability; the disadvantage is that dirt tends to get around the valve stem and abrade the tube causing slow leaks. The other folks had two of those failures; I had one very late in the piece.

That was a rather lengthy summary for those who may have an interest. I'll follow with a more general picture-dominated TR. Even though it is likely to result in some duplication in types of things covered, for which I apologise in advance, I intend to work through each successive day as the simplest way for me to handle the TR. I took a lot of photos - many through the windscreen while rocking and bumping so trying to go through the whole lot to pick the best representatives is too much.

The succession may in its own way carry with it the sense of change in landscape and vegetation as we moved N on the CSR - and as I moved S returning home on proper roads further west.

 

[JohnM]

Hmmmn, why didn't the pic show.

Try again.

 

[RooFlyer]

Sniff ... punctures and shockies and 'thermal measurement guns' are all very well, but I'm looking forward to the libation reports at each stop. The corrugations must have been horrid for unsettling the reds.

 

[Steady]

Sounds like something I would love to do one day, when were tubeless split rims invented

 

[JohnM]

Sounds like something I would love to do one day, when were tubeless split rims invented

Oops - the tyres were rated as 'tubeless' but they were on splitrims, so the tube was obviously needed.

 

[love_the_life]

Tagging along, as they say
That's some Sunday drive there JM.

 

[drron]

And on cue in today's papers-
Missing man Anthony Collis found dehydrated but alive after days lost in remote WA

Travelling the CSR.