Yowie Bay to Alice Springs

We finally left home at 11.30am, after planning our getaway at 10am! But we had to go via Wunda to get those last few important forgotten items. Then of course back home for a few more items.  Packing for over 3 months away & covering winter, summer, free camping dirt roads and whatever else is thrown at us during this time is a difficult task.

On our way to Bathurst we stopped by a weight-station to check our weights, since the upgrades to the Cruiser and van we now have a Gross Combined towing Mass (GCM) of 7.8 tonnes.

We passed with a few kgs to spare!

Bailey is really excited to get in the car every morning. He gets a great sleep!

We camped half way between Bathurst and Orange at Macquarie Woods Forestry Reserve Campground (Recreation Area) which is a really good free camp. A very large open area, so big it could never be filled. Overnight it got to -2ᵒ C. The diesel heater got a real workout I can tell you. The new one is just brilliant, set the temperature and forget it. Keeps the van toasty warm all night.

Macquarie Woods Forestry Reserve 

We filled up at the Metro Petroleum station in Wellington, were we managed to get a tank full of bad fuel. This caused the Cruiser to not start the next two days, despite having the fuel filter replaced that day before we filled up at the Metro. This is the first time ever that the Cruiser has given us any grief. Mechanically it hasn't ever faulted.

Broken Hill

We booked ourselves into the Broken Hill Tourist Park, to find they had double booked our site so we had nowhere to stay. They offered us an exclusive grassed area at the back of their Motel across the road, it was roomy, had water and power, toilet and shower were a small distance away but OK.

We had the only grassy camp site in all of Broken Hill so it was all good.

We had this whole area to ourselves

The Cruiser went to Toyota in BH and had the fuel lines flushed and yet another new fuel filter put in. Seeing the last one had done less than 1,000kms it was really grotty, with dirt just floating around in the fuel.

Once this was done, magically the starting issues went away and we got our reliable Cruiser back.

Lake Hart (salt lake) Rest Area for morning tea

Desert Oaks Rest Area, just south of Alice Springs

Desert Oaks Rest Area

About 70kms south of Alice Springs you have the Mt Polhill Rest Area. This Rest Area advertised mobile reception, yeah sure I thought. When we stopped we of course had no mobile reception, but there was this funny looking structure at the end of the Rest Area.

Sure enough, you rest your phone on the stand and you get full reception! Quite amazing 

We left Yowie Bay 7 nights ago, and only paid for camping the two nights we were in Broken Hill. I'm getting very disappointed with the value that Caravan Parks don't give. Typically they are too small, too old and not clean enough. To say nothing about the noise in them. Free camping is just better, not because it's free.

Tomorrow (30th August) we head off on our adventure along the Gary Junction Road, from Alice Springs (Papunyao) to Marble Bar. Our route along the Gary Junction Road will be 1,184kms of outback unsealed road built by Len Beadell in the 1960s as part of a network of roads for the Weapons Research.

As you can see the Gary Junction Road isn't shown on this map

So here's a more detailed map showing the GJR

From Well 33 we'll be following the Telfer Road which belongs to the Telfer Mine. Should be an interesting drive.

We've allowed 5 days to do the GJR plus 3 days at Carawine Gorge, which is before Marble Bar. I doubt we'll take anywhere near this time to do this, but that's what we've allowed.