Thread: Some late road updates Qld/SA/NT

Just got back from 3 weeks away on a meet up with mates from SA and a push through from Woomera to Alice Springs adventures.

lots of mud and washouts on Adventure Way to Innamincka - no border checkpoints into SA at Innamincka or Cameron Corner.

The Strezeleckie Track is good throughout most of its length.

The Borefield Track through to Olympic Dam is good and that last 30k into Olympic Dam that loosened your teeth has been turned into a boulevard as the Olympic Dam personnel are now using it a lot more as they expand out that side.

The Oodnadatta Track is better than it has been on my previous trips and is being graded either side of William Ck.

Nothing has changed on the tracks in and out of Dalhousie and Mt Dare ...still Australia's worst roads and currently has been cut up quite badly by 4wds following rains. Police Checkpoints here.

We travelled the Old Andadoe route to Alice Springs which is ok, just a typical Australian dirt track , some places smooth and I think the property owners do a bit of maintenance.

All the roads around Alice , Uluru , Kings Canyon , Olgas are good , lots of bitumen there.

The 500km from Stuart Highway to Qld Border over the Plenty Highway is an enigma with the first half a boulevard then it transforms into a soul destroying plethora of bulldust smash your suspension holes , washouts unexpected from rain, corrugations that just about break your heart. NT border checkpoint at Tobermorey fuel there at the station before 5pm. The Donohue to Boulia is a mixed bag of short bitumen strips , dirt/corrugations , multiple road work sites.

Diamentina Road down to Birdsville is quite good with some good sites worth breaking your drive to look at.

The Birdsville Developmental Road hasn't had any development on it since last race meeting and is suffering quite badly is still wet in places and every washout/ck has been ****ed by countless caravans doing the double jump as they come in and out , setting up whoopsies on the departure side.

From there on Windorah/Quilpie/Charleville the skinny bitumen rd widens.

If any of you know Windorah as I do , Merv , the old mostly blind guy who owned the servo , sold up , hung around the servo for a while and went to Toowoomba. Kevin the old guy who lived for free in the old lock up opposite the pub and got a free dinner from them every night has died. The pub has now an old couple in "town" as their new beneficiary. The big grumpy police sgt is still there.

The Charleville police are doing checks on vehicles coming into town.

That's all folks , the rest is boulevard bitumen, yawn........

Tell you a funny thing.
I, and a lot of others, are disappointed the Gov'ment sealed most of our roads.
Yes, I can now drive to Cloncurry in 6 smooth hours & we get trucks almost all year around but it has certainly taken the adventure out of life.
In the 90's it could take 2 or more hours to drive the 100k to Burketown in the dry, in the wet just don't go. You would drive to Mt Isa & back & if someone asked how the road was you said James Bond - Shaken, not stirred!
The road just got wider as everyone drove around the ever increasing Bull dust holes & when I first got a GPS it's road was nowhere near the actual road.
We've all gone soft & I don't even need a LR. Except I love her & occasionally I head really bush.
Jonesfam
PS Do I even live in the Outback anymore?
PPS I have never felt like I did.