Pat Callinan's 4x4 Adventures filming blog 14- Canning Stock Route Wrap(Mrs 4x4)

Hello everybody ! We made it !!!!!!!

We have emerged from the Canning Stock Route with a swag of memories, a tonne of dust and plenty of opportunites for self development taken. The driving itself wasn't that hard but the heat and the distance found us stretched at times. For those who aren't familiar with the Canning Stock Route, it is a 4WD track travelling roughly through the centre of WA. We travelled South to North from Wiluna to Billaluna before we turned right and headed acorss the Tanami into Alice Springs. It has a remarkable history dating back to the late 1800's when people started to try and find a way through the desert. In a nutshell - Aust needed to get cattle from the Kimberley to the southern goldfields with out ticks - enter a surveyor named Alfred Canning who found a way and went back with a team of men to sink wells every 20kms or so to water the stock. Once it was done there was lots of conflict between the aboriginals and the stockmen - lots of people died and not that many cattle made the trip in the end. Now the track remains as a 4wd challenge to good to resist.

We were on the route for 20 days and in that time passed just 5 other groups of travellers. Without exception they were all having an absolute blast. There are no facilities on the Canning apart from a couple of small aboriginal communities. Here's my take on the Canning experience:

Do the Canning when:
You cross the Simpson desert East West and then back again because the first run was to short for you.
You can really cope without running water, I mean really cope.
You have a super capable car, a sat phone and friends with the same set up.

Don't do the Canning if:
It's Summer
Your marriage is in anyway shakey
You are not emotionally sound

In a nutshell doing the Canning is not unlike childbirth. It takes a lot of planning, the unknown can be a little scary, parts of it can be really painful but it is SO worth it, the bad parts are soon forgotten and you'll probably go back again.

For the first 10 days or so we averaged around 50kms a day before uping the pace a little for the Northern end of the track. We were up and about by 5:30am most mornings with camp broken around 8:30 depending on filming schedule and school work. It was to hot for school work after 10am so school days saw us at the table around 7am. We would try and camp near wells with water when possible. We'd bucket the well water for washing us and dishes. When we were lucky enough to score good drinking water we'd fill the jerry cans and make them last to the next good well.

A highlight was the Calvert Ranges. I am a big fan of the red centre and didn't think WA would compare, so I was surprised by how beautiful it was. Much like NT but the extreme remoteness of the location added an extra dimension to the beauty. We had the place totally to ourselves - I mean totally. We would go days without seeing another person. They don't have the info signs and fences that you get over East - again, in my view adding to the experience. We stopped at Durba Springs and found amazing Aborginal rock art. It's really hard to explain to you what it was like in such a short space - leave it till I see you in person I guess.

The food we ate was awesome - good on you Duncan. Even with the "pine nuts". (pine nuts is code speak for beetles, little fellas were all over us every night, didn't bother you to much after the first few nights). The fridges made life so easy for us. As the food supplies went down we could start putting the water in the fridge and believe me it needed to go in the fridge. Some of the well water was disgusting, not to mention hot ! I'll be taking buckets of cordial next time to try and make it go down a little easier.

Cheers for now

Kaz

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