Thursday, Oct 23, 2014 at 23:46
Hi Judith
Welcome to the NT ! We live out here in
Alice Springs and just got back from a 5 day trip that took us out to the "Sandy Blight road" that goes between
Kintore NT to the
great central road in WA. Right now its too hot to be travelling those roads, we had 40c out in the bush, I had hoped the cool spell from last week might have kept the temps down....was not to be.
I would strongly recommend thinking about travel in April-May as thats a very nice time and then think about quitting around September.
Down here in the Alice you dont have to worry too much about rain, tends to be stuff you get in the north :-)
We traveled on our own with a swag, we do it fairly modestly, a little advice if I could
1) Keep a sense of humor no matter how crappy things get. We helped a fellow on the
great central road dig under his rear axle to get my jack in to change a tyre because he'd built drawers into the back of his car and forgot the jack was under the floor :-)
2) Take lots of water incase....We had out 20L water container burst within the first 300KM...I had to remember point 1 !!! I managed to save 5L into another container, the other 15L went "somewhere" into the back of the car :-) Take smaller containers, not cheap ones, get something as thick as petrol containers for water, you dont want a lake in the back of your car :-)
3) Take a 2nd spare...If you have odd tyre sizes, take an extra carcass... We were in Warakuna (
Giles Weather station) and a guy rocked up with his sexy Land Rover Discovery with 19" tyres...with a dirty big hole in one....guess what, 19" at Giles, I dont think so :-)
There are lots more pearls of wisdom, dont worry we've been doing this for years and had to laugh when our water container burst, the ARB tyre plug kit had dried out plugs (when we tried to help a chap), we left the salt n pepper shaker at
home and I burnt the bottoms of my feet when getting out ontop of a
sand dune ! without shoes :-)
Remember, its supposed to be fun.....sometimes you need to laugh at yourself :-)
AnswerID:
540760
Follow Up By: Judith C1 - Friday, Oct 24, 2014 at 08:18
Friday, Oct 24, 2014 at 08:18
Good morning Sandman,
thanks for the tips and the laughs. I am sure we will come back with plenty of stories, as this is will be our first trip to N.T., so looking forward to it. The time is going so slow. I am sure we will have a great time with plenty of laughs. Not as worried now as I am sure that if we run into problems there will be plenty of nice people like yourself on the road to help us out.
We will be travelling with a new camper trailer, we pick it up in a few weeks and will be doing a few short trips to get the hang of it and work out what we need to take. I am sure we will take way too much stuff.
I was thinking we would have to pack enough food for our whole trip but going by what we have heard there is plenty of opportunities along the road to stock up.
Kind regards Judee :)
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Follow Up By: Sandman - Friday, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:26
Friday, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:26
Judee
And there is your first learning, take less than more, trust me it doesnt hurt :-) ....
As you've said, buy food along the way, the locals would love your business. Yes its more expensive but not ridiculous. Some stuff you take from
home but fresh stuff, dont stress, you can buy it in most Indigenous communities if you need to...
And thats another point, dont shy away from communities, while some look like war zones, stop and have a look, at least buy an icecream, sit out front and watch the world go buy. Besides
Yuendumu out on the Tanami, almost all other remote communities are pretty good
places !
Everyone will stop and help, a great sense of community spirit out here.
Pete
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Follow Up By: Judith C1 - Friday, Oct 24, 2014 at 12:00
Friday, Oct 24, 2014 at 12:00
Thanks Pete.
I am blown away by how helpful this site and everyone on it has been. Really appreciate it.
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826678