The Plenty Hwy and Great Central Road in a Subaru Forester

Warwick
Whilst I agree with Bob in most respects the question of communications is one that you will have to clarify. Should you just want to communicate with other road users, and possibly the odd station property, then a good UHF set may suffice working on a usable range of only about 5 to 8 km. Should you wish to contact the outside world in general or for an emergency then a satellite system is essential, as the normal GSM mobile phones will only work around town, or possibly near to a mine site, and therefore will be useless for the majority of your journey.

Also remember that you do require 2 permits to travel the GCR (one form each of WA and NT)

Enjoy your travels.
Athol

I reckon he was fair dinkum. I did the Plenty a few years back and basically averaged around 40 kph for near 800 kms. What a horrible road it was that trip. I was driving in the scrub off the track a lot where others had gone for some corrugation relief.

Pop,

We went over the Plenty in Aug. 2011, and except for a few corrugations near Jervious and Harts Range, they weren't too bad. Ol' mate might have been right about the other two though, flies and dust.



We were slowed down somewhat along the Donohue, as someone had driven along when it was wet and their dried wheel tracks kept us at a sedate speed....well, about 80 clicks. Was going to air down(from 32psi) when we hit the bad corrugations.........didn't find any. :-)

Reckon Warwick won't have any dramas with good tyres, and taking it steady.

Bob

You'll need a few jerry cans of fuel too - unless your forester is a diesel?

Get better tyres.

I owed a forrester for a number of years,as above tyres and pressure.A punture kit,the plug type and have fun.

G'day Pinko, The GCR doesn't cross SA at any stage, did you mean the NT?
Mobile phone (Telstra) works at Yulara, Warakurna, Warburton.
UHF, always use 40 on the road.
It's really not as scary as all that, we've had tourists in Toyota Echo's, corolla's .. you name it.. not reccomended at all, but do able ..

Cheers
Al

Sorry Al
I did mean NT.
Yes mobile works at the roadhouses but nothing in between.
This was my seventh,maybe eighth crossing of the GCR and will be my last until the NT govt maintains their section.
I used to see caravans frequently on the GCR and only saw two this time. That says something.
Warburton camping is great and the grounds are clean and tidy. A credit to the NZ proprietors. Great Fish pies there to.
Bought two paintings there also.
It was a local at Warburton when I was welding that told me to get up on the shoulder on the incorrect side going east from Docker.
I was nursing a damaged suspension and am greatfull for the loan of a welder from a worker at Warburton.
It does not get away from the fact that the confounded NT Govt does not maintain your only road. Fix it and people will come.
Cheers
Stan

Hi Pinko, Couple more issues there. This has actually been our busiest year yet for caravans, hands down. The fact that you only saw 2 comes down to luck.. there could have been several behind you.
And the managers of Warburton aren't from NZ, some of the staff are yes. We live out here all year round, they're our neighbours. ;-)
And yes, getting onto the shoulder can help in certain areas, but not all, you need to read the road and see where the good/bad bits are, which happen on both sides of the road.
There is plans underway to help the NT get thier side of the road fixed up, and will see a lot of work this year.

Cheers
Al

Hi Warwick,
Two of us drove from Perth to Cairns along the route you plan in 2010 Forester diesels with the other guy towing a Pioneer camper trailer. We didn't have any real problems- I got a flat tyre on a recently graded section of the Plenty highway. On a recently sealed section, single lane where you have to pull off onto the shoulder for oncoming vehicles, we both got chipped windscreens.
I was amazed at the amount of road kill considering how sparse the vegetation was in the area.
We met another Forester (XT petrol) in Cairns and we carried on up to Cape York and the XT &I did all of the old telegraph track except for Palm Creek at the very beginning and Nolan's Brook at the very end. The guy towing the camper trailer stuck to the main road.

We all had Geolander AT-S tyres fitted and they seem pretty good as your choices are limited because of the tyre size.
Get a tyre repair kit that has metal handles as the plastic ones can break.
There have been a few threads recently about good compressors, search the forum and you will find them.

I had a sat phone for piece of mind and they can be hired or you could always get a Personal Locator Beacon if you want some cheaper insurance.

Have a look on the Subaru 4WD Club of WA website for details of the trip and OffroadSubarus.com has some useful info as well.

Have fun, its a great drive.

Cheers
David

Warwick, a little planning and preparation you should be fine. Heavier duty tyres would be a sound option.

7-800km will be adequate - biggest distance between fuel stops on the route is about 250-300ks.

I wouldn't bother with a Sat Phone unless $$$ is no option (rarely is). As David said, if you want some peace of mind, a PLB is a good option. At that time of year, there should be plenty of traffic still on the route. Take plenty of water - at least 40 litres.

Standard spares and tools - belts / hoses / repair kits / and some tools above the standard car tool kit - range of spanners / pliers / screwdrivers etc.

Common sense and get the car serviced before you go.

Good advice all round there . . .
The PLB is a good choice for totally pear shaped situations.
Maybe a Sat phone hire is the go ?
(HF not practical IMHO, as you need to be subscribed to a service (?) and costs are pretty high to purchase anyway.)
Get that decent hand held UHF anyway, even for normal travelling, very handy for communicating with trucks / monitoring channels when wanting to overtake etc, or for general road reports they talk about.

Mate got Bridgstone Duellers, though not sure which ones, but they were an LT (light truck) construction . . .
Bridgestone ATs

Probable it was the D693's . . .
Ex Bridgestone stores

Bob Jane

The Foresters in my 4wd club all use Yokohama Geolander A/T-S. There is a deal on at the moment buy 4 pay for 3 any Yokohama tyres at Bob Jane I think. They are a good tyre, done heaps out there with no problems.

We were in the Alice area early June, also in a Forester. Had no problems on the few dirt roads we traveled on.
I purchased a good quality 5W hand held radio that had the ability for its aerial to be unscrewed, as well as a 4.5db, magnetic base, external aerial. I mounted the aerial to the middle of the roof and stuck the cable down with canvas tape. In about 4,500KM, it never budged.
Worked exceptionally well. Highly recommend you do the same.
I liked the idea of the hand held as, if needed, I could take it away from the car and use it as intended - a hand-held. When in the car and attached to the roof aerial, it resided in the cup holder and used its internal battery.
Battery life was about 3 days between charges.

There is an on-line retailer in Perth I used. Good prices, answered Email questions promptly and delivered overnight (to Adelaide), but will deliver Australia wide. Recommended.

Tobermorey has had ULP whenever we've been through in the last few years, last visit was in May this year. Also Gemtree has ULP.

Cheers,
John

Although we aren't doing the Plenty and can't comment on it, I agree with most of The Landy's comments.

We just arrived at Yulara yesterday up the GCR in our '07 Forester X manual. Road is not a problem if you heed the universal advice and drive to the conditions. We probably averaged 90kph on most and about 70kph on the rough stuff and the loose pindan around Docker River, using standard (but new) Yokohama ROAD tyres. Not towing anything, fuel consumption figures so far are better than 9L/100 at each fillup.

Fuel is not a problem on that stretch, about 330k is the longest gap between fuel stops and for instance we didn't even bother to fuel up at Warburton. The Plenty may well be a different story ...

Vehicle mods? We have an Engel mounted where the back seat would go, a second (AGM) battery under the passenger seat, and a Redarc DC-DC charger. I have installed a custom swing-down rear wheel carrier for a second spare rather than fit roofracks etc. Didn't bother with roo/nudge bars or sump guards. Again, if you are just transiting the roads you mentioned AND drive to conditions, I don't believe a sump guard is warranted.

As our cellphones are on Optus (translates as "bugger-all cover in remote areas", e.g. nothing between Yulara and Kalgoorlie) I felt we needed something. Although I have UHF-CB's at home and HF as well, I didn't bother with them and simply hired a satphone. That works even in the (large) gaps between Telstra cell-sites. A GPS navigator may be of use at times, not so much for navigation but so you can see where you are. Assuming you have cellphones, I would strongly recommend to anyone a free app ULMON CityMaps2Go. This offers downloadable maps for all states and capitals etc which are then usable off-line and outside cellphone coverage, only requiring the phone's GPS to show your location.

Enjoy the trip!

Peter

fewster - my very first post was:

"Should be fine as long as you take it easy and pay attention to road conditions and weather reports."

Hi Scott
And I agreed that a Forester driven carefully should be able to do it, if the weather is OK. My concern was that no one had adequately discussed just what happens along that road when it rains. It doesn't take much and it stays nasty for some time. I have been through in the Landcruiser about a fortnight after moderate rain in September, not the real heavy stuff. I got through OK but I wouldn't have wanted to do it in my Suby Outback.
I have never driven the Great Central Rd so I can only talk about the Plenty.

I was on a track out in the middle last year and it was only spitting rain. The mud on the surface, barely wet, flicked up, stuck to the wheel arches and set solid like concrete stopping the wheels from rotating within 5 kms. I had to hack it out by hand...that wasn't fun. It was a trap I wasn't expecting with so little rain.

Thanks guys - point taken about any rain. Will definitely be keeping a close eye on the weather and always have the option to go a bit further north to Mt Isa if needed. The plan is to just take it easy and avoid any unneccesary risks.

Again thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to help out - its my first post on here and it looks like a fantastic community!

Will post some pics from the trip when we get back!

Cheers

That should read 'you can't get an LT AT in that size'.