Great central road

Billsam, yes you can, just drive to the conditions. I drove Laverton to Yulara in October.

Main issue is rocks and the peppering the underside of the van is going to get. Of course dust so try and make sure you have sealed any holes and entry points under the van. Take off the lower outside fridge vent and wrap it with a some cling wrap before re-fitting.

I fitted a 12mm thick piece of foam again wrapped in cling wrap between the door vent and fly door. This worked vey well.

Consider protecting the rear of the tow vehicle as well as the van. I had a stone stomper which I highly recomend. A friend of mine had a very expensive respray job to the rear of his cruiser after doing the great central with no stone guards.

Allow 3 days, and I would recomend purchasing a copy of the Outback way.

All the best.

Be a good idea to carry a spare spring an U/Bolts .
whilst we were out in the Simpson in june ,we heard a call on the HF to the
operator for assistance to a broken down very big C/van on the Anne Beadell for
recovery as it had broken a spring an unable to continue .
huge recovery cost
cheers mechpete

Couple of pics for you. Condition will vary according to when the graders went through, and the NT section is pretty corrugated.

Cheers,

Val

Bill, from my experience, the 200km from Docker to Yulara are generally the worst. As John and Val have said above, it will vary greatly depending on the maintenance occurring.

My recommendation would be a good tyre monitoring system for the van and tug to keep you well abreast of a leaky tyre. Early warning of an emerging situation can save you a lot of worry down the track.

Cheers

Mick

"Can you take a normal leaf spring caravan along road or do you a full off road van"?

I take our "normal leaf spring" OKA where "full off road vans" don't go.
It is not the 'type' of suspension that is important, but how well it is built and how fast you drive.
Anything can make it OK if treated with respect and anything can be broken.
Good shockers are strongly recommended.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome.

Something worth checking with "cheap" suspensions is that the pins are not 'frozen' in the bushes and that they are getting proper lubrication.

I had a pin freeze in a bush on this 'borrowed' boat trailer which resulted in the hanger eventually cutting through the pin half way between Alice Springs and Marble Bar.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Billsam - You will need a minimum ground clearance of 180mm for the GCR or the underside will be regularly hitting rocks in the centre windrow.

The corrugations are pretty constant, make sure everything is well secured.
I went through the GCR in October (East to West) and I found plenty of stuff that had fallen off vehicles.
My set of wheels was just a 2WD, 2004 model, bog-standard Hilux, and I encountered no problems.
I found the section from Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) to Docker River was in pretty reasonable condition and it got better as I headed West, because the graders had been maintaining the road, starting well East of Docker River and working back towards Docker.

Here's some pics of my trip. I wasn't holidaying or hanging around, I went to Alice and had to get back to Perth pronto.

Cheers, Ron.

Road trip - Tjukaruru Rd - GCR (you can adjust the photo size by clicking on the selections at the bottom of the pic)

While it does depend of when graders went through billsam, you can always expect bad sections. I would not risk taking a normal caravan all that way, but this can depend on the quality and durability of the construction.

If you do have a breakage, costs are extreme out there.

As others have said, the "flotsam" on the road is a testament of how it damages vehicles.

If you still decide to go, heed the advice given on tyre pressure and drive much slower while using low pressures. Every time you stop check your rig inside and out and check anything that can come unscrewed.

Thanks for all the advice
Hope to go in May

I used to work at a Minesite about a year ago at the start of the great central rd, seen heaps of leaf spring vans coming of it. My advice would be to call Laverton Shire and see if they can give you an update. The road is graded from time to time. I have travelled the road 3 times in the past 20 years without a trailer with no problems. My suggestion is to make sure you have a couple of spare tyres at the minimum.