Heather highway…..gunbarrell highway

Hello Ken,
We did the who the whole Gunbarrel last year, a group of just two, a Defender 110 and an 80 series both towing camper trailers.
As you would expect there are plenty of corrugations the worst being those on the Heather Hwy on the last section heading on to the Gunbarrell. On the Gunbarrel there were often a couple of tracks so the corrugations were generally less severe.
As a suggestion an overnight camp at Mt Beadell is better than one at Camp Beadell, and I would try hard to spend time, if not camp around Mungilli Claypan.
As you get closer to Carnegie the road becomes a dirt super highway, there was a lot of roadwork being undertaken last August.
Hope you have a great trip, as always the normal caveats apply, lower tyre pressure and lower speed etc.
Rgds,
Rob

I drove over both of them a couple of years ago in a standard Hilux without any trouble at all. The car was 200 kg under GVM. There are lots of washouts and corrugations but the worst of them usually have diversions around them. Of course a lot of the diversions are also corrugated and even have more diversions around them.

How easy or difficult you find them is entirely up to you. I live near the Great Dividing Range and after many years of roaming around the deserts, I have yet to find a desert road/track that has a rougher surface than most of the mountain tracks I regularly drive on. It is easy to spend half the day crawling in low range. I never even think about time schedules on those tracks. I take as long as it takes and drive as slow as is necessary and I have never had any mechanical problems.

If you are prepared to do the same on the Heather and Gunbarrel, you will have a ball and won’t break anything. If you push the cars along trying to keep to a tight holiday schedule then anything can happen. Even a roll over is a distinct possibility if you try “ floating” over corrugations at high speeds.

Hi ken,
We travelled the exact way you are going last September. We have a 100 series landcruiser towing an Aussie swag off road camper trailer. We camped at Warakurna, camp Beadell, Geraldton bore, and Carnegie station, all were fantastic , corrugations are bad but lower your tyre pressure and take it slowly, and enjoy retracing Len Beadell's footsteps. Have fun and travel safe.
Cheers Judy and Laurie
( contact us if you have more questions)