Friday, Oct 07, 2022 at 14:30
Hi Dunc; good to see you're still kicking around too...
I'm sure you already know this but for the benefit of others I'll expand a bit. Generally speaking the WA section (900 kays'ish) of the GCR is mainly in moderate to good condition, with poor sections being reasonably short.
But the NT section (200 kay'ish), by reputation, can be horrendous. And so it was for us in Aug 2015. We had arrived in
Yulara after a Simpson crossing and went to the local workshop to borrow a trolley jack to do a wheel change. We noted that their large yard was absolutely chockers with damaged vehicles. On inquiry one of the mechanics told us that most were recent arrivals having been trucked out of the NT section due to damage by corrugation.
Anyway, we decided to press on (we had a permit to go down from Docker to Surveyor General's Corner and then west via the communities road back to the GCR). However, we only made it 5 kays on to the GCR before we gave up. We had never experienced a dirt road as bad as this was. We heard later that the Docker IPA had shortly after been declared and that grading had been delayed to prepare for this event. Not sure if its true but possibly plausible. In any case we returned to the west via the Eyre instead, even tho this option was so much longer.
A cautionary tale...
Cheers.
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