Plenty Highway conditions?

Hi All,

We're intending to depart SE Qld and head for the Top End again, now that The Wet has just about had it. But instead of doing the same old Barlky Highway thing from Mt Isa to Tennant Creek (including the dreaded Camooweal stretch), we're thinking seriously of taking the Donahue & Plenty Highways from Boulia, Qld. to Alice Springs, before heading north again.

We'll have a our new (well, new to us - 2002 model) tandem poptop caravan in tow. We've done lots of solo trips on outback roads, including a lot of Red Centre roads and the Simpson Desert, so we're quite familiar with corrugated roads, sand tracks, gibber plains, etc. etc. And we've proven the dustproofing of the new van over a few hundred kms of Central Qld unsealed roads but we don't really want to subject it to hundreds of ks of gut-busting corrugations.

I know everyone's opinions of unsealed roads differ and a smooth, freshly-graded highway can turn into a horror stretch within a few days if there's rain or if a few dozen triple road-trains go through after de-stocking a station. So, does anyone have up to date info on the Plenty/Donahue - say, in the last few weeks?

Thanks for your responses.