Road Conditions!!!! How long is a piece of string?

Well when I was in Karajini I remarked to the tour driver how bad the corrugations were.

he said these arent bad it was graded 3 weeks ago.

I asked when will it get done next , he reckoned not for a couple of months.

So the day after the grader went through it could be described as a good gravel roadwell graded.

3 weeks late it was good gravel road with some bad corrugations.

6 weeks later the corrugations probably could be described as horrendous


What I am getting at is that it depends entirely dependant on when you go.

What may be great this week possibly wont be in 2 weeks time.

Is it all that important?? It should be part of the challenge and adventure.. Just take the roads as they come.. Michael

There would be an Australian or maybe an international Road Condition Rating System in place for sure.
Just about everything you can think of has a rating standard that applies to it. Roads would be no different.

Can anyone find it?

Going along with my theory that there are no "Bad Roads" in Aus, then all roads should be labelled as good, providing you drive to the conditions!!!

If one can pull a caravan down the "rough dirt track" how bad can it be? What rough dirt track are you talking about and I almost bet someone has dragged a trailer of some description up or down it and in that case just drive to the conditions presented to you with a well equipped, good touring rig then you should have few difficulties.

GRR- point in question, too numerous caravans on it each year to call it anything else other than a "good outback road".

Cheers, Trevor.

Certainly all subjective Inland Sailor, and can change by the day; smooth the day the grader goes across and terrible one week later.

Some years ago when my city born and bred nephew got his first 4wd, and was looking for 4wd adventures as he followed the coastline in progressive holidays. His 4wd guide showed some dirt roads as hard 4wd tracks. He commented to me "They would probably assess my driveway as difficult and yours as severe". Maybe the author went across these after a lot of rain when they could be rather different, or maybe he thought he was talking to city drivers with less experience than my then teenage nephew.

We have met campers that have been on a dirt road saying it was terrible and the worst road of their trip, on a road that we found good. One of these my husband had particularly enjoyed as he could look at the scenery instead of all eyes on the road for ruts and bull dust holes. We can only compare when their trip was made at a similar time to ours - although the few days gap could have made quite a difference. Another of these was the GRR - our assessment was mostly good, because we were early in the season and the graders were still working in some places. A week later with seven days of the July rush out there, another caravaner told us it was the worst road he had ever been on. Certainly the conditions had changed due to volume and speed of traffic, but the other person also admitted not having done a lot of dirt road travel.

So to answer your question - a few examples of the more well known ones we went on and as we found them 'on the day':

GRR good.Kalumburu road good where graded, but slow; where not graded - extremely slow (stone base not corrugations).

Tanami WA side; Nearest top Halls Creek very good because they were re-aligning the road and it was mostly new or freshly cut detours. However someone who went through through 12 months after us found that section the worse of the whole road. Track into Wolf Creek Crater; corrugated. Rest of WA Tanami to NT border with the exception of a few kms at a mine site - terrible. NT side of Tanami pretty good, but underlying corrugations most of the way which adds up to a lot of corrugations. The area around the mines were good as they had graded - whereas a couple of months earlier someone rolled their caravan along this same stretch after hitting a rut hidden in bull dust in a badly corrugated patch.

Mereenie Loop, annoyingly corrugated although graded a week or so prior.

Road to Chamber Pillar; South road good, road to the Pillar after Maryvale the worst of the trip (sandy patches and corrugated patches).

Great Central Road NT side good - the grade had just been through. The WA side; variable from good to badly corrugated.

Gary Junction Road; Quite good, although corrugated in patches, nothing severe.

Road from Stuart Highway (near Wauchope) to Davenport Ranges - good; hard and stony. Section (part of Binns Track) south from Epenarra Station to the Old Police Station Waterhole turnoff - sandy and not the easiest for towing.

As were are towing, we will assess roads more harshly than if we weren't.

Most inland roads are corrugated, and as the grader skims and leaves the base corrugations, it is only days before it changes back to the corrugated road.

Most of the others we have been on fall somewhere in between - nothing really nasty, just a road to take it easy on. We have been on far worse corrugations, but when on shorter sections it is not so significant.

Some of the hardest to tow on (with our long tow vehicle) were roads including highways in north central Qld - bitumised but with subsidence causing the rig to 'rock' - worse than driving on corrugations.

Motherhen

I remember the very first trip to the Kimberleys we made. We pulled into Turkey Creek about 1am to fuel up and heading into The Bungle Bungles. The chick filled the Hilux asked were we were heading,i said the Bungles. She said were mad, it'll take you about 2.5 to 3 hrs to get in at this time of night very rough she said. It took me 45 minutes from the highway to the rangers hut. The good thing about traveling at night is you can see headlights coming miles away.