Monday, Mar 01, 2010 at 18:11
Kristy, it is impossible to give advice on how rough the road will be. It can vary very quickly. We went across this road in July 2006, which was a very big and late wet season. For weeks beforehand, we were warned the road would be impassable. It turned out to be in very good condition. Most of it had been recently graded. There were still a lot of wash outs where caution was needed, but with care, there was no problem. Three weeks earlier, perhaps it would have been a different story due to ruts and wet areas. Three weeks later and corrugations would have been forming.
With a rig not designed for rough roads (an assumption, I'm not familiar with the Swan and if you have 'toughened' it), you would need to hit the 'sweet spot' to be sure of no difficulty. This is remote country and recovery is very expensive. I would not be taking a CT or van across this road unless it was designed for rough conditions. Though many people have done it successfully with 'on road' rigs. Depends on your experience, preparedness to travel very slowly to drive to the conditions when necessary and your willingness to suffer the high cost of failure (recovery cost).
When we did this road (on the way back from
Gibb River Road,
Kalumburu etc) we had a Hilux and Odyssey Off Road Camper. We now have a 79 Series Toyota and Kedron van - I'd happily take them on this road and will be doing so this year, following our visit for fishing at King Ash Bay (near
Borroloola).
Norm C
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