informing police stations

I have travelled the Gunbarrel and the Gibb over the last few years. For the gunbarrel I tried to notify the police at Wiluna but the police station was locked up with no indication of opening hours. As I was travelling with three young children I felt that I should tell someone so I left a note with my details stuck to the door. On reaching Uluru I went to the police station to check in but they didn't seem in the least bit interested. I very much doubt that they informed Wiluna of my arrival. It would be interesting to get the views of the police in various states to find out if they are interested. My view is that they are only interested if you need a search party, then it is your fault if you didn't register with them.

As for the Gibb, I was there in July and certainly at that time I would say that there is no need to register with anyone as long as you are going to stick to the main tourist areas, even the road to Mitchell Falls was fairly busy and there would only have been a couple of hours wait at the most if help was needed, or failing that the 'day trippers' from King Edward river will be back along that road before nightfall. On the Gibb itself in July I doubt that you would have to wait more than 20 minutes before someone came along.

The "notifying police" thing might well be fading into mythology.... I've heard a number of people say that we can't expect the police to "track" anyone's progress... they may choose to do it for certain circumstances, but generally its not on. We are expected to fully equip ourselves and then "holler" for help if our own resources prove inadequate. Seems fair to me. In some parts, the police do hire Epirbs and Sat phones.... so they are in the support game.... Parks staff in the NT will do a "tracking" function in some areas for a refundable $50 fee. Overall though, if we equip ourselves with comms, spares, consumables and companions, the Police would have a pretty supportive attitude to us, if we come unstuck.... wouldn't they ?Why I am here looking at this screen ?

Did the Gunbarrel in Sept this year. Police car pulled us over between Laverton and Wiluna for a licence check. As part of the discussion he was quite emphatic that we report our trip intentions to the Police at Wiluna. This Policeman was a very PR minded chap and frankly the best I have ever encountered. Allround good bloke you might say. Anyway we did as he suggested and went to the Wiluna Police Station where a young lady in the office provided us with a trip form to complete. Our only remaining obligation was to contact them by phone to let them know we had arrived at our destination(Alice Sp). Details of sat phone, HF etc were also provided on the form. It worked OK for us!!
Have a good trip and fasten any oral fillings you may have!
Cheers

The CSR and Gunbarrel, although very remote are still basically normal dirt roads. It cant be compulsory to notifiy the police as then this rule would apply to all dirt roads, which would be impossible to monitor.
I guess it would be a good idea if you are travelling alone to make some sort of contact, but if you are a party of two or more and travel these roads, then I would just use a radio or sat phone to contact next of kin or friends back home and let them keep track of your progess.
I went around CSR and Gunbarrel amongst other areas with a party of three in two vehicles in April / May this year, and didn't notify the police, as each vehicle had a sat phone. Any emergencies that may have occured could have been solved without their involement, at least in the first instance.

I have criss-crossed this wide land of ours over the past 35 years and on occassions have dropped into Police Stations to advise them of intentions or to ask for advice. Some Police officers were helpful and other were downright rude. The copper at Birdsville in the '80's used to have a pretty rough sort of manner and leave rude notices on his biilboard. He would have retired by now.

I think that if you are pretty well prepared for your journey then it is an individual thing you may want to do to inform the Police of your intentions. I normally tell a friend where I am going so that someone knows where you are approximately if you become overdue.

Cheers,

Willem

Always going somewhere

Wouldn't bother for Gibb River but others I think it would be a good idea.
Local Monarch here have always been grateful of me dropping in trip details whenever we go off into the Great Sandy etc.
If you need rescuing and haven't provided details of your trek then there could be some explaining & reparation involved.Allyn
Where to next ?

Hi Gary,
I can confirm that the concept of advising Police of your route in the outback is fading, in fact the Police at Birdsville personally told me to ensure that we posted the "please don't" lodge your route plan approach on ExplorOz. The reason is obvious enough, that most people lodge the route, then when nothing goes wrong, forget about advising everyone that they've arrived ok. The actual issue is that if you do lodge your route plan with Police, they are obliged by law to attempt to follow up on it, which 99.999% of the time results in a waste of police resources.

I was interested in the story above where Luxolux said he was strongly advised by Police to lodge his route - I'm not saying he is lying, but this is not what I've been told is the current push in tourism. Again, the Wiluna police have advised us specifically to advise people to be self-supporting and to promote the need for communications equipment, such as sat phones.

There is a network in the SA deserts at Police stations where you can hire sat phones and drop off at any in the loop to further enforce this concept of being self-reliant.

So - there are no rules. But the current trend is to be self-reliant with emerency communciations equipment.ExplorOz