AJ120’s 2013 Outback Odyssey

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Gunbarrell Highway

Fortunately by the time we reached Magakili Claypan things were a little bit dryer. If it had of been as flooded as sections of the track we had just been through it would have been interesting to say the least, but no problems for us!








We did stop to check out what was on offer at the local car yard but decided to keep the Prado for a little longer.





And we arrived at the turn off to Carnegie Station unscathed, well almost un scathed!



Cheers Andrew

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Gunbarrell Highway

The only slight mishap across the Gunbarrell was that the handle came loose on the jockey wheel and fell off somewhere on the second day. As I don’t carry a spare jockey wheel it was time for a repair job.

So after stopping at the local auto supply store (a burned out Falcon station wagon) and getting a spare jockey wheel handle, aka some steel rod from the steering wheel; and putting a bend in it using the old engine half buried in the dirt as an anvil….







It was time to weld the newly acquired handle on before setting up camp.







I do have a spare handle from an old jockey wheel here at home so I can fix it up good as new now that I am home; in fact better than new as obviously a single grub screw is not the best way to secure it!

After heading to bed it was like Deja vu, Lightning, Thunder, Rain and an interesting day to follow!
Cheers Andrew

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

Impressed with the outback welding and the number of batteries you had lying around. I'm guessing that didn't include your start battery?

Starting to think about doing a trip like this. Do you still need permit to cross the APY lands, any other permits required for the Gunbarrel/Great Central road?

[iantz Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close iantz]

And to think I was just wondering the other day whether you had used those bush welding skills that we taught you during the demonstartion arvo on the GTG last year. I bet you're glad you paid attention

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Impressed with the outback welding and the number of batteries you had lying around. I'm guessing that didn't include your start battery?

Starting to think about doing a trip like this. Do you still need permit to cross the APY lands, any other permits required for the Gunbarrel/Great Central road?

I used all three of my batteries for the welding job, the Optima blue top is my crank battery, the red top AGM is the auxillery which is mounted in the drawer system and the black to battery is the original crank battery from the Prado which has been in the trailer, although I am going to swap that into my Hilux and put the sealed battery from that into the camper due to some slight acid spill on some of the rough roads this trip.

We didn't need a permit for the Great central road as we only got on at Warburton. No permits needed for this section of the Gunbarrel either. The abandoned section East from where we got on needs a permit, I ahve been told they wont issue permits for single vehicle travel on that section so I didn't even look into it.

I gather permits to travel through the APY lands can be tough to get, fortunately I know a bloke and we didn't go through the official channels


Cheers Andrew

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

And to think I was just wondering the other day whether you had used those bush welding skills that we taught you during the demonstartion arvo on the GTG last year. I bet you're glad you paid attention

Given how talented the guy who did the demo last year (and in 2011) was it was easy to remember how to do it, gee he was a good bloke, tall, dark, handsome, intelligent and extremely modest

Cheers Andrew

[iantz Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close iantz]

What are the implications of disconnecting all batteries from the vehicle? Does the prado reset stereos or anything else that's a PITA? Or, is it simply put back in and away you go?

[boomer52 2014 Track Topaz owner! Find all posts View Profile Close boomer52]

Given how talented the guy who did the demo last year (and in 2011) was it was easy to remember how to do it, gee he was a good bloke, tall, dark, handsome, intelligent and extremely modest

C'mon Ian, you've dropped the ball here, or did you just choose to ignore.

AJ, I thought it was you who did the demos....!!!

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

What are the implications of disconnecting all batteries from the vehicle? Does the prado reset stereos or anything else that's a PITA? Or, is it simply put back in and away you go?

All you need to do is reset the windows after removing the battery, put each window half way, wind up and hold button in the up position for a few seconds.

I'll get back to the story when I get a new computer, mine is pretty much dead and I can't post pics with the I thingy!

Your right Dennis, it was me that did the demo, like I said tall, handsome...................

Cheers Andrew

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

The only slight mishap across the Gunbarrell was that the handle came loose on the jockey wheel and fell off somewhere on the second day. As I don’t carry a spare jockey wheel it was time for a repair job.

So after stopping at the local auto supply store (a burned out Falcon station wagon) and getting a spare jockey wheel handle, aka some steel rod from the steering wheel; and putting a bend in it using the old engine half buried in the dirt as an anvil….



It was time to weld the newly acquired handle on before setting up camp.



I do have a spare handle from an old jockey wheel here at home so I can fix it up good as new now that I am home; in fact better than new as obviously a single grub screw is not the best way to secure it!

After heading to bed it was like Deja vu, Lightning, Thunder, Rain and an interesting day to follow!
Cheers Andrew

If you had looked hard AJ you would have found my camper trailer jockey wheel that I lost...................somewhere out along that 9000km trip that I did.

[Hazza Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hazza]

Andrew great trip report and thanks for sharing.

Those metallic sounding rocks you encountered are similar to the ones I came across at Black Mountain 25 km south of Cooktown many years ago. You could play a tune on them as well. It's also called Mountain Of Death with stories of pythons and men disappearing never to be found.

Hazza

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

OK, I got a few more pics loaded so to continue!

In almost a carbon copy of the previous night we once again had a huge thunder and lightning storm, and once again we seemed to be on the edge of the rain copping a real heavy down pour for about 10 minutes and some light rain for a little while after that. Once packed up and going in the morning the road just kept getting wetter and wetter. Not far along we stopped at Mingal pool, this is probably where we should have camped as its a beaut spot, lucky for us we didn't; as a group who had camped there said it belted down for about 4 hours, I have no doubt about that given the water now flowing freely across the road.





The other group were heading the opposite direction so after swapping stories with them they headed off, at this point I was wondering whether the road was actually open or not, but after getting out the sat phone and calling the Wiluna shire a lovely young girl told me they hadn't had a drop of rain and all roads were open. I assured her they had had more than a drop where we were but she said "well sir, all roads are open so you are good to go" I didn't bother to argue with her and we headed off.

Once again the roads got wetter and the creek crossings were getting wider, deeper, and faster. You cant really see it in the pictures below but the water was belting across the road, although only knee deep it wouldn't have wanted to be much deeper or much faster and we would have been unable to walk it, which would have meant no driving through it either.






I dont know how many of these flooded creeks we drove through, but quite a few until suddenly it just completly dried up and it was plain sailing all the way to Wiluna.

Wiluna is about as attractive as a poke in the eye with a stick so we decided to camp out of town at well one on the Canning; where the following morning we met up with Mark from Brisbane who was setting of on his Canning adventure that morning. Fuel was surprisingly well priced at Wiluna in the $1.70 ish range.





Cheers Andrew

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Andrew great trip report and thanks for sharing.

Those metallic sounding rocks you encountered are similar to the ones I came across at Black Mountain 25 km south of Cooktown many years ago. You could play a tune on them as well. It's also called Mountain Of Death with stories of pythons and men disappearing never to be found.

Hazza

Its funny you should mention that, when John showed us the spot the first thing I said was that it reminds me of Black Mountain, only just on a smaller scale. Of course we never thought to try and play a tune on the rocks there! We will next time though

Bushy, I did try and salvage another jockey wheel a bit down the track, but I'll get to that!

Cheers Andrew

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

Wiluna is about as attractive as a poke in the eye with a stick so we decided to camp out of town at well one on the Canning;

Cheers Andrew

Hey, don't be dissing my country. Did you like the big white cross formed in the middle of Wiluna where they re-coated the main road and the intersecting one near the Club Hotel?

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Nothing of much interest happened between Wiluna and Newman other than we hit the bitumen a Hundred k or so South of Newman!

We booked into the caravan park at Newman which is nothing special; with the exception of the fact that it is the only caravan park we have ever been too that has free washing machines and dryers! If you have been on the road for a while it’s worth the stop just for those!

When we set up there was a nice dirty looking Bushtracker off road van across from us, later on this Nissan Patrol twin cab with a candy canvas roof topper pulled in. I said to Trish I might go and have a chat with that guy as he looks like he knows where his towel is, it took a while for the penny to drop that I was talking to Ron Moon. He seemed like a real good bloke, very helpful and generous with his time.

One of the few things for the traveler to do in Newman is the mine tour, which we did. I can’t say that at $75 it was really worth it. I have known a guy who worked there for a decade and heard all sort of stories about the scale of the operation. The tour consisted of a bus ride to a lookout, a half hour talk from a young girl who didn’t know anything more than she had read in her tour guides handbook and a drive back to the information centre. I really couldn’t get a feel for the scale of the place standing at the lookout, I actually get a better feel looking at the photos we took rather than seeing it first hand.











Yeah Bushy, we did notice a few new roads around the town!

Cheers Andrew