Heading up the Tanami

We have just returned from five days in some of the most remote parts of Australia - about 300 km north-west of Alice Springs along the Tanami Road. This road eventually crosses the border into Western Australia, and is broken up by small homesteads about 300 km or so apart. We took this trek with friends from Melbourne – Morris and Barbara Stuart – to visit Yuendumu, an aboriginal community. It was an open question when we set out whether we would be able to take the van or the car that far. We spent the first night in Tilmouth Well, which is about 5 km into the unmade section of the road – enough to tell us that there was no way that we could take either car or van any further. On Sunday 9th, we all piled into Morris and Barbara’s Pajero and drove the last 100 km from Tilmouth Well. Yuendumu was very quiet as many of the residents had come into Alice Springs for the local show that weekend. We went to the Baptist church service that morning (scheduled start 45 minutes before actual start), and were given skin names which gave us a place in the local Warlpiri community. Gary is Jungarrayi, Ev is Nangala, Caleb and Sam are Japplejarri, and Rachel Napplejarri. We spent four wonderful days in Yuendumu, exploring some of the bush country surrounding the area, and meeting some of the local leaders and artists. We were privileged to be taken hunting for Witchetty Grubs and to build a humpy. Everyone was taken with the taste of this aboriginal delicacy – tastes a lot better than it sounds! Rachel had to be convinced (with some incentive) to try it.

In the middle of the Tanami desert, this area offers some spectacular landscape, including encounters with dingoes, brumbies, kangaroos and camels. Fortunately the goannas and snakes are sleeping at this time of the year. Gary was much more relaxed after hearing this news. On our last evening, we visited a place called Juka Juka, where we saw the sun set and the full moon rise over some spectacular rock formations. It was a special evening at the end of our last full day.

As we left Yuendumu, one of the local men told us that there was a ‘bad wind blowing from the wrong direction. The clouds would bring rain… hot, cold.” We headed back to Tilmouth Well for the Wednesday evening meal, eaten around the campfire. The wind continued to blow, with lightning appearing in the skies as the evening progressed. We retired to some small drops of rain with the full moon still dominating the sky.

At 4.30 the next morning, Gary was awoken by the beginnings of the rain. A few hours later he got up to see that the camp site was quite damp, with puddles forming. A meeting with one of the road train drivers indicated that there was heavier rain coming, which Morris had also heard on the radio. We decided to decamp quickly, letting Morris tow the van through the first stretch of unmade road. We could muster speeds no greater than 40 km/h, such was the slippery state of the road. We made it safely back to Alice Springs at midday, and managed to get the van set up again just before the heavens opened in Alice Springs. Due to our hasty and wet departure from Tilmouth Well, the water had got through some of the bedding which necessitated spending a few hours cleaning and drying. It rained so heavily (the first rain since January in Alice) that locals were talking of the Todd River flowing. There was certainly water in it, but not enough to make it flow.