7th August - Bush Camp near Granite Mines – 242 kms today 4742 kms to date

We got up early at the Yuendumu Hilton and finding that the ablutions block was wrecked decided to head for the Big Shop for brekkie.  The accommodation reminded Colin of when he was staying in the Bandepur National Park in India and he and his family were gazumped out into a disused cottage by the local pollies.  The Big Shop was closed so we returned to the Hilton and cooked our own breakfast – freeze dried – just add boiling water.

The plan was to get to Renehan’s bore 170 kms down the road for lunch, which a local told us had good water in a tank.  We soon settled into a 70 kph pace and the road was quite easy.  We stopped as planned and cooked our lunch with boiling water.  Colin tried out his new water filter kit and as soon as he turned on the tap a few “pointy head” birds appeared to drink up any spare drops.

Colin set up a dish to give them a drinking bowl and they flew across one by one to drink.  We filled up our drink bags and used the water for our lunch.  Conserving water is as important as fuel on the Tanami.

We met a few travelers at our rest stops all in 4WD’s and got some info on the roads ahead, but we soon learnt that what concerned drivers about road conditions was not the same for us.  Drivers were most affected by corrugations and didn’t worry too much about the sand/gravel surface.  We on the other hand could deal with corrugations relatively easily but a loose and rutted surface was very challenging ie likely to cause  crash.  The Tanami had every type of surface from “freeway” standard hard packed gravel to loose and rutted sand.  Once you hit a good section you could be sure that a few kms down the road the surface would be shit again.  We were traveling at 80 kph by now – the threshold speed we had been advised to stick to by other riders.  This dealt with all the corrugations and and if the surface was loose and rutted we could accelerate up to 90 – 100 kph to plough through.  Noah had the right idea! This is what we had to deal with stretching away to the horizon.

We planned to try and get to the Granites Gold Mine but stopped 10kms before it, as we had had enough.  Picking a campsite is tricky because the ground is covered with Spinifex; a type of very spiky grass.  We usually look under a tree as the Spinifex doesn’t grow there.  We set up our tents – Colin for the first time and had our evening meal as the sun went down at about 6:30pm.

Bush camping on the Tanami

There is a full moon at the moment in fact it’s a “super” full moon because the moon is so close to earth.  It is so bright that you can go for a midnight pee without the need for a torch.  The downside is that the stars are very faint.  We could see the lights of the Granites Mine in the distance.  We were only 50 yards off the Tanami and could hear the traffic during the night.  One road train heading to Alice Springs was so loud Colin thought it had come off the road and was heading for us.  He could hear the noise for a couple of minutes into the distance.