Great central road

We did the Docker river road from the Olgas out to Lasseter's Cave (near Docker River) and back a couple of weeks ago.

It was very corrugated with odd patches of bulldust.

Need to travel slowly with low tyre pressure or evrthything will be shaken.

Alan

We did it back in April. Lot of road work being done along the way. Road reasonable except for NT side. Very rough, so slow done and let tyres down. Docker River camping was quite interesting. Flush toilets in the middle of no where.

Did the GCR over 3 nights from 28 April. The 40/50k's Ayers rock side of Docker River was very badly corrugated. The WA side was fine. Don't expert much out the Warburton and Warakuna Roadhouses and you won't be disappointed, the bathroom was especially bad - no pressure and not very tidy. The first roadhouse on the WA side from Laverton, starts with Tju.... is excellent. It is clean and tidy and the people running it are lovely, will even deliver cooked meals to the van for the right price. They also have two 14month old emus they have raised from chicks, they are entertaining especially if some one is silly enough to try to eat in front of them! :-)

Have fun and look out for all the burnt/wrecked cars on the side of the road! Giles weather station tour is worth doing at Warburton but you need to check the times.

John

We did the GCR two weeks ago with a Phoenix. It's generally good from Laverton through to Warakurna, with patches of corrugations. Deteriorates on the way to Docker river but OK with tyre pressures and speed down. We ran some sections with our left wheels in the sand alongside the road. Long soft sandy sections after Docker river where you'll need low tyre pressure (we ran the van at 26psi) and to keep up your momentum. In some places it could be hard to get a heavy van going again if you had to stop. A low loader had been bogged just before we went through - he was retrieving a couple of dead 4wds when we saw him. Expect to find a few locals broken along the way - one lot had been there two days with no water (we fixed that) and no spare (we passed a message to the roadhouse).

The road edges are well marked from Laverton to Warburton, with a blue box every km or two. The local road authority puts their name on the boxes - "Stanley Fruity White Moselle", I think.

We took 5 days, camping roadside along the way so can't comment on the roadhouses - there's no traffic at night so nobody will bother you. The campsite 1km before Docker is a good one (especially after we spent an hour collecting and burning the rubbish that others had left behind) and worth staying a day or so - fireplaces, toilets and a (very) cold shower. The dingoes will howl you to sleep.

Watch out for camels: they'll watch you come to a standstill before deigning to step off the road. Somebody hit one at Uluru and wrote-off camel and vehicle.

Michael

Hi Muddy and repliers

We will be returning to WA along the GCR eventually. If it sounds too bad then and if we are ahead of schedule, we could go via Gary Junction road. Well that is after we make it into NT. Looking promising - solar panels whould reach Kununurra tomorrow. After our loop around to Purnululu, we still plan to go via the Tanami.

Travel safe

Motherhen