Sandover Highway

G'Day Phil & Lorraine,
Have a look at post 7548. Some imfo there. May be out that way ourselves again next winter.

Phil & Lorraine

I know your post is a week old but given you are planning for next year I thought I would give you some notes from our trip up the Samdover Hwy in September this year.

Susan and I travelled from Alice Springs to Mt Isa and took two days to go from Alice to Urandangi which was a comfortable pace for the conditions. We found the road conditions from the Plenty Highway turnoff through to The Alpurrurulam Community to be very good and there is even aout 17 kms of new bitumen around Arlparra. From Alpurrururlam we travelled south east via Lake Nash, through Headingly station to Urandagi. This road was a little more challenging and I would not recommend it if had rained recently as there are many creek crossings (all dry when we went through).

We filled up with fuel in Alice and chose to top up at the Arlparra store as we did not know the fuel situation at Alpurrurulam and were doubtful whether we could make Urandangi. This was a good move as there was no fuel available at Alpurrurlamm as it turned out despite the Hema GDT map showing it had facilities.

We made just the one overnight stop choosing to camp next to a bore about 1km north of the road. There were quite a few bores showing on our VMS nav unit and we simply picked one that was not too far off the road and near a creek line for the asthetics. The only risk with doing this is that some of these roads can be sandy and boggy and generally offer little room to turn around until one reaches the bore and cattle yards.

The second night saw us camp on the Georgina River just out of Urandagi after a couple of refreshments at the pub.

We did not see another vehicle once we passed through Alparra until we got near to Lake Nash. We enjoyed the country which was showing the benifits of good rains in the last two years and voted the choice to travel the Sandover Highway a good one.

Lance & Susan