Day 23: Wolfe Creek Crater to Mimbi Caves via Halls Creek (Tanami Road and Great Northern Highway), 340km

Sunrise at the crater, with flocks of birds flying in and out of the lake in the middle, then a drive to Mimbi Caves a tour of the caves and camping (with showers!) and dinner with a view of the full moon rising.

Panorama of sunrise over Wolfe Creek crater

Wolfe Creek

My contribution to the photography was a beautiful video of a large flock of galahs swooping into the crater at sunrise and landing on the lake, but the video ended up being a 3 second shoot of me putting my iPhone into my pocket – I had it on pause the whole time I was watching the birds.

Here is a link to a video birds flying over the crater (by Michele)

Tanami Road

Leaving the Tanami Road behind

Weird ant sculptures

We saw more burnt out cars on the Tanami Road than roadworthy cars being driven. We even had to drive around a burnt out section of a road train that was left int he middle of the road.

Mimbi caves

Mimbi Caves and the campsite is on a former cattle station, now owned and run by the locals. Fantastic rock formations and the camping is under the shadows of the rocks. Great campsite with showers, barbecues and a fire pit. Sitting writing this while Michele experiments with the camera, trying to best capture the moonrise. 

Michele taking the photo below, while I write this:

The rocks around Mimbi Caves

 

Weather update: the weather is MUCH warmer at night compared to Flinders and Alice Springs where it got down to freezing. Last night was 13 at the crater and tonight is 18.

Fuel update: sorted the fuel consumption problem: wind resistance increases exponentially with speed, and when you drive long flat roads, the main thing slowing you down is wind resistance. Consumption is normal at 80k, but terrible at 110, as wind resistance is doubled. Also, using 98 octane fuel gives much better mileage than the stuff we got at Yendumu, which was labelled "unleaded". It didn't give an octane rating, and didn't actually include the word "petrol" anywhere either. I don't know what it was, but it didn't burn well. The only thing I know with any reasonable certainty was that it didn't contain lead.

Defender update: while around 3/4 of the vehicles out here are Toyotas (LandCruiser, Prado, ute etc), there are a smattering of everything else, like Ford Ranger, Isuzus, Mazdas, Nissans, the odd Land Rover Discovery and more than a few Dodge Rams, but we have not seen ONE Land Rover Defender since leaving Sydney - not even an old model. Ours has drawn interest from fellow travellers, with people asking about reliability and liking the "steelies" (white painted steel wheels). We have spoken to people who have had to get repairs done, but ANY mechanic out here can fix a LandCruiser, if they can fix anything. Getting parts for the Land Rover would be very difficult. Just arranging the windscreen has been bad enough. I still love it and it has taken a beating and it looks great, but it is definitely style over substance. My recommendation to anyone else would be to buy a Toyota for this trip, not just for reliability (which is legendary) but for serviceability.

Starlink update:  as much as I hate it, I gotta hand it to Elon. I just pulled the satellite dish out of the boot, plonked it on the ground next to me and turned on the modem. A process taking about 30 seconds and I have unlimited high speed internet, uploading videos and images (this whole blog post). I know it is probably not NECESSARY for this trip, but you can't argue that it is not very effective and easy to use.