We must have camped somewhere between in the 106km between the WA/NT border and the road worker’s camp at the Balgo Turn Off but I can’t remember where; must have been too tired to record it!
Yesterday as energy died and we still couldn’t find a bare spot to camp on Don found a works camp and we went in to ask permission to camp on their cleared ground, only bare spot for miles. Without asking, the works boss approved us staying in unused donga accomodation, having a full meal, showering, laundering and sleeping indoors. Great effort Steve (the cook) and others. Didn’t save our lives but made us a lot more comfortable. Thankyou again from a couple of very weary travellers.
We hope that later travellers don’t abuse the roadworker’s hospitality by imposing on them unnecessarily (not having showered for a week is not a necessity).
Leaving the camp refreshed and washed we headed out to Bililuna for lunch and a re-stock of our supplies.
At Sturt Creek the floodway is about 5km wide but in the dry there was only one small waterhole, the first surface water we had seen since leaving Alice Springs nearly 880km earlier. Road engineers and hydrologists were in Bililuna to talk to locals about high high the creek gets so that they could design the new bitiumened section of the Tanami Road through here. The current idea is to accept that the road will flood but amour it so that it can survive going under water and be functional again when the flood goes down in hours or a day or so.
As always, impressed to see that fresh vegetables (capsicums, greens) were available cheaper than in Perth, presumably through a food subsidisation program to improve locals health).
The shopkeeper in Bililuna knew of Pizza Man, a moderately famous, greatly overweight but perservering rider who she informed us had taken 42 days to ride the Indo-Pacific Perth to Sydney ride in 2025 (the winner took about 17 days 8 hours so Pizza Man’s ride was respectable). A touring rider would take about 50-60 days.
We rode on for another 17 km to a side track(Carranya Road) to camp for the night.
