The Duncan Road

We are now heading towards Broome, but having already driven south from Kununurra along the Great Northern Highway in 1996 on our way to Purnululu National Park (also known as the Bungle Bungles), we are again taking the less-travelled road. We are off to complete the section of Duncan Road that runs south from the Victoria Highway to Nicholson Station.

 

After visiting the Bungle Bungles in 1996, we drove south to Halls Creek, then joined Duncan Road as far as Nicholson Station before taking the Buntine Highway towards Kalkarindji (Wave Hill) and passing through Top Springs on our way to Katherine.

 

Now we are completing the remaining part of Duncan Road that we missed out on all those years ago. We left Kununurra at 8:30. I successfully found a cache 41 km later at the WA border, and another 14 km further on as we turned onto Duncan Road. Here, we deflated our 4WD tyres to 30 psi and the vans down to 25 psi.

 Our camp tonight is at the Negri River, 140 km south along Duncan Road. The road is unsealed for its entire 441 km and was originally built to serve the cattle stations in the area. After 46 km, we passed Rosewood Station, established in 1885 and part of the Durack Empire. 

Another 7 km later, we crossed back into Western Australia. At the 131 km mark, we had again crossed the border and were now back in the Northern Territory. I'm glad we reduced the van's tyres by 25 psi because the 140 km took us five hours to complete. The road was rough with lots of corrugations and long sections of stony ground, with some stones much larger than a man's clenched fist.

When traversing the dips and floodways, which were too numerous to count, we were reduced to a walking pace of below 7 kph. We rarely reached 30 kph until, at the 121 km mark, we passed the sign welcoming us to the Halls Creek Shire. From there to our campsite, we maintained a steady 50 kph, with the only minor issue being long stretches of bull dust.
 
Our campsite was on the south-western side of the Negri River, overlooking a stretch of water. Best of all, we had the place to ourselves. Tonight, we christened our new folding BBQ plate that we bought at the most fantastic camping shop in Kununurra. We built a fire, and once the wood had burnt down to coals, we cooked our fillet steak accompanied by coleslaw and tomatoes. The night was concluded with coffee by the fire and the most magnificent array of stars.

 

We also purchased a new camp oven and fry pan with a removable handle. This oven is much smaller and lighter than the one we've used for the past thirty years. There was no need for the larger oven because we now cater only for ourselves. The new fry pan replaced two other heavier pans we had carried before. All the items were left at the camp kitchen at the van park in Kununurra and were gone when we checked the next morning.
 
What a difference in this morning's temperatures compared to Kununurra. Just ten degrees inside the van at 5:30 quickly had the diesel heater running smoothly and the hot water service turned on for a nice hot shower before breakfast. We left at 8:30, heading south towards Nicholson Station at the intersection of the Buntine Highway and Duncan Road.
We crossed back into Western Australia 40 km later for the rest of our journey.

We stopped several times to take photos of the Bungle Bungle Ranges off to the west. Our Hema maps on our iPad indicated that's what we were photographing.

Today's road conditions were an improvement over those of yesterday. 
Once past the intersection with Duncan Road and Buntine Highway, we came across two different road crews working on laying down new road base, and we were finally able to reach speeds of up to 60 kph for the first time in two days. 

We had intended to camp at Marella Gorge, but I miscalculated the turnoff into the gorge and didn't realise my mistake until we were 20 km past the turnoff, so we just continued heading towards Halls Creek.

Country as we passed through Flora Valley Station:

We would have preferred to get right off the road for this B-triple cattle road train, but it just wasn't possible.

Our plan was to keep going towards another free camp on the Elvire River at Caroline Pool, but when we reached Palm Springs, another free camp, we decided that would be fine for the night. The campsite is near Duncan Road, but we didn't expect much traffic during the night. There were two other groups camped there when we arrived.  

Palm Springs is a natural spring that was once used as a local water supply and supported a market garden supplying vegetables to the surrounding district. The water was very clean, so we used it to do several loads of laundry.

 

We had a peaceful night's sleep, with only one vehicle passing by during the night. We left our campsite at 7:30, heading towards Halls Creek and the bitumen after covering 441 km of dirt track. The last 40 km were through winding, hilly country with quite rocky road conditions, which kept our speeds well below 30 kph.