Oz Trip - Day 79

Day 79 – 19/7/2012 – Wolfe Creek Crater

We knew we had a long day ahead of us so we were up at 6am and pulled out of camp at 7:30am. We knew that it was going to take us at least 2 hours to get back to the main road and then we still had 100km of black top before about another 150km of dirt to reach Wolfe Creek Crater.

I was only a little worried about one creek crossing on the way out. It had a steep exit but luckily it was all rock and not mud. So in the end it wasn't a problem at all. I couldn't get any really good photos as there was a tour bus sitting on my tail and I didn't want to hold them up.

After lunch at Halls Creek, we headed south and turned off onto the Tanami Road. The first 50 or so kilometres weren't too bad. I was was able to comfortably do about 80kph on it. Then after that the corrugations really slowed us down. Back to the 30kph in some sections. It was rough.  Some people in the camp ground said it was like that all the way from Alice Springs.  So I am glad that we didn't try and take that way as a short cut!

The Tanami Road

We finally made it to the crater at about 3:30pm. About 8 hours to do 300km. In the end it was worth it.  The reason I wanted to visit the crater was because it is the second largest crater in the world where fragments of the meteorite that crashed have been collected. Not due to the Wolfe Creek movie. Had Jodie or I seen the movie, then we probably wouldn't have had the nerve to visit it!

The left side

The right side - One day I might get around to stitching the two photos together!

Carpark in centre and camp ground just left of centre in the distance

Looking at the crater from camp

There were only about 7 groups of people camped there and the camps had a fair bit of space between them which was good. We couldn’t believe it when one camp started up a generator at sunset to cook their dinner. It ran for about 2 hours. When they finally turned it off, the rest of the camp grounds erupted in cheers and clapping. They might have got the message after that!

It was a perfect night for sitting back and spotting satellites passing over head and meteors flashing across the sky as there was no light pollution from anywhere!