The gunbarrel highway - Giles to Carnegie

25 April 30 April

Our journey towards the start of the gunbarrel highway took us to Giles WA, 750km west southwest of Alice Springs where we camped overnight and went to Giles weather station the next morning. It was built to provide weather data for the UK atomic weapons tests at Maralinga and rocket testing at Woomera. Managed by a staff of 4 we saw the 8.45am weather balloon released, and had a look around the very remote site.

start of the gunbarrel

From Giles we headed through Warburton, only stopping to buy fuel, before hitting the heather highway and onto the gunbarrel. The first 126km on the heather highway took us 7 1/2hours..... so it was 'no highway'.... and the gunbarrel was in worse condition.

Both nights on the gunbarrel we camped near a bore, so we had water to wash with. The first night there were spinifex fires in the area, and we had a visit from some local aboriginals on the way out hunting Kangaroos. 

The second night was quieter... no scrub fires and no people..... In fact we didn't pass another car for 5 days. These two video's will give you a taste of how travelling on the gunbarrel felt. Slow and steady was the only way.

In total length the trip from Warburton to Wiluna was 845km, with only 1 fuel stop at Carnegie station 439km's away, the most remote cattle station in Australia where we paid $2.50ltr for diesel.

It took us 3 days to get to Carnegie and at times we were averaging 20km an hour over tracks which looked like they hadn't been graded since Len Beadell and the team put the road through in the 1950's.

Plenty of feral camels were to be seen along the way, they are in plaque proportion in the west, even with recent aerial culls where they shot 7,000 out of Giles in 3 weeks and 47,000 out of Carnegie over the last few months. We also saw a few dingo's so we were sure to lock up the camper trailer kitchen each night.