DiNo's Travels Around Australia - 2014/2015/16/17: Day 79

Today we threw caution to the wind and hit the gravel road out to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. It was a 301 km, six hour round trip along the Tanami Road. Fortunately there were 18km of bitumen to the turnoff. The crater is believed to have been created by the impact of a 50,000 tonne meteor about 300,000 years ago. It is nearly a km across, is circular in shape and, after being filled over the years with sediment, its walls are now about 50m high. At its centre the concentrated water flow has enabled plants and trees to thrive and there is evidence of salts (gypsum) being deposited on the surface as the water evaporates in the dry season.

Needless to say the road in was rough, heavily corrugated and very, very dusty. It is in fact, the western end of the road across the Tanami Desert. The road we traversed today passes through the Ruby Plains cattle station owned by S Kidman & Co. It has an area of 9500sqkm and runs 28,000 head of cattle. Fortunately we did not see any cattle road trains today but we did see plenty of cattle, two wedge tailed eagles, two emus, 4.752827 billion corrugations, 8billion road rocks, 250,000 tonnes of dust, one road grader - and tourists, about fifteen of them. These places of interest certainly concentrate the travellers in one site. We had five major speed bumps to navigate. Well, they weren't speed bumps. They were great piles of dirt across the road to direct water across the road to prevent washouts. They, and their inverted partners the floodways, are traps for young drivers, but we did get through. We had six gates to open and close on the day, three out and three in. The Sahara, like us, is shaken but not broken.