We are thinking of travelling on the Great Northern Hwy in WA in about August this year. Does anyone know what the fuel situation is on that road? How far apart service stations/fuel stops are? We will be towing a caravan, so don't want to be caught low on fuel. While I'm on the forum, we also want to travel from Charleville to Broken Hill via Mitchell/Kidman Hwys - same query applies. That would be in about June/July this year.
Welcome to the forum Meave. We are at Nyngan. Lots of people have been leaving here to take the route to Charleville via Bourke. Not sure about the bit to Broken Hill or where Kidman Highway is but the Mitchell highway is no problem. To go Charleville to Broken Hill you probably should ask about the road from Bourke to Cobar when you get to Bourke. I know the Mitchell Highway from Bourke to Nyngan is fine and then it's the Barrier Highway from Nyngan to Broken Hill and lots of people have been coming into Nyngan from Broken Hill. That's where we'll head when we leave here. It's a busy place - you probably should book in.
I'm now in Leinster WA after travelling down the Gt Northern Highway from South Hedland to Mt Magnet. I had no problem with getting petrol and no real complaints about the road but be prepared to keep having to get off the road for the very large and extra wide loads. i have must have passed at least 100 of them going north.
-- Edited by Clare46 on Friday 18th of May 2012 05:32:15 PM
Thanks to Peter, NeilnRuth, and Thommo, all your replies informative and appreciated. On the map I have the Kidman Hwy showing up as between the Mitchell and Barrier Hwys - from Bourke to Cobar. Sorry for not replying sooner, found ourselves in Bribie Island and had no WiFi and only got 15 minutes on the library computer. I will take your advice Peter and get a Hema touring atlas. We did have one problem a while ago when a roadhouse on the Bruce Hwy north of Marlborough was closed - had to unhitch the van and go back to Marlborough for fuel! We run on gas now as well as petrol (Falcon S/wagon) so at least have a bit better range than we had then (that was last year).
About the Great Northern Hwy in WA - last time we were over there (we live just south of Brisbane) we went down the coast road from Kununnurra, and found the road very boring - I must admit we just wanted to go to Perth and only stopped at 80 mile beach and Coral Bay on the way, the Falcon didn't cope too well with the sand on the tracks to most of the coastal bits, so we missed a lot of them. We are told that the inland hwy is better, more to look at on the way and a good road. Anyone else agree with that? We are still in the Falcon with a 15 foot pop-top van.
Yes Claire, we also noticed the lots of wide loads coming down the coast road as well (that was a couple of years ago) - hoped it would not be so 'crowded' on the other road, but I guess it happens all the time in a growing area. Thanks for the comment.