Day 50 – Fitzroy Crossing to Timber Creek

The first sound when I woke was the loud sound of rain thrumming on the tent fly. The tent is waterproof (now proven) but we are not. After a shower, I drove down the street to get rubbish bags to put the wet tent in (if we decided to move on today) and then drove us over to the camp kitchen where we had breakfast and considered whether the Tanami Track would be open – I thought closed, given the weather radar overnight and now. Eventually Lynn noticed a break in the weather so we went back to break camp. It started raining before we finished packing up, but it was all inside and not too bad. We drove off on the Great Northern Highway to the accompaniment of heavy rain. Just before Halls Creek I saw the “ROAD CLOSED” sign on the Tanami Track, so the decision was out of my hands. We stopped in Halls Creek (sausage rolls were the only alternative available) and found ourselves sitting next to a family in the same predicament. As the trip from Fitzroy Crossing to Alice Springs had changed from 1600 km to 2400 km, it meant three long travel days. So the end point for today ended up at Timber Creek (6:40 WA time, but 8:10 NT time). While I didn’t like doing it, there was about two hours driving in the dark. At Timber Creek all was closed, so we found a spot and set the tent up. No rain, but in the dark it’s not as easy as during daylight. Just a light snack and drink and we were into bed and asleep.