Day 33 – Nitmiluk National Park to Threeways
Travel Location: Tennant-Creek,Australia
The magic number today is 11111.1 that’s the number of kilometres we have been driving so far in our trip. Today we backtracked from Katherine towards Tennant Creek. The highway that will take us across to Cairns takes off about 20 km north of Tennant Creek at a place called Three Ways. As the name says, from there you can go towards Alice Springs, Darwin and Cairns.
Apart from just making the roughly 700 km way, we did not expect to see much. However, shortly after the departure we encountered a truck that had two signs on it: Oversized and Road Train. Not only was the truck longer than a normal one (Road Train), but also larger. That was so far the biggest vehicle we have seen.
Have you seen one of the oversized trucks they use in the mines to transport materials? The ones that have tires two or three times the size of a person and are not allowed on the roads? Every wondered how they get delivered to their location? Well, we now know. They are loaded onto a trailer without their wheels. They are massively oversized and the truck takes almost the entire width of two lanes. We encountered them on the Stuart Highway were two in a row were transported south. Security and Pilot vehicles were in front and at the back. Firstly we thought we are going to be stuck behind them. However on a straight stretch of the road, the pilot vehicle gave us the sign to overtake while the truck went as far to the left as possible. We squeezed through on the right side and could see the massive axels of the truck.
The Threeways roadhouse was the stop for the day. Apart from the shop, it has a bar, pool table and a restaurant. The camping ground has some powered sites and unfortunately few shady areas. Lucky enough we were one of the first ones and got ourselves a spot under the only tree. The best part however was the swimming pool: the water was cold. Normally that is not what you like, but with close to 40 degrees it is just the right thing and we jumped right into it. We are back in the outback.
