Toyota Landcruiser had sudden-
ly stopped while we were taking a
roadside break. It had been a scene
straight from the movie of the same
name.
Both of us stared at the ‘big red car’,
not sure what to expect. Was Mick
Taylor about to jump from it?
“NO WAY!”, Oliver had yelled with
excitement. “What are the chances?”.
Laughter filled the hot, still air.
Had we really expected a deranged
axe-murderer to step from the car?
Oliver was now following us down
the Tanami Track, not really offering
support but rather enjoying the expe-
rience of being a motorcyclist, even
if on four wheels and inside an air-
conditioned vehicle. His reasoning,
it was the best way to have an adven-
ture; with others that were travelling
differently and to be able to share a
beer with them at the end of each
day. For that I was thankful.
Our day three camp was roughly
the halfway point on the Tanami. An
indescript clearing behind a stony
outcrop of a hill. Around a small fire
we enjoyed a beer and discussed the
possibility of the track getting worse.
The first day had been relatively
easy, despite it being the most used
end of the road as the few travellers
who use this road ventured no fur-
ther than the Wolfe Creek crater.
We’d ridden to within spitting dis-
tance of the crater but after stumbling
across Oliver we’d decided to camp
for the night. The ride into the crater
national park the following day had
TRAVERSE 73
been an ordeal. The track, one of the
worst I’d ridden for a long time. Only
20 kilometres long but 20 kilometres
that had taken over an hour to com-
plete. The destination was worth the
effort. All three of us sat in silence
and stared into the almost perfect-
ly round depression in the vast flat
plane. Wolfe Creek crater is the sec-
ond largest known crater of it’s type
on Earth. It’s an impressive sight.
The return ride to the main track
was made a little easier by finding a
makeshift route running alongside a
fence. We continued south-east on
the Tanami yet only managed around
150 kilometres before calling it a day.
A large plume of smoke rose from
the horizon and had been in our vi-
sion for several hours. It was either