Day 141 | Larapinta Drive, somewhere in the gloom: rain, rain, more rain

68 km | zzOz total: 7,314 km

Doesn’t seem the road I treadled around 2 years ago with Ahn and Chee.

For a start the weather’s somewhat different, back then it was sunny days, cold nights, today threatening warm rain for the morning and eventually coming good with the promise and dowsing me with a good old South Island soaking.

The recent extensive bushfires have opened up the vistas although often on only one side of the road. The mulga scrub loses its leaves and becomes see through, doesn’t have that confining view down the road of old.

But the major difference is the road itself.

The first 15 kms is too easy, it’s sealed to the park boundary.

The second 15 kms to the lookout had been recently graded, like this week, but add yesterday’s steady rain and you get a soft riding surface cut up by the occasional 4WDer. One moment of hilarity on a rise: the back wheel turning but I’m going nowhere, the back Crossmark has no traction despite the knobbles.

The third 15 kms starts with some downhill but is thereafter just grinding up the long, straight road. This was where we started to have issues with the sandiness/softness last time but today it’s not so bad.

At the top of the rise, finally possible to get out of the granny cog, soft not steep, and the next 13 or so kms, what can I say, if you require the cheap removal of fillings, sans dentist, here’s the stretch. Much of the road, and that’s for the next 100kms or so, was “sheeted” 3 months ago, ie, a solid layer, you could almost describe as natural uncrushed, unscreened, gravel but complete with fair sized rocks, bound together with clay, is plonked on top of what’s underneath, properly compacted with water, but now the rocks stick out severely, no avoidance possible. She’s a juddering, rocking rolling ride.

I ran into the grader driver here, out checking the road, no work possible today and probably for the week.

“Thought the road would be closed, it’s being hacked up.”

“I said so but they know best.” I didn’t ask who “they” were but I’d guess they drive a desk in Alice. “Not enough rain for them yet.”

It’s just a tourist road, only for sightseers, a week’s work has been demolished in a day, but such is the lot of a grader driver, no shortage of work out here.

He also does the Docker River road as far as the border. I mention many drivers speak about that memorable stretch. He shrugs, “ Can only work with what you’re given.” ie, sand.

No respect for the tourists in their 4WDs.

“Last week one of them ran into the grader, left a big dent in the hirecar. That’ll need a good explanation. They travel too fast on a road they don’t understand.”

He seems a happy, thoughtful chap. It’s a solitary existence, out here for weeks at a time, just the way he likes it, I don’t even have to ask, he’s been doing it for 13 years.

He mentions a bad 6.5 km stretch that wasn’t sheeted coming up but with the wind, the driving perpetual shower, not quite true rain in my books, the gloom, the wet road, foggy glasses, I fail to discern much of a difference.

Not complaining but it’s not the 37°C sunny sky times I had been anticipating out here.