Tanami, Broome and Darwin in 1 month and 1 day.

[MattWij]

I thought I'd post a quick re-cap on how my recent trip went.

The plan was to Go up the centre, head west via the Tanamai and when in WA Visit Broome, Cape Leveque, Windjana, Gibb River road (which was cancelled due to rain), El-Questro Etc, then make our way to darwin and head back Via Kakadu and back through the middle all the way to Melbourne.

There was 4 cars in the convoy and We had 6 weeks to do the trip, due to weather and car issues it ended up being just over 4 weeks. Lucky for me the Nav was flawless.

2 of the 4 cars on the Trip actually belonged to me, a friend of mine drive my $1500 Pajero for the trip, and 2 workmates were in a SantaFe and an X-Trail with their partners.

I really have no Idea of where to start... So I'll just start uploading pics and comment! This may have to go over a few posts...

My setup, dual battery and $500 Lumik 45L fridge were 100% perfect for the entire trip.. Dont waste money on a $1500 fridge...


Looking Fresh before putting the jerrys and tent on the roof.


Uuuh, I think this was on the Tanamai?


Ahh, Broome Was lovely


More pics

 

[MattWij]

Our campsite in broome. I had the most relaxing 3 days of my life here. It was glorious.


I'll call this "Franks Campground" In Cape Leveque


On the road between cape leveque and broome. 6 Jerrys are on the roof as I have to carry Diesel for the Nav and Petrol for the Pajero which didnt have a roof rack.


Got caught in some serious rain back from Cape leveque which made for some very interesting and intense driving... This was the aftermath.

 

[MattWij]

I could post a million more Pics... but I wont... this will be the last:

We got 5 inches of rain when camping in Windjana Gorge... Which subsequently close all roads in and out.. We were stuck for 5 days Before we were allowed to go and had to make the best of it... Gibb river road was not open so we had to skip it and take the pavement to El-Questro.



Hot springs at El-Questro... if you go to el questro you MUST visit these. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been.


Long story short, from there we had to high tail it to darwin since we lost 5 days and the friend travelling in my car had to take a flight back home from Darwin. We went to Kakadu for a few days and on the way to Kathrine the SantaFe completely died, I had to tow it 40KM into kathrine... unfortunately the DPF had clogged and it was going to take a week to sort out. The owner stayed with the car and we continued.
Down to the $1500 Pajero(which had just ticked over to 400,000KM on the way to darwin), the Navara and The X-trail.

We pushed on for a few days, and unfortunately the Pajero died when we were stuck in the terrible traffic trying to Get out of Adelaide. Major failure of the head gasket, Oil full of coolant. With future plans for the Pajero I decided to return for it! It was quite a drive towing the Pajero from the centre of Adelaide back to Melbourne.


Meanwhile my mate had gotten his SantaFe repaired and was driving home... His car had been driving terribly and he was about 100KM out of Melbourne when she packed it in again... Navara to the rescue.. again!



The SantaFe was much heavier than the Pajero, but I had a nicer trailer this time and it went extremely smoothly. To be honest the 2.5 Diesel is pretty impressive, the extra torque from having it Dyno tuned almost certainly helped tho.

Currently re-building the V6 in the Pajero which is going quite well, Cost to recover the car from adelaide was about $220 including fuel, Cost of reconditioned heads was about $550 and new gaskets/head bolts come to about $200... Still worth fixing, she went so well over the trip and impressed everyone.
A little vid of the Pajero, with footage of it on the trip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hShEQ9KqjCc

As for the Santa Sleigh... Turns out one of the injectors was not operating correctly and was giving about triple the fuel... this clogged 2 DPF's and melted the piston... and valves.. not good. So the Santa Fe owner will be driving my Pajero till he sources a new engine!

I have litterally 1000 pictures.. it was such an amazing trip. To be able to do it with my friends was just a once in a lifetime chance. If you can work out a way.. DO IT.

 

[happy john]

Lovely pic's as usual Matt thanks for sharing. The washed out campsite brings back many memories. And the end you've got to trailer 2 4wd's back home you must of done some kms.
Cheers

 

[Jarone]

awesome mate, makes me want to plan my next trip