Article Comment: Rudall River

Thanks mate i think ill just take an extra 20L jerry just to keep my mind at ease i was thinking i would do the loop from marble bar/telfer through to tallawana track/newman stopping off at desert queens baths and hanging rock

Okay, if you go the Hanging Rock way, keep in mind, it is slow, and will use a lot more fuel.
If you are good with nav and confident remote, then going on via Christie Crossing, up to Skull Springs Rd, the track is VERY hard to follow at times, very overgrown, lots of vehicle pinstriping . . . but you will see some amazing things on the way . . .
Watrara series of pools / waterholes, Curun Curran rockhole, couple of nice Tarcunjah creek bed crossings, Hanging Rock, Meeting Gorge, Bocabree Hill, and Christie X . . . the roads around Skull Springs Bee Hill mine are ALL changed to Hema maps.
You will possibly have to go north from Christie X if going soon-ish, you can't go south from there to Talawana at the moment, Balfour Downs are (where ?) mustering.
We wanted to go that way, but had to change plans and go Skull Springs.
Give them a call to confirm if south travel is ok to Talawana.
After Watrara pools the going gets a lot harder, so a quick trip in and out to there might be a good alternative, and consider my ~ 800km advice above.
Just not happy seeing someone go that way if they might get into strife, we were 4 vehicles, very good with mech / resourceful etc, good at the nav and track finding.

Just something to be mindful of, we had a sharp rock at the bottom of the final creek crossing into Desert Queen Baths tear a hole in our sidewall of our tyre rendering it useless and the only close spots for a new one is either Kunawarritja or Pt Hedland.

I am slightly hesitant to go by myself but I am a mechanic and also very experienced in outback travel being an ex desert roadtrain driver. that being said if anyone is keen to team up ill be in newman on the night of the 10th august heading out to Rudall river on the 11th

The re is a new security gate at north end into Telfer now, you must go to office and get escorted through to southern exit onto Rudall R Rd.

Not sure how it can work the other way, you have no gate at south end, though there may be a sign to radio security to get through . . . not sure we went south.

All those roads were great to drive, DQB access (as mentioned) slower but not hard.

Woodie Woodie was a lot of bitumen, and again dirt was very good.
You can traverese Woodie Woodie to the east, comes out at
Rudall R Rd (just north Moses Chair), but we didn't have this in our plan.

We went the other direction to you and came out at Woodie Woodie. It wasn't in our plan either... but seemed like a good idea at the time! The main Rudall River NP road was pretty corrugated and the road to Woodie Woodie was smooooooottthhhhhhh - at least for the first 15 minutes... After a while I was wishing we'd gone the other way. Worked out in the end though we did a lot of that road in the dark.

Roads do change so fast out there, all the mining $$$ being thrown around for access, a lot of new mine projects going on.

It's great out there, was my first WA trip, will be loads more I hope to come.

I think DQB was one of our favourite spots on a 10 week trip in NW WA - unfortunately it's a long long way from home so it will be a while before I can get back there. Boo hoo :-(

10 weeks in the NW would have been excellent, Peter.
We had ~ 5 weeks total, but saw so much from Nuytsland in the south to to the Pilbara region.

DQB is a pretty spot all right, was lucky enough to catch the main pool in a shower of light rain on our second day there, just perfect.

Did Punmu off you $2.50/lt for cash ?
I'm not sure if they do unless asked.

Thanks bud. I ill be taking a couple of jerry cans just to be sure but from what you say newman to marble bar sounds doable

Les, the chap at Punmu said he wished he knew who put the $2.50 for cash story on the net,so he could throttle them. Everyone has been asking & it has never been the case. He did however round our bill down from $304.40 to $300. I liked Punmu, very different to Kunawarritji.

One of our party got fuel there on the return leg, offered cash option but wanted to pay by card, so was $3 for him.
I just wondered if they kept it quiet sometimes to stay under the radar.
We got it first hand from a caravanner at well 33 too, who had purchased there the day before.
Father and son there, I wonder if one does and one doesn’t ?