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A few kilometres north of Alice Springs, a road often described as one of Australia’s worst routes, traverses the Tanami Desert all the way to Halls Creek in the north of Western Australia. The Tanami road was nearly eleven-hundred kilometres in length, all of which was horrific bone shaking corrugations, dangerous wash-a-ways, and dense, red, bull dust as fine as talcum powder.
Huge cattle-carrying road trains, up to fifty metres in length, pulling three or more trailers, freighted livestock to the southern railhead along the Tanami Road, the most direct route between the Kimberly cattle region of Western Australia and Alice Springs, often adding to the damage done by mother nature.
Often impassable during the northern wet season, the Tanami Road, despite its treacherous hazards, wa
