2006/07 Australia trip - Wolfe Creek crater |
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Back on the highway we headed for the nearest big town, Halls Creek, only to find that it is quite a small place. For a while, when gold was discovered there, it was a boom town, but not any more. Now, one of its remaining attractions is its “space age toilet” facility with its automatic flush and self-cleaning. Only one stall was still working, and the others were waiting for a repair technician to come in from Mars.
We filled up with diesel, and then found that the only place in town selling propane had sold out. We continued on the highway, heading west now. The sensible thing to do would have been to continue to our next stop at a campground at Fitzroy Crossing, but we weren’t quite ready for civilization yet, so we turned off onto the Tanami Track. We’d seen the other end of this track just north of Alice Springs, about 600 miles away. The Tanami is a gravel road and a diagonal shortcut across the desert. The part we drove was quite good and the only serious hazards were herds of cows wandering around the road. We also met a road train, which made quite an impact – a roaring cloud of dust bearing down on us, but better than having to follow one and try to overtake it!
We weren’t going all the way back to Alice Springs, though we might do that on some future trip. We turned off the Tanami Track onto a dusty corrugated side road after about 70 miles, passed a derelict cattle station, and camped at Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. I’d heard that the lake inside the crater was a good place to see budgies. From the road the crater just looks 
like three low humps, but climbing a hump revealed a good-sized crater, about a quarter mile across, and what looked like a small lake at the 
centre. The aborigines have known about the crater for centuries, but it took an aerial survey for us white men to find it. If the meteor hadn’t come down in such flat land we might never have found it. I ran out of daylight on my walk, so exploration of the lake would have to wait until the next morning. The picture on the right, taken from the rim, gives some idea of how isolated the crater is.
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Wolfe Creek (1.37) |
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To our surprise the campground was close to full, amazing for such an out-of-the-way spot, even if camping was free. There was one big party there doing a “tag-along” tour along the Tanami with an expert guide and 4wd driver leading the pack, not a bad idea if you are worried about the possibility of being stuck out in the desert on your own.
Sunday July 9th
Sandie wasn’t too keen to climb down into the crater (unless I returned and reported “agates”!), so I went on my own early that morning. The park service “does not recommend” climbing the 200 feet down into the crater because the way is steep and the rocks are unstable, as I can now confirm. My slide downhill ended when I sat down on a spinifex mound. “Stopped you thinking about sex for a couple of minutes!” commented an Australian witness to the slide. Luckily spinifex doesn’t stay with you the way that cactus does, and the spines are easily removed.
Closer inspection showed that the “lake” was just a patch of salt-encrusted sand. There had been a lake there recently but now there was just a little damp mud in a couple of holes. Trees and shrubs seemed to be doing well and supporting a wealth of birdlife and lizards. There were some cute little finches, but no budgies. Later, Sandie climbed up to look at the view but sensibly didn’t climb down.
In retrospect, I can say that Wolfe Creek was impressive, but probably not worth the couple of hundred miles of dust we had to endure. It’s recently received more attention as it is now the scene of a gory Australian horror movie. 
We retraced our steps along the corrugated side road and back along the Tanami Track. This time most of the cows were on their cud-chewing smoko (break) and they were gathered at the side of the road to watch us go by.