One “Hell” of a Road

17-19th August

Over the last several days we have been driving from Roper Bar and Limmen National Park to Borroloola to Hells Gate Roadhouse and on to Burketown.

Initially the road wasn’t too bad but from Borroloola to Hells Gate it was the worst road we have ever driven. We had been warned that it was rough and to take care so we were sort of prepared. But it was worse than we imagined. Bull dust, corrugations for miles, rocks, creeks, dust and more dust. It was fun and the ever changing scenery kept us interested. We saw more animals through here than we have seen all trip. Kangaroos, emu, cattle, wild pigs, eagles, pelicans.

(P – We have about finished our full lap of National Highway One, over various trips. The missing link for a few years has been the Savannah Way (the original Savannah Way, not to be confused with the black top version further south). As the author stated some of it was rugged enough to shake the fillings out of your teeth! Whilst it might not have the status, be as trendy and have “naming rights” like Cape York and the Gibb River Road, I think it is just as beautiful, less commercialised, virtually no traffic ( like about 4 or 5 oncoming vehicles each day),has some fantastic natural wonders, saw more animals ( both native and introduced) and was fortunate to see a couple of cattle musters along the track! Around 1000klm of outback dirt roads have rolled under our tyres in the last 5 days, I doesn’t get much more Aussie than driving roads and tracks like these! The isolated “Hells Gates Road House” just near the NT \ Queensland Border we felt, is aptly named as we had just completed one “Hell of a “Road”).

The name Hells Gate originated from the early days of gulf settlement, when early settlers moved through the only gap in the escarpment. Police escorted travellers to the “portals of hell” from then on they were on their own until they reached Katherine. It’s the same track that explorer and overlander and bushman Nat Buchanan travelled in 1881, as he guided the first settlers to take up and settle the first two cattle runs in the Northern Territory.