Savannah Way - Darwin to Cairns

[Trentm Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Trentm]

Although having been a member for a little while, I am fairly new to this - so apologies if this has been covered elsewhere. A couple of mates and I planning a trip from Darwin to Cairns in the first week of December 2014. We can only allow for 7-8 days and are considering which route to take. Despite the time constraints, we are pretty keen to do Savannah Way and get as much from the trip as possible - this is not so much a leisurely holiday trip, rather a need to get to Cairns....! Would appreciate any thoughts or advice on what to consider should we decide to tackle this route. Cheers Macka

[bucket Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bucket]

Can't comment on the Borroloola - Normanton section as I haven't driven it (yet), but the Normanton - Cairns bit I drove about 4 years ago in my XR6 and was thoroughly enjoyable, albeit sealed nearly all the way. Detoured to Karumba and stopped at Mount Surprise for a night and had a look at Undara Lave Tubes, which were fantastic. Worth the look if you've got the time as is Karumba, particularly to spend fishing or even just to enjoy the sunset from the pub at Karumba Point.

[Trentm Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Trentm]

Thanks. Yeah we're pretty keen to get to Normanton with enough time up our sleeve to get some fishing in at Kurumba. From what I've read it will be the stretch between Borroloola and Roper that might chew into our time. Cheers

[fridayman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close fridayman]

Kingfisher camp and Adel's Grove are good campsites, and you can get diesel at Adel's Grove. Near Borolloola there is King Ash Bay which is good for camping and a spot of fishing. You can do free camping at Leikhardt Falls - we drove over the rocks to the back, only to find an easy access road there - this was one of the most beautiful spots we stayed at (but had lots if flies when the sun was out). Lorella Springs is also worth a visit, but hold onto something when you ask for the price of beer or diesel. The road in and out will test your suspension.

If you do break down on the Savannah Way, I would advise against leaving the vehicle unattended as it will most likely be burnt out when you return. If you can take a sat phone as there are long sections without mobile coverage (although you shouldn't wait more than a day for someone to come past). I would also advise you to carry a couple of spare jerries with fuel, and plenty of water.

[Trentm Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Trentm]

Sounds great. So this route is do-able in the 7-8 day time frame and still be able to have a fish and enjoy a few sites you reckon?

[fridayman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close fridayman]

I think you'll be rushing and spending long hours driving.

I forgot to mention - most punctures up there are because people forget to adjust their tyre pressures.

[Trentm Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Trentm]

Good tip. What road conditions could we expect at this time and what sort of avg speed? There's a couple of spots we definitely want to try and see, so we might try and make up time/ground where we can to fit these in.

[fridayman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close fridayman]

The route that we took didn't have too much bitumen, and we were towing a camper. It's hard to say what average speed was as there were isolated spots where we could get up to 90-100km/h (once or twice), but most of the time this would not have been possible/appropriate. The corrugations will dictate your speed most of the time - different corrugations will feel comfortable at different speeds. Dust/visibility will also slow you down. And if you have lots of corrugations the shocks overheat and require you to drive much slower or take breaks for them to cool down - this is very important as you don't just lose comfort, but things start falling off the vehicle, and most importantly your braking is severely compromised when your shocks aren't damping properly. This caught me out a couple of times when I didn't spot a dip/stream or speed hump (in the middle of nowhere!) after long hours of driving, and it felt like we had almost no brakes to try and scrub off some speed. We were very lucky not to have suffered major damage on a couple of big hits. The other thing that is worth keeping the speed down for are the animals - we saw all sorts of road kill: goats, pigs, roos, emus, cattle, and we even saw a very large horse lying in the road that had been hit. Definitely avoid driving at night if you can. If you must make sure you have very good driving lights and keep the speed down - roos up there are proper big fellas (upto 6ft tall) and quickly appear out of nowhere, especially at dusk/night. We were running late on 2 occasions, and both times I was grateful that I had the HID driving lights as there were roos everywhere, and they are NOT smart animals.
I would say average speed probably wasn't much higher than 80km/h on a good day, and 50km/h on a bad day.