Besides being a rite of passage for every serious off-roader and a decent challenge to the stamina of man and vehicle, the Canning Stock Route is also a track of great natural diversity and beauty.
Story + Photos Don Fuchs
Sometimes, nature delivers a curveball. An extreme rain event in March 2024 torpedoed the Diamantina Touring Company’s original plan to follow the entire Canning Stock Route (CSR) from near Halls Creek south to the small mining town of Wiluna. “In over 30 years of stock route travelling I have never seen flooding like this,” explains expedition leader Andrew Dwyer. “Lake Gregory is in flood – a one-in-100-year flood. It is just impossible to get on to the stock route.”
Therefore, plan B for the expedition’s 9 vehicles (5 company 4WDs and 4 tagalongs) is to come from Alice Springs along the Gary Junction Road, via the isolated Western Desert communities of Haasts Bluff, Papunya, Kintore and the remotest of all, Kiwirrkurra, to Well 33 on the CSR. This alternative access adds the spectacular ranges of Central Australia, Karku, a striking mountain with the most important Aboriginal ochre mine in Central Australia, the picturesque Dover Hills and masses of wildflowers to an already epic and diverse road trip.
The 1,800km CSR runs from Halls Creek in the Kimberley to the small gold-mining town of Wiluna in the Goldfields–Esperance region. It is the longest historic stock route in the world and has a fierce reputation as one of the greatest 4WD adventures in Australia, if not anywhere. Adjectives such as arduous, isolated, challenging and unforgiving are often used in the context of the CSR, which has relentless corrugations, steep, often double-crested sand dunes, rocky outcrops and total remoteness.
This story excerpt is from Issue #158
Outback Magazine: December/January 2025
