The Wet Season

Not only is Alice Springs a long from everywhere, there aren’t many ways to get here. Because of the lack of population in the center of Australia, there is only one paved highway out here in the centre (that’s the Aussie spelling). The Stuart Highway runs the length of the country from Port Augusta on the south coast to Darwin on the Top End (another Aussie term). The only east to west road is the Barkly Highway which runs from Brisbane on the east coast, inland through Queensland and hits the Stuart highway in Tennant Creek (about 750 miles north of Alice Springs).

Recent cyclones (that’s Aussie for hurricane) have flooded the northern portions of the Northern Territory and Queensland as far south as the Barkly region. Unfortunately these floods covered a huge portion of the Barkly Highway and completely destroyed several sections.

The road has been closed since January 6th and is expected to be closed for 3 to 4 weeks. All traffic has been directed on a detour that will add 4 to 5 DAYS on to their trip. Check out the map.

Australian tourists aren’t happy but they understand, the trucking industry is screaming for government subsidies and all the government agencies are pointing fingers. That’s all fairly normal when a natural disaster strikes; the amusing part is the foreign tourists that refuse to believe that the road is truly impassable and kept driving off into the water. The barricades marking the road closing are a few hundred miles ahead of the actual road washouts. They go around the barricades and several hours later have to be rescued by helicopter. A few have drowned and several more have lost their vehicles to rushing waters.

The Australians drive on some deplorable roads/paths. They'll drive hudreds of miles on dirt (not gravel) roads forging rivers and swerving around camels, cows and emus and not even bat an eye. When the Australians declare a road closed it really is CLOSED.

Here are a few news stories about the recent road closings:

Barkly should be a disaster zone

NT Govt. under fire over Barkly Hwy crisis

Workers prepare to repair Barkley Highway

Truckies lose out after flooding cuts freight route