A Nibble at the Canning Stock Route

We wake in the morning at the junction of the Tanami and Great Northern Highway with an idea to go to Broome, but consult tips given by a friend in Alice in 2019 who suggested Billiluna region to take a 4wd nibble at the margin of the Canning Stock Route (CSR). No contest for a break in the Bush. Broome can wait.

Off we rattle, jolt and shake over the Tanami. Pressures down, bra straps tightened, dentures removed.

As we approached Billiluna, fires were burning along the side of the road. Later, we were told these were locals dropping a match to flush out prey.

We arrive in the Indigenous community of Billiluna around lunchtime where there is excellent, treated borewater from a tap opposite the fuel machine serving diesel at $3.35 a litre. Next door is the well stocked community shop run by lovely, cheery staff who took over just a week ago. Offers include roo tails.

Watered, fuel topped up, ice creams restocked, we rock along the narrow, corrugated, sandy start of the CSR for a dozen or so kms, then turn left to the most delightful campsite beside Nyana or Stretch Lagoon, in the Paruku region which is an IPA or Indigenous Protected Area. 

It is a hive of bird activity - terns, pelicans, martins, honeyeaters, woodswallows, budgies and more.

We soon spot a rhythmically bellowing bull just behind us, then another. However all is well, the bulls are just thirsty.

Soon a bunch of other campers rolled up. As the beautiful afternoon light caught the edge of the lagoon, we all gathered for a friendly yarn around the campfire.

The moon, nearly full, rose above, frogs revved like mopeds, woodsmoke scented the air, and our relaxation truly stretched over the lagoon.

Next day, sunrise is equally enjoyable.

Our destination for today was Well 51 - a 3 hour rodeo. The Canning Stock Route certainly lives up to its super corrugated reputation, a real bull breaker. We take more air out for a good bulge in the tyres.

 

Gen surveys an avalanche of items fallen out of locked drawers and cupboards.

Suddenly after the hammering ride, we come to a stop at a gate where we meet a lovely older Brisbane couple in a nifty Fuso truck who have come solo up the CSR from Wiluna, just the latest of their offroad adventures, including the Simpson Desert and the Great Central Road. They made it with extra fuel tanks and 5 fuel jerrycans.

From the gate, the road improves, artfully snaking on sandy ruts across mini sand dunes. We squeeze very tight through roadside trees. Another stretch is lined with wispy, feathery, desert oaks.

Well 51 and its broken windvane appear over the dunes. We savour the remote, abandoned wreckage around the well that once watered mobs of cattle driven 1000s of km from the Kimberley to Wiluna and on to Perth.

We backtrack 6km to camp in the open beside a lagoon crowded with brolgas, the wind raising waves that rustle the air.

What a transformation a different time of day can bring to a landscape that appeared glaring, overexposed at midday. By contrast, the dawn sky glows in yellow, orange, and pink, while the full moon shines so bright high in the sky behind. We happened to be there on the night of the super blue moon, an event which had not occurred for 14 years.

The air is still and chilled. Large mobs of brolgas all around start calling to wake their mob to lift off and drift gracefully across the horizon. Flights of magpie geese join the processions. Babblers provide their quirky input to the soundscape.

As the sun rises, the light reaches a crescendo, more and more birds pass in silhouette, the stragglers beat wings faster to catch up with the new destination for a new day. What a place, what a feeling.







Where is the moon today? we kept wondering sipping our glass of wine in the dwindling light. After yesterday’s super blue moon, it was nowhere to be seen. Having given up, I was stunned to see an astonishing show while looking up through the window. An enormous red moon was rising just above the lagoon.

I grabbed my camera and ran barefoot like crazy to get an interesting foreground. A copious amount of bindi under my soles plus trying to avoid the cowpats slowed me down considerably.

As the moon rose quickly over the lagoon, we had our own Stairway to the Moon! Who needs Broome?





































































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Tanami, Canning Stock Route, Billiluna, Western Australia, WA,