Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater.

Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater..
Who remembers the trip in, more than the Crater?
I saw the crater after having traversed the Old Gun Barrel Highway and followed up with the CSR and was astounded when folk in general focused on the corrugated track hehe..
Well laid out for camping with long drop toilets. Sites have no shelter or shade but have separation between sites. Basic, covers the description
Located 145 km south of Halls Creek on the edge of the Tanami Desert, WA. It is considered the second largest well preserved meteorite impact crater in the world, caused when a 50 000 tonne meteorite crashed into the planet at high speed. The crater is 800 m across, 60 m to current floor and the references found list it as 300 000 years old. It was discovered by an aerial survey team in 1947.
Wolfe Creek is named after Robert Wolfe in 1889, a prospector and Halls Creek store owner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEHg9cIeZgY

I remember the track out very well, as we spent a couple of hours doing a bush fix on an old blokes caravan suspension. He had broken a hanger bolt near the gate and was dragging the tyre on the van. We didn't have a bolt long enough to fix it, so we bent up his jockey wheel handle and strapped it all into place. He was an RAC member, so we called them up on the sat phone looking for assistance for him. Unfortunately, the closest truck big enough to load his van on was in Broome, so we applied the bush fix and asked him to limp it into Halls creek.

We were heading the other way onto the CSR, but I was happy when the RAC left a message on my sat phone the next day to tell us he had made it into Halls creek and thanked us for our assistance. The poor old fella had gotten himself into a bit of a dither about the state of the road into a world heritage listed site, he kept repeating to us, that he was going to "ring the department" to complain about it! LOL. This became our catchphrase on the CSR on every severely corrugated section "I'm ringing the department!" Hahahaha!

I think, from memory when we went thru from Alice to Halls creek, the homestead was abandoned and the track to the rim was a rough walking track, but no camp area. That was in 1997. No sooner had we reached the top than the girls started the old 'Oh great, is that it, can we go now!

"I'm ringing the department!" Hahahaha! It must have worked, an acquaintance went through in Oct this year an said it had just been graded..
People do have expectations about the track in, I think it's because a lot come down from Halls Creek thinking they are in for a real quick and easy run.

Good on ya for giving the helping hand!

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Originally Posted by PeeBee

I think, from memory when we went thru from Alice to Halls creek, the homestead was abandoned and the track to the rim was a rough walking track, but no camp area. That was in 1997. No sooner had we reached the top than the girls started the old 'Oh great, is that it, can we go now!

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You would find it real flash now then...
If a lot of traffic goes through at relatively high speed(and tyre pressures) it wouldn't take long to get nasty teeth chattering corrugations!

Was among the roughest corrigations we encountered on our trip and actually was responsible for cracking the fuel tank bash plate off one end , a few pulled in to the camp with bits broken or missing .
There is shade at the camp ground and they were just finishing the new long drop when we were there in August .

There was a fence line track on the left after the 2nd or 3rd gate on the way in, this was much smoother than the main track back in 2016.

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Originally Posted by Cradoka

and was astounded when folk in general focused on the corrugated track

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We felt the same with a lot of the folk we met who were travelling the CSR. We met many at our camps at Well 33 & at a couple of the campgrounds in Karlamilyi NP when we were heading westward a few months ago. We were expecting folk to talk about wonderful open spaces, desert phenomena & big skies, but no, mostly it was about corrugations, how awful the track was & surviving. To be honest it has made us think twice about whether we want to ‘do’ the Canning now. Not so much because of the endurance test descriptions we heard, but because it seemed that 90+% of CSR travellers were more about conquer, survive & wear the badge. In comparison to folk we’ve met in a variety of other remote places the CSR’ers have mostly seemed like a different breed. More important to have ‘done’ than to be ‘doing’ it. To busy getting there so they can talk about the achievement afterwards than to place any investment in immersing themselves in country. Of course the tougher it sounds the bigger the badge.

When and if you do the CSR you will understand. Corrugations for a day or so are ok, the CSR is corrugations nearly every day for a couple of weeks. You begin to dread the swales between dunes as you know it will be severely corrugated. There is some stunning country to be seen, Breadons bluff was my favourite section of the trip and also Lake Dissapointment. It's nothing to do with wearing a badge, the facts are it is one of, if not the most corrugated trip you will ever do over an extended length of time. It not only takes its toll on your vehicle, it takes its toll on the drivers and passengers as well. Slow and steady is the only way to do it, the corrugations can't be avoided and it is a daily thing for hours on end. If I ever do it again (unlikely) I'll go very early in the season and hope the corrugations aren't so plentiful. We met many wonderful travellers along the way as well some idiots travelling at break neck speed, no different to any other trip in that regard.

Never done a track because of corrigations, they are just an occupational hazard .
I've discovered that at about 20 psi and no faster than 80k it's only the very worst corrigations that we feel , there is heaps to see in the desert if you look and take you're time .
The Tanami track was ok when we went through , the Plenty highway was absolute crap between Jervois and the Queensland border and so was the track between Hells Gate and Boorooloola, there were many other tracks we went on that were heavily corrugated some badly so .
Some people hate them some don't mind them but to get to the best bits of our country you will eventually have to drive on them .
And unless I'm mistaken they have sealed over corrigations in some backstreets in Kalgoorlie.

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

We felt the same with a lot of the folk we met who were travelling the CSR. We met many at our camps at Well 33 & at a couple of the campgrounds in Karlamilyi NP when we were heading westward a few months ago. We were expecting folk to talk about wonderful open spaces, desert phenomena & big skies, but no, mostly it was about corrugations, how awful the track was & surviving. To be honest it has made us think twice about whether we want to ‘do’ the Canning now. Not so much because of the endurance test descriptions we heard, but because it seemed that 90+% of CSR travellers were more about conquer, survive & wear the badge. In comparison to folk we’ve met in a variety of other remote places the CSR’ers have mostly seemed like a different breed. More important to have ‘done’ than to be ‘doing’ it. To busy getting there so they can talk about the achievement afterwards than to place any investment in immersing themselves in country. Of course the tougher it sounds the bigger the badge.

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Interesting observation... not one I would have thought about. Thinking back I can place a couple of groups in each camp.
On the CSR I met Gavin Gillet... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM3...OFbmi9fiMqktsw
Now while he was a heck of a nice bloke he was commercially orientated, so I guess there's another sub division of travelers.
Also we had a visit from some tour guides from one of those flash tour mobs, now they were a bunch of.... well not my cuppa tea hehe!

I have very fond memories of the CSR, Tanami, Wolf Creek, Bungles, Halls Creek, Billiluna,Willuna and all place in between.
So the tracks are a bit corrugated,and the sand hills sandy, thats the out back. Take your time. We were one of the last groups on the track way back in the 90 something. Took us 21 days just on the CSR and that was way tooo quick. Toooo much to see.
Towed a camper trailer and never got bogged or broke any thing, nobody in our group had problems. Would do in again in a heart beat, but I still have toooo many places to see and find first. The secret to all these places is TIME and lots of it, slow down see things all the others miss. It`s not a competition, you only get one shot at life, do what you want and do it your way. Out back travel is a wonderfull experience if done slowly. Travel light,use really low trye pressures down to 10 psi or even lower and SLOW DOWN. This is the way Pearcey tries to do it.

I subscribe to the Pearcey method!

The common characteristic of many of the CSR travellers we encountered is that they didn’t.

Of course I am generalising & we met people who appreciated where they were, but we were surprised at the number of CSR travellers who somehow seemed to be missing the point. Groups were a mixed bag, some wanting to socialise with other travellers & respectful of all, and those who only associated within the boundaries of their own groups, often noisily as though they were the only folk there..

Well said pearcey... plus Adelaide is so far from those places hehe...

Agree Cuppa... vive la difference... even fools can be tolerated(for a while hehe)