Plenty Highway

Where the Northern Territory starts the tarmac ends
Now 500kms of outback red dirt with hardly a bend.
Our Jeep handled this road better than we thought it might
Broke our journey at Tobermory Cattle Station for the night.

A central station with 13000 cattle is immense
Over 2 million hectares, that’s sure a lot of fence.
Vegetation sparse but escarpments we could see
Reminiscent of an extinct and ancient inland sea.

This land is vast yet not as flat as we believed
Roads rough but not deep rutted, we’re relieved.
A breakdown out here leaves you in rather a pickle
As most of the time you never see another vehicle.

The Plenty Highway is notoriously hard
Roadsides resembling a tyre graveyard.
For 4WD only and littered with car shells
Of unheeded 2WD that didn’t fair aswell.

Endless kms evoke mirages that bait
Seemingly real then readily evaporate.
Our constant dust cloud billowing out back
Settling over carcasses on side of the track.

On reaching bitumen again we knew Alice wasn’t far
Rejoiced in surviving and the performance of our car.
A couple of days needed before we collect our renter
Of an off road trailer to discover Australia’s Red Centre.Read more