The Great Central Road is a mostly unsealed Australian

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...

highway that runs from

Laverton, Western Australia Laverton, originally known as British Flag, is a town in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, and the centre of administration for the Shire of Laverton. The town of Laverton is located at the western edge of the Great Victoria Desert, no ...

Yulara Yulara is a town in the southern region of the Northern Territory, Australia. It lies as an unincorporated enclave within MacDonnell Region. At the , Yulara had a permanent population of 1,099, in an area of . It is by road from World Heritage ...

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

(near Uluru / Ayers Rock). It passes through a number of small communities on the way.

History

The Great Central Road has its origins in the early 1930s when Warburton was established as a missionary settlement, and supplies were delivered from Laverton via a rough bush track. By the mid 1950s, the track from Laverton had become graded dirt. In 1958 during survey for the

Gunbarrel Highway The Gunbarrel Highway is an isolated desert track in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. It consists of about of washaways, heavy corrugations, stone, sand and flood plains. The Gunbarrel Highway connects Victory D ...

as part of the Woomera rocket range project,

Len Beadell Leonard Beadell OAM BEM FIEMS (21 April 1923 – 12 May 1995) was a surveyor, road builder, bushman, artist and author, responsible for constructing over of roads and opening up isolated desert areas – some – of central Australia fr ...

visited Warburton and built a new road from Giles via the Rawlinson Range to Warburton. At

Jackie Junction Jackie Junction is a remote location in Western Australia on the Gunbarrel Highway. It was named by the road builder Len Beadell after his youngest daughter and is at the junction of the original Gunbarrel Highway and the road to Warburton. I ...

north of Warburton, the Gunbarrel Highway branched from this road towards Carnegie Station further west. Beadell returned to Giles via a different bush track which passed east through the Blackstone Range towards

Docker River Kaltukatjara , also known as Docker River, is a remote Indigenous Australian community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is southwest of Alice Springs, west of the Stuart Highway, near the Western Australia and Northern Territory bord ...

. In January 1978 funds were provided to Warburton council by the Western Australian Government to construct a more direct road from Warburton to Docker River which bypassed part of the twenty-year-old Gunbarrel Highway. The Great Central Road and original Gunbarrel Highway are coincident for near Giles.

Present conditions

Though still recommended only for

four wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

vehicles, the road is now graded to a standard suitable for two wheel drive vehicles and caravans. It is on the most direct route from

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

to Uluru / Ayers Rock, with approximately 10,000 vehicles travelling the route annually. When heading from the Northern Territory to Laverton there is an Amnesty Bin for Quarantine WA outside of Laverton. All passenger vehicles are to stop and dispose of all quarantine risk material that is stated on the sign, including all fresh fruit, vegetables, honey, seed, potatoes, onions and other such plants. This area has a mobile inspector from time to time and there is risk of fines if travellers are stopped and offending material is found. There are fuel supplies at the following locations along the route. The distances below are relative to Laverton. * Cosmo Newbery – , * Tjukayirla Roadhouse – , * Warburton – , * Warakurna Roadhouse – , * Docker River – and * Yulara – . It is recommended that communications equipment be carried while driving on this road. The route also passes directly into Aboriginal reserves and it is a legal requirement for travellers to hold a valid transit permit at the time of travel, even when staying on the Great Central Road. Two permits are required and they are available from the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage of the Government of Western Australia and the Central Land Council in the Northern Territory. The permits are free.

Upgrades

The

Northern Australia Roads Program Northern Australia Roads Program is a suite of projects designed to deliver upgrades to high priority roads in northern Australia. In 2016 the Australian Government announced 19 projects to be funded under this program, and in 2020 another was add ...

announced in 2016 included the following project for the Great Central Road (Tjukaruru Road).

Sealing and upgrades

The project to seal and upgrade an unsealed section of the road is expected to be complete in late 2022 at a total cost of $10 million.

Gallery

File:Gcr2xxx2er3.jpg, Sign near

Giles Weather Station Giles Weather Station (also referred to as Giles Meteorological Station or Giles) is located in Western Australia near the Northern Territory border, about west-south-west of Alice Springs and west of Uluru. It is the only staffed weather sta ...

File:Great Central Road near Tjukayirla.jpg, The Great Central Road is of suitable standard for 2WD vehicles

Attractions

The two most notable attractions on this road are Kata Tjuta / The Olgas and Uluru / Ayers Rock, both within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in the Northern Territory. On the Western Australian side of the border, other attractions include Tjukayirla Roadhouse, whose name derives from the Tjukayirla

rockhole A panhole is a depression or basin eroded into flat or gently sloping cohesive rock.Twidale, C.R., and Bourne, J.A., 2018''Rock basins (gnammas) revisited. ''Géomorphologie: Relief, Processus, Environnement, Articles sous presse, Varia, mis en l ...

s, which are located at the southwest end of the campground. Wildlife can be seen around the roadhouse, including

dingo The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (Basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage of dog found in Australia (continent), Australia. Its taxonomic classification is de ...

es,

emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

camels A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. ...

and many species of birds. Empress Springs, or Reti, is a significant cultural site for Ngalia people, and is situated on land subject to a native title claim. The site is depicted in a

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

Police Station, created by Deeva and

Kado Muir Kado Muir is an Australian Aboriginal artist, anthropologist, archaeologist, and Indigenous rights activist in Western Australia. Early life and family Muir's father was dogger Peter Muir, who gave the important sacred and archaeological site ...

in 2018. The springs are inside a cave, located around north along the David Carnegie Rd, the junction of which is along the Great Central Rd west of the roadhouse. Access is via a chain ladder. Nearby attractions include the marker erected by surveyors Harry L. Paine and Hugh C. Barclay in 1931 on their expedition to the

Warburton Ranges Warburton or Warburton Ranges is an Aboriginal Australian community in Western Australia, just to the south of the Gibson Desert and located on the Great Central Road (part of the Outback Way) and Gunbarrel Highway. At the , Warburton had a pop ...

, known as the Paine & Barclay Survey Marker. The closest rockhole to the marker is the Winduldarra Rockhole. Additional attractions include Lasseter's Cave, the Petermann Ranges,

, the

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

bluff of Giles Breakaway, Lake Throssell, Lake Yeo Nature Reserve, and Peegull Waterhole and Caves.

Junctions

References

External links

Great Central Road on ExplorOzGreat Central Road (Tourism Western Australia)
{{Road infrastructure in Western Australia Australian outback tracks Goldfields-Esperance Roads in the Northern Territory Roads in Western Australia Great Victoria Desert