The work and costs involved in maintaining two of the most challenging tracks in Australia is becoming too much for the local council to handle.
Only the most adventurous of grey nomads choose to take the Kalumburu and Port Warrender roads in WA’s remote Kimberley region …and those that do describe them as among the worst.
The West Australian reports that Kalumburu Road is 267 kilometres of heavily corrugated, unsealed road that connects the Gibb River Road and the community of Kalumburu, WA’s northernmost settlement.
Heading west from Kalumburu Road is the unsealed Port Warrender Road that travels 37.15 kilometres to the Mitchell Plateau.
The King Edward River Crossing is one of the current challenges on the road to Mitchell Falls, PIC: Cizza
For the past year, the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley has been trying to get Main Roads to take over responsibility of the roads, and now it plans to lobby the Minister for Transport directly to take them off their books.
Shire chief executive Vernon Lawrence told the West Australian that the Shire received a lot of complaints about the state of the roads, particularly after the wet season when there can be washouts more than a metre-deep.
“If we were to try to maintain these roads to a minimum standard it would cost $4.5 million a year. The Shire does not have that sort of funding to spend,” he said.
At the moment, the Shire reportedly spends about $1m a year on Kalumburu Road — and that is just enough to grade it one and a half times.
It says the only way to ‘future-proof” the roads was to seal them.
When Broome Shire faced a similar situation with Cape Leveque Road, which runs 205 kilometres from Broome to the northernmost point of the Dampier Peninsula, it handed over the dirt road to Main Roads, which then spent $65 million upgrading and sealing it, opening the region to more tourists.
And Mr Lawrence told the West Australian it made sense for them to do the same with the Kalumburu and Port Warrender roads.
“Main Roads have a huge budget, much, much, more than we have and they can do roadworks more cheaply,” Mr Lawrence said. “For every one kilometre we can do they would be able to do four or five kilometres.”
As the Gibb River Road is progressively sealed, the Shire sys it expects more tourists will venture north up the Kalumburu and Port Warrender roads.
“We are anticipating more and more demand for improvements to those roads,” Mr Lawrence told the West Australian.
Are you a Grey Nomad member yet? Click here to find out about the discounts, competitions and other benefits on offer.
I did the gibb & the Mitchell falls road last year before the wet & found it ok if people would slow down the road would last longer between grading. To seal the road would be great only down side would be more tourists. Seal + tourist = lot more rubbish
Love to see them both sealed.
This is a class A1 tourist spot, and noboby can get there without busting a vehicle. There are many similar spots in Aus (away from the East Coast of course). Why can’t the special spots be federally funded roads or national park access roads (like Uluru/Kata Tjuta) and brought up to a travelable condition. It is happening in some spots thankfully. There’ll still be plenty of impossible roads to 4WD on. Definitely not for funding by local councils. I’d pay a reasonable toll to have the Gibb/Mitchell and similar roads corrugation-free, cheaper than new suspension. Better access generates a lot of employment
NO. Whats next ,kerb and guttering
Totally agree, not every beautiful location needs a bitumen access road to it. They remain pristine when hardly anyone goes to them.
Glad you mentioned that, it would be great to see real world roads properly built up there.
Having spent close to a year living on the Dampier Peninsula (north of Beagle Bay) & having spent time in & around Kalumburu I feel the comparison with the sealing of the Cape Leveque Rd to the Kalumburu Rd is appropriate. Sealing the Cape Leveque Road was always going to be a disaster. Not only did last years wet seen huge amounts of damage done to the newly sealed road, it is the damage done to culture & lifestyle of many who live there in what for generations has been a ‘mainland protected island’ with the roads keeping whitefella ‘progress’ at bay, & which is yet to play out in full. We hear both the black & white voices of those who stand to benefit financially by an influx of tourists but nothing about what impact that influx will have on the lives of those who have lived all their lives up there with little real idea of the train about to hit them in so many ways. We are told how it will improve lives – by who’s standards? It will be similar in Kalumburu. But let’s face the it the real reason for the road being sealed up Cape Leveque has been kept very quiet, even denied. Off shore fossil fuel exploration & onshore fracking.
Having travelled the Gibb River Road & Kalumburu Roads many times since I lived in Wyndham in 1978 I can honestly say that if these roads & the Port Warrender Road were sealed there would be too much pressure on the fragile environment which, over the years, has benefited from these roads being more difficult than most.
Rather than spending millions of dollars sealing the roads maybe drivers should be educated about how to treat the roads better. Airing down tyres & reducing speeds is a starting point. When tourists are planning their holiday they need allow more time to drive these iconic roads & if they were to, they would see so much more rather than dust & corrugations.
I’m about to ride my bike east to west the length of the GIBB RR next May to raise awareness & funds for prostate cancer education & research. I swore the last time I drove this road back in 2018 that I would never do it again & this was solely because of driver behaviour. When you have large off-road caravans coming towards you at 100kph then they don’t slow down, you end up either having to stop or drive blind until the dust settles. I lived in a rural area when I learned to drive as a kid & was taught to slow down as soon as I saw dust heading towards me. If both oncoming vehicles do this, it’s much safer because with less dust, visibility is far better plus your vehicle doesn’t get blasted by stones from the other vehicle!
It’s common sense & common decency. Have consideration for other road users please!
NO !!!
It is best to have road access improved as currently it is a vehicle killer.
Also, the highly intrusive helicopters absolutely ruin the place with their low flying and take off and landing from the camp site. The noise pollution is terrible as is the visual experience. Imagine trying to enjoy (surely) one of the wonders of the world helicopters low flying right over it. The air traffic is currently a disgrace for a National Park.
Was a teacher at Halls Creek DHS then principal @Kalumburu RCS school ‘(79-‘81) and eventually Principal @Kununurra DHS (‘06-‘10) and have driven the Gibb River + Kalumburu roads from the Derby and Wyndham ends on many an occasion (!) – immediately before / after the ‘wet’ and during the ‘dry’. Progressive upgrading and forming of the gravel sections, and sealing of other sections may be a boon to those looking to see parts of ‘God’s country’, however, at the demise of those still keen to experience the ‘outback’. The condition of the road and its reputation for destroying vehicles and trailers has contributed to managing the number of people traversing the road. Personally, I’d prefer that the adventure, challenge and thrill of conquering the ‘Gibb’ be retained, with only those sections that pose a significant risk to travellers’ safety upgraded. Folks looking for a ‘bitumen’ experience already have a vast network of roads available.
Would be great to see this road sealed, sure it will take away that outback feel, but not all of us have a off road van or camper to be able to explore this region.
Look forward to the black top happenin.
I do know that sealing the road is good for the people that live there but thats why I go to these places to experience the true out back if I wanted to drive blacktop I would stay on the main highways
What a load of cobblers. Next thing you will want the Golden Arches. I have been travelling both Gibb and Kalumburu since 1971. If driven responsibly, the only challenge is the idiots trying to beat every body else, slow down and enjoy the country.(and save fuel!)
The opening paragraph of the article calls these roads“tracks”.
I can only surmise that the person who wrote this article has never lived in the bush. These are gazetted roads, albeit gravel and unsealed and sometimes (owing to the pressure of users trafficking the roads) quite rough and corrugated. But they are roads just the same, and as such, deserve the attention that the heavy volume of traffic they carry, deserves.
It is time to stop living in the past, the principal dollar earner in this part of the continent now is tourism, even El Questro is destocking in the near future, and will concentrate solely on the tourism dollar. They can do this because the road to Elq’s gate (North Eastern end of the Gibb) is sealed, thus allowing relatively easy access to this part of the Kimberley.
Many of the responder’s comments so far, make the writers sound like members of an exclusive club, one that only permits members who possess a vehicle capable of handling the harsh conditions of those two roads. So, the rest of the population who don’t own a 4×4, should not be granted access to this part of our great country via a sealed (hopefully “all weather”) road. I say all weather road, because from the local’s point of view I feel confident, That would be highly desirable. Being cut off for weeks at a time during the “wet” does have its challenges.
I feel confident that if you polled the people who reside permanently in that part of the country, the majority would all say – Seal the road, soon as possible please.
I have lived on cattle stations in the middle of the boonies, travelled the Gibb Road twice, plus all of the other iconic gravel roads this country has to offer, and the Kalumburu Road was the roughest road I have travelled at that time. I say seal both the roads for the benefit of the locals and the rest of the Australian population.
People who complain about it being a vehicle killer are driving the wrong vehicles.
Haven’t traveled the road in question, I am yet to find a road that will kill my Landrover.
Yes I would love to see them sealed, that way you’d get more tourists and wouldn’t have to be only the 4×4 vehicles.
With the extra money the Government is hoping to scroung from visitors from out of state they should be able to bring the roads in the N.T. up to 3rd world standard again.
I’d love to see the Mitchell Falls road accessible to 2WD traffic but realistically that will never happen because the government’s agenda is to discourage travelling to reduce emissions. They want to discourage people from using fuel – not encourage them to take a road trip to Mitchell Falls or do the big lap. They want driving thousands of kilometres to enjoy amazing remote places to be a thing of the past so they can meet their net zero targets. From their perspective – outlawing fossil fuel vehicles only affects a handful of remote area businesses that cater for self-drive tourists.