Mt Augustus to the Kennedy Ranges; what’s the road like?
It can be really hard to find information on road conditions, and what is actually suitable to be taken, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on the road between Mt Augustus and the Kennedy Ranges. I say road, but make no mistake; this is not bitumen and whilst it is regularly maintained you need to pay attention to the condition.
Online the road is stated as safe for 2WD’s, and if you have a 4WD that’s even better.
Please know this refers to the road that heads over the top of Mt Augustus through Cobra, and not the one that goes down the other side and through Gascoyne Junction and then goes up. The latter is longer, and the road is not as well maintained, apparently.
We took this road in June 2022 after a couple of lovely nights at Mt Augustus, with the intention of camping at Temple Gorge in the Kennedy Ranges.
Where does it go?
The road does a few dog legs, driving past the turn off to the Kennedy Ranges Loop, then Temple Gorge and eventually ends up at the Gascoyne Junction.
How long is the road?
The road in total, from Mt Augustus to Temple Gorge is 270km?
Road condition and time frames
Google Maps was showing 4 and a bit hours to do the drive through Cobra, not that we always rely on this. It had said 7 hours to do the Ashburton downs road to Mt Augustus, and we did it in 6, so wasn’t too far off.
I was hoping that this road would be in far better condition than the Ashburton Downs one; the idea of doing another long day dodging holes and huge dips just wasn’t something that appealed to me.
Fortunately, for us, the road was absolutely pristine. There was a grader working, but even the spots that hadn’t been touched were a million times better than the Ashburton Road.
I had it on cruise control at 90km/h, with our tyres down at 27/30/33 cold (front, rear, camper trailer) and there were a few quite rocky sections that I was glad of the tyre pressures. We very rarely had to brake hard, although we did pass a few cows and a handful of kangaroos that weren’t overly predictable.
Overall, this road is much, much better than the Ashburton one, and you would get a 2WD through most of it without an issue.
We did go through one water crossing that was about 25 cm deep, quite wide but with a nice concrete bottom for you to cruise over.
