The Sandover Highway is an

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

unsealed track in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

between the

Plenty Highway The Plenty Highway is a outback mostly unsealed road in the Northern Territory of Australia between the Stuart Highway and north-western Queensland. Route description The road begins at a turnoff from the Stuart Highway north of Alice Spring ...

north of

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

and the

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

border.

Description

The highway's name is derived from the

Sandover River The Sandover River is an ephemeral river in the Northern Territory of Australia located in northeast Central Australia. It is the only major tributary of the Georgina River that does not rise in western Queensland. Instead it flows from the e ...

because its alignment follows that of the river. At its western end the road branches north from the Plenty Highway east of the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; it has a distance of . Its northern and souther ...

. Its total length is and it passes through semi-arid spinifex deserts and blacksoil Mitchell grass plains. The designated highway finishes just east of Alpurrurulam at the Northern Territory/Queensland border, but the track continues into Queensland for where it joins the Camooweal Urandangi Road, which runs north to Camooweal.

Accessibility

The track crosses Urapuntja lands, which is an Aboriginal homelands area. No permits are needed to travel on the track; however, they are necessary for travellers wishing to visit Aboriginal communities off-track. Although the first part of the track can be negotiated by conventional vehicles, use of a

four-wheel drive A four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, is 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 pr ...

vehicle is recommended after Ammaroo. Each year the wet season floods the black soil plains at the eastern end of the Sandover Highway and Alpurrurulam and Lake Nash become completely inaccessible, even to four-wheel drive vehicles. Flooding can also occur after brief but heavy thunderstorms during the dry season.

Stations and fuel

Ammaroo Station has a shop with basic supplies. Fuel is available but there are no camping facilities. Another fuel supply along the track can be found at Arlparra. Woodgreen Station, also known as Atartinga, covers approximately , and is located around north of Alice Springs on the Sandover Highway.

References

Australian outback tracks Highways in the Northern Territory {{NorthernTerritory-geo-stub

Description

Accessibility

Stations and fuel

See also

References