KIMBERLEY-ALICE LINK COMING

The route from Halls Creek to Alice Springs stretches for 1056km which is mostly unsealed.

It should be possible to travel from the Kimberley to Alice Springs on bitumen in just eight years time, according to Halls Creek Shire president Malcolm Edwards.

“From 2023 they’ll be starting on the Tanami Road and Main Roads advised us they should complete to the border by 2030,” he said. “In the Northern Territory, they’ve also got about 400km to do, they should also be at the border around about the same time. So if all goes to plan we’ll have a bitumen road to Alice Springs by 2030.”

Kimberley leaders have long pleaded to have the road bitumenised so as to open up the Kimberley to tourism and business in Australia’s south east, and to make the region easier to defend.