Great desert adventures: readers’ travel tips

Winning tip: The Canning stock route, Australia

Crossing four deserts, the Canning stock route in Western Australia extends 1,850km from Halls Creek (east of Broome) to Wiluna in the mid-west. The route was established in 1910 to break a monopoly in the beef trade. Much of it is bush track and can be undertaken with a 4WD. However, it is more usual to travel in a small escorted tour – either for the whole or a section of the trail. (Last year my father-in-law undertook a section with a group of volunteers maintaining the waterholes and wells.) The trail crosses a vast and stunning wilderness: from the red dirt of the Kimberley, the Pilbara region’s Lake Disappointment (a huge salt lake surrounded by sand dunes) to the wildflowers that appear in early spring. You may even see a camel or two. The best part of the day is when you set up camp, night falls and the heat subsides, and you sit beneath an endless canopy of bright stars thinking you could be the only people on the planet.

Chinguetti in Mauritania, almost swallowed by sand, is the Sahara at its prettiest. The town is one of Islam’s holiest cities and an architectural delight. The surrounding sand dunes are mesmerisingly beautiful and impressive in size. It’s possible to visit nearby oases on a camel and stay overnight in the desert under the open sky, an unforgettable experience on both full moon and moonless nights. The very adventurous can get to Chinguetti by riding the “first class” carriage (free of charge) on Mauritania’s iron ore train, one of the longest trains in the world (at about 3km). It departs Nouadhibou and Chinguetti can then be reached via Choum and Atar (which has an airport and can be reached by air from the capital, Nouakchott).


Source: theguardian