Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) the Tanami highway, running between the Stuart Highway (NT) and the Great Northern Highway (WA).

1909

Register (Adelaide) 10 Aug. 6/7: tanami / Prospectors En Route / Opening Up The Track.

2. (Aus.) the bitumen-topped Stuart Highway running from Darwin to the south.

1935		R.B. Plowman Boundary Rider 207: Another turn-out had started just before him – a family wagonette from ‘up the track.’.
1944		J.D. Porter Our Fertile North 12: Used by touring motorists as overnight stopping places on the long journey up ‘the track’ to Darwin.
1960		N T. News (Darwin) 26 Feb. 6/3: The society plans to start work on their very big Fannie Bay block [...] after two major Territory projects down the track are completed [AND].
1965		Australian 28 Jan. 10: Maps may tell you the thousand miles long black ribbon linking Darwin with Alice Springs and the south is the Stuart Highway. But up here it is ‘the Track’ or ‘the Bitumen’ [GAW4].
1977		K. Cole Winds of Fury 33: Some took to their battered cars, cleared a way through paths and streets, and roared and rattled off down the ‘Track’ (the Stuart Highway linking Darwin with Adelaide and Brisbane via the Barkly Highway) [AND].
1984		Age (Melbourne) 16 June Extra 11: They call the 1500 kilometres of bitumen south [of Darwin], the track [GAW4].
1990		Bulletin 25 Dec. 141: One of the big talking points at Tennant Creek is the necessity to alter the point where the Barkly Highway meets the Track [GAW4].