Most supermarkets in the Darwin area have fresh produce and other food on the shelves again after road trains were permitted to pass along the Stuart Highway on Monday, the Chief Minister says, but the highway will continue to be closed intermittently as crews repair the damage from flooding, while a major section of the rail line north of Tennant Creek is not expected to be operational for another two weeks.

Sections of the Stuart Highway will continue to be closed at 6pm daily for an indefinite period as contractors continue to upgrade the sections most damaged by floodwaters.

“There will be some work into the future where we will need to shut the road at times to complete some of those roadworks, but hopefully with the drier weather we’ll see those roadworks to be able to be completed,” Chief Minister Eva Lawler said on Tuesday.

Up to 50 trucks that has been delayed by the highway being flooded made their way to Darwin Monday to replenish supermarket shelves for Tuesday morning that has gone empty on Sunday, with the government saying another 70 to 80 were on the highway on Tuesday.

Infrastructure Minister Joel Bowden said the government and the trucking industry had worked together throughout the flood incident and showed “the resilience of our network”.

“[We] bounced back really quickly,” he said. “Food’s back on the shelves, food’s on the table at home, as little disruption as we could have hoped for.”

Asked if the government was looking to permanently upgrade the sections of the highway that flood to prevent food shortages occurring every year, Ms Lawler said there was a “rolling program” of works and that her government would be seeking further funds from the Federal Government to address the problem sections.

“This time there was some work that was happening over the wet season and that caused that difficulty,” she said.

“We are spending money on the Stuart Highway. You know, my estimate is if you wanted to upgrade the whole length of the Stuart Highway from Alice to Darwin, you’re probably looking at, you know, $4 billion, $5 billion, maybe even $6 billion. So, no government is going to do that all at once. So, it’s the work that we’re doing where you do a section at a time, and you do those critical sections.”

Ms Lawler also pointed to ongoing works on other NT highways, including the Carpentaria and Buntine highways, that also cost more money.

Centurian Transport manager Andrew Ailmore said services are now back to “normal” for freight deliveries after some drivers being stranded for 30 to 40 hours.

He said the government’s upgrades to the Stuart Highway were improving conditions.

“It takes a while,” he said. “We know where the common spots are where the road goes down, and it’s only sort of once a year, but it’s gradually getting fixed, so we’re getting there.”

Meanwhile, Ms Lawler said Aurizon, the company that operates on the Adelaide-Darwin railway line, was still waiting for water levels to subside north of Tennant Creek before it could repair the line, with the damaged section larger than originally believed.

“We’re thinking it could possibly be about two weeks [before it is repaired],” she said. “It’s about a two kilometre section. Originally, we thought it was going to be about 500 metres, but it’s more than that.”

Flood warnings remained in place for some remote communities in the Victoria River region.

Ms Lawler said the government was currently assessing flood damage in some communities, but said Kalkarindji was “looking fine”, however no update was available for Pigeon Hole, which also flooded last year with many homes damaged.