Hi all,
Here is a brief report on our Canning Stock Route trip. My wife has the SD card with all the Canning photos on it so I will have to post them up later. The whole report was too long for one post so I've split it into a number of posts.
We left Gladstone on 2nd June and got back on 8th July, so were way for 5 weeks in total.
The route was
• Gladstone to Alice Springs via Winton/Boulia along the Plenty highway
• Alice Springs to Wiluna via Uluru and the Great Central Road
• Canning Stock Route (Wiluna to Billiluna)
• Billiluna to Alice Springs on the Tanami Road with a detour up to Wolfe Creek Meteor Crater first
• Alice Springs to Oodnadatta via the Binns Track
• Oodnadatta Track to Maree then Birdsville Track to Birdsville
• Birdsville to Gladstone via Windorah/Longreach
The original plan for the return journey was to cross the Simpson but on reaching Mt Dare we found out that Eyre Creek was still impassable thus prompting a change to plan to return home via the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks. I have been long the Oodnadatta track a couple of times before but had never been up the Birdsville track.
We travelled with a group of friends with whom we try to do roughly one trip per year. There were 9 vehicles in total, as follows:
• 150 Series Prado (ours)
• 200 Series Landcruiser
• Landrover Discovery 3
• Mitsubishi Triton (current model)
• 3 x Nissan Patrol GU wagons – 1 x 2.8 litre, 1 x 3.0 litre and 1 x 4.2 litre engines
• Nissan Patrol GU ute
• 80 Series Landcruiser
All vehicles were turbo diesels. The Triton was only a few months old and our Prado was about 8 months old at the start of the trip and only had 14,000km on the odometer. All the other vehicles were at least a few years old.
We had been planning this trip for about a year and it was the main catalyst for upgrading from the 90 series to the 150 series. We needed a bit more room now that the kids were getting bigger and while the 90 series had never missed a beat in its 195,000 km’s I did not want it to start on such an epic trip.
Quite a lot of preparation went into setting up the Prado. Most of the mods are detailed in my build thread and there is nothing out of the ordinary, it just takes a lot of effort to build a vehicle up into a capable tourer in a short period of time.
All vehicles camped with tents or swags (i.e. no camper trailers) and we had to carry enough food for about 4 weeks. This was probably the biggest challenge – fitting everything in. I’m not sure if many people are aware but the 150 series actually has less cargo space that the 90 series (and I’m talking the GX here with no 3rd row seats and without the 3rd row cup holders and aircon robbing cargo space). All the extra room goes into the cabin. Anyway, that presented some challenges and the need to be innovative when design storage and when packing. Some of the things we did were:
• I cut down the two channels that the black widow drawers sit on by 25mm
• Removed the bolts from the forward wings on the drawers so we could pack in there as well (these are normally inaccessible)
• Had a custom made stainless 55 litre water tank
• Moved the fridge to the very back of the vehicle and utilised the space behind it for storing items that we did not need to get to often. I had to make up a board to fit in here to hold stuff in so it didn’t fall down whenever the fridge was opened.
• Stored spares in the small space underneath the drawers (ie. Between the floor in the cargo area and the underside of the drawers, e.g. spare air filter, siphon hose and a few other items.
Anyway, everything was crammed in - 4 weeks of food, 75 litres of water, bedding, toys/books/activities for the kids, etc, oh and of course 3 weeks worth of grog – and off we went.
Three of the vehicles were from Gladstone and travelled the whole trip together, while the other six were from SE Qld. Everyone made their own way over to WA in their own time and the group assembled at North Pool before starting the CSR.
Here is a brief report on our Canning Stock Route trip. My wife has the SD card with all the Canning photos on it so I will have to post them up later. The whole report was too long for one post so I've split it into a number of posts.
We left Gladstone on 2nd June and got back on 8th July, so were way for 5 weeks in total.
The route was
• Gladstone to Alice Springs via Winton/Boulia along the Plenty highway
• Alice Springs to Wiluna via Uluru and the Great Central Road
• Canning Stock Route (Wiluna to Billiluna)
• Billiluna to Alice Springs on the Tanami Road with a detour up to Wolfe Creek Meteor Crater first
• Alice Springs to Oodnadatta via the Binns Track
• Oodnadatta Track to Maree then Birdsville Track to Birdsville
• Birdsville to Gladstone via Windorah/Longreach
The original plan for the return journey was to cross the Simpson but on reaching Mt Dare we found out that Eyre Creek was still impassable thus prompting a change to plan to return home via the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks. I have been long the Oodnadatta track a couple of times before but had never been up the Birdsville track.
We travelled with a group of friends with whom we try to do roughly one trip per year. There were 9 vehicles in total, as follows:
• 150 Series Prado (ours)
• 200 Series Landcruiser
• Landrover Discovery 3
• Mitsubishi Triton (current model)
• 3 x Nissan Patrol GU wagons – 1 x 2.8 litre, 1 x 3.0 litre and 1 x 4.2 litre engines
• Nissan Patrol GU ute
• 80 Series Landcruiser
All vehicles were turbo diesels. The Triton was only a few months old and our Prado was about 8 months old at the start of the trip and only had 14,000km on the odometer. All the other vehicles were at least a few years old.
We had been planning this trip for about a year and it was the main catalyst for upgrading from the 90 series to the 150 series. We needed a bit more room now that the kids were getting bigger and while the 90 series had never missed a beat in its 195,000 km’s I did not want it to start on such an epic trip.
Quite a lot of preparation went into setting up the Prado. Most of the mods are detailed in my build thread and there is nothing out of the ordinary, it just takes a lot of effort to build a vehicle up into a capable tourer in a short period of time.
All vehicles camped with tents or swags (i.e. no camper trailers) and we had to carry enough food for about 4 weeks. This was probably the biggest challenge – fitting everything in. I’m not sure if many people are aware but the 150 series actually has less cargo space that the 90 series (and I’m talking the GX here with no 3rd row seats and without the 3rd row cup holders and aircon robbing cargo space). All the extra room goes into the cabin. Anyway, that presented some challenges and the need to be innovative when design storage and when packing. Some of the things we did were:
• I cut down the two channels that the black widow drawers sit on by 25mm
• Removed the bolts from the forward wings on the drawers so we could pack in there as well (these are normally inaccessible)
• Had a custom made stainless 55 litre water tank
• Moved the fridge to the very back of the vehicle and utilised the space behind it for storing items that we did not need to get to often. I had to make up a board to fit in here to hold stuff in so it didn’t fall down whenever the fridge was opened.
• Stored spares in the small space underneath the drawers (ie. Between the floor in the cargo area and the underside of the drawers, e.g. spare air filter, siphon hose and a few other items.
Anyway, everything was crammed in - 4 weeks of food, 75 litres of water, bedding, toys/books/activities for the kids, etc, oh and of course 3 weeks worth of grog – and off we went.
Three of the vehicles were from Gladstone and travelled the whole trip together, while the other six were from SE Qld. Everyone made their own way over to WA in their own time and the group assembled at North Pool before starting the CSR.
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