Simpson Desert, Gun Barrel Hway, Birdsville Track, Googs Track Aug 2012

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Hi All,

In late August we headed off for a trip across the Simmo and a few other tracks along the way. Overall we did 7,100km with over half being on tracks or gravel. (3,250km on bitumen, 3849km on gravel/tracks)

Here is the route that we took with some of the key areas that we travelled, Memory Map is an awesome APP for the Ipad.



We travelled with two cars, my prado and a Nissan patrol, during the French Line we ended up meeting up with a couple in an F250 who were travelling solo and asked whether they could tag along.

First couple of days were a hard slug to get to Uluru via the Gun Barrel and Great Central Highway. Both were absolutely wrecked with some of the worst corrugations I have ever seen. The Gun Barrel was OK in patches where the a new track had been cut.

We found an awesome camping spot along the Gun Barrel and woke up to this.



The lady at Carnegie station was a great help, diesel was $2.50/L and she gave us the option to have a shower etc once we had grabbed fuel. I wasn't aware of this when we organised the tip, we chose not to and kept travelling. This were we struck problem with the rear shock mount on my car. (I will post some photo's and details with a break down of damage during the trip.)



The Docker river side of the Great Central Highway all the way to Uluru had absolutely terrible corrugations. For the last few 100km's we had to up the speed and skip across the top of the corrugations, some would have made the speed bumps and Coles look small. We also had the first tyre damage with a flat on the Nissan which we repaired that night.

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After regrouping in Yulara and having a nice shower we headed onto Kings Canyon, we had all visited Uluru previously so didn't spend a huge amount of time there. Caravan Park wasn't too busy however they have changed the setup of the BBQ's, they don't have the gas burners anymore for pots. In the kitchens they have electric tops however the majority were out of services when we were there.

Kings Canyon is well worth the visit and make sure you do the full ring walk, the views were brilliant!!



We also went for a swim in the natural water hole in the middle, although it was a 30 degrees day it still didn't offset the FREEZING water...



Stayed the night the Kings Canyon Resorts caravan park with was great, well set out with good ablution blocks. Not much in the way of cooking facilities so bank on using your own.

From there it was onto Mt Dare for out last fuel top up and to get any last minute advice and feedback on the French line. Fuel was $2.22/L and the place was flat out, the guy running the pump said that he had only stopped filling cars for about half an hour from opening that morning until 3ish when we arrived.



The road from Mt Dare to Dalhousie Springs was pretty rough with a large number of large rocks just sticking out of the road surface. Dalhousie springs itself was one of the highlights of the trip and if anyone is travelling in the area make sure that you go there. It was ridiculously busy with only a handful of camping spots left once night fall had come.

The ranges were out checking Desert Passes which was great to see, word on the street was that quite a lot of people had been turned away to go and get the pass.

The water was nice and warm so we all made the most of that, the following picture doesn't do it justice!!

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We had always decided to do the French line which was claimed to be the most challenging which we stuck with in the end. During our time in the area a lot of people told us not to go down that path because the path was badly cut up, in reality I didn't think it was that bad at all.



We ran with tyre pressures at 18 psi, we got an interesting tip in Dalhousie not to deflate the tyres straight away and wait until you come across the second set of dunes. (This was extremely handy info which we followed.) I floated between second and third gear in sports high mode with the centre diff unlocked. I had to back down two sand dunes due to not being able to make it up and had to use the centre diff lock. One of these was big red and I need low four as well.



Found a mint place to stop on the first night where we cooked up a lamb roast.





Took our own fire wood which I had cut up into small logs which fitted in hessian bags. On the way to Mt Dare via Finke there are plenty of places to grab fire wood which a lot of people had done.

The rats on the desert were out of control, we saw a couple before we went to bed at night. Their foot prints were everywhere in the morning, they had tried to get the egg shells from the rubbish and eaten through the toe of a shoe!!

[MDS69 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close MDS69]

Great stuff. Keep it coming. Did you happen to notice how much ULP was at Mt Dare or Yulara. How far from Dalhousie was your first stop. Did you buy fruit or vegies in Yulara and if so what was the variety and quality like. Appreciate any info you might be able to pass on.

[Torrie 72 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Torrie 72]

ULP was $2.21 when we were at Mt Dare last month. Definitely go via Bloods Creek to Dalhousie from Mt Dare.

Glad you had a great trip too vscorsa!
Cheers , Ben.

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One thing I forgot to add on the previous post was about Purnie Bores and how disappointed I was with these. After Dalhousie I was expecting big things however they were a let down, if you are planning on camping at the bores I would think twice.

Day 2 on the French line was pretty uneventful, we came across a few convoys during the day however communication was great so we could manage it pretty easily. I can see now why the camper vans cut up the track, we saw a few different groups trying to climb the dunes with the trailers on and to much right foot cutting big holes each time they tried.

Also on Day 2 we finished the French line and switched over on to the QAA line where we started to come across the big salt lakes.



We also had a look at Poeppel Corner which has some great history behind it.

We found another great place to camp on the second night, no rats this time and from here we new we only had one more day to go which put us one day ahead of the original 4 day crossing idea. Once you are on the QAA line there are plenty of places to camp between the dunes with great big flat areas and plenty of trees for shade and protection.

The final day we crossed a very dry Eyre Creek and onto Big Red.



I am happy to say I was able to get up both the difficult line second from the left on Big Red and the straight over line as well. I wasn't sure whether I was going to need to use the chicken line however the Prado performed very well. The Patrol was only able to get over the straight middle line and just couldn't make the one on the left. As I mentioned earlier to get over the left hand line I needed low 2nd with the centre diff lock engaged, the Patrol just didn't have the grunt.



On top of Big Red, you can see the water in the back ground so we had to detour a little to get to Birdsville.

[vscorsa Member Find all posts View Profile Close vscorsa]

Great stuff. Keep it coming. Did you happen to notice how much ULP was at Mt Dare or Yulara. How far from Dalhousie was your first stop. Did you buy fruit or vegies in Yulara and if so what was the variety and quality like. Appreciate any info you might be able to pass on.

Sorry mate I am not sure on the ULP price at Mt Dare, with regards to KM's for the first stop we basically drove until 4ish each day which was about 170km. The start of the trip from Dalhousie is basically a gravel road so you can make pretty good time. Days 2 and 3 were a lot slower and harder going.

We did a bit of restock in Yulara and the variety/quality was pretty good however expensive, the other thing was it was either very ripe or picked to early which worked well for us.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks Ben, we had a ball!!

[blkd4d Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close blkd4d]

Great trip report doing the Simpson next year can't wait

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When we were on the top of Big Red we were flagged down by a couple of guys who said someone was stuck pretty bad on a dune nearby so we headed over to give them a hand. By the time we had got there someone else was in the process of carrying out the recovery which was a joke!!! They had no idea and it was starting to get a little dangerous so we offered to get the guy out another way, half an hour later job done plus a block of beer from the guy who was stuck.



Onto the famous pub for a beer or ten, we had a few celebratory beers that night after checking in at the Birdsville Caravan Park and everyone having a shower.... Great park however it was a little hectic because they were gearing up for the races. I was impressed with how accommodating the guys were considering we were only going to be there for the night then heading off on the Birdsville track.



If you are in Birdsville I can highly recommend the shank pies from bakery, the Camel one was also pretty good.

Onto the Birdsville track on our way to Coober Pedy via Marree, not much to report apart from our only river crossing...



We also had the second flat for the Nissan however this time he didn't catch it early enough so we did damage to the side wall as well as the puncture.

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After hitting Marree and heading north on the Oodnadatta Track we had decided that we wanted to stay at Coward Springs which would turn out to be another highlight for camping locations. The springs themselves were OK however a lot colder than Dalhousie and very similar to the Springs at Mungerannie however the camp ground itself was brilliant with hot water showers which were heated from wood boilers. It was $10 per head and well worth the money, clean toilets and cleaned shower blocks with immaculately groomed camp sites.



I am not sure why the photo of the shower block turned out with the dots...?



This was also flat number three for the Nissan, he was not a happy camper, we had travelled the same roads, same tyre pressures and same speeds yet the AT3's hadn't missed a beat. He had bought the Maxxis 1500km before we left perth and had been told by the tyre guy that they would be great for the task. I had been a little dubious and then we had our first flat only a few days into the trip I was a little worried. We replaced the side wall damaged tyre in Coober Pedy so that he still have his 2 spares, his brother was getting pretty good at the tyre repairing by this stage...


After hitting the road again we were only a short distance away from Coober Pedy where we stayed in an UG hotel. That was pretty cool as you can see from the photo, for the two of us it was $120 a night and the boys got a room each at $110 and we stayed at the Lookout Hotel. The only downside was that we had to walk about 10mins to get into town so that we could all have a beer and not drive.

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Out of Coober Pedy we headed north for a few K's to have a look at the Breakaways, although it wasn't sunset they were still worth a look plus you got to see all of the old dumps from the mines which made it look like the moon.

From here we sent it for the Googs track via Glendambo and then along track to the start of the Googs which paralled the rail line and pasted through Tarcoola. This whole road was in good condition so it meant that we could enjoy the area a lot more plus the forecast had been for light rain in Ceduna so we were a little apprehensive of what the Googs would be like.

In didn't rain and the Googs track was a great couple of days, day one we camped out next to Mt Finke and then finished it off on day two pretty easily. The track heading south wasn't cut up at all, heading north would have been a different story with the dunes chopped out pretty badly.



This is how Mt Finke looked from our camp. Lots of people had obviously bought Oysters in Ceduna and then eaten them on the tracking leaving heaps of shells laying around the place, a little disappointing!!


A quick run through Ceduna where I needed to pick up a new Engel plug and boys need another memory stick for the video camera, While we were there we sampled a few local oysters and bought some to have on the Bite where we had played to camp. (Yes, we disposed of the shells correctly)

On the way to our camp we stopped in at The Head of the Bite which is a whale watching area and at this time of year the whales are in calving. This is another mush visit if you are in the area, I think it was about $15 per person. We saw about 8 whales with their calves and they were trying to teach them to breech etc.

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Also, the view from your campsite along the bite is also something else.

Full Moon



Sunset



The rest of the trip across to Norseman was pretty uneventful as you can see from the picture....



Once we had reached Norseman we had decided to take the short track through to Hyden then Hyden to home. This turned out to be a great idea with the road being in pretty good condition and great camping at Lake Johnson look out. On the way to Hyden we came across this hilux which had ended up taking out some trees before come to a stop, we think it had happened the previous night or afternoon.



The only time it did rain was on the last night with only light showers so our roof top with fly covered it pretty easily, there is nothing better than sleeping in a tent with the sound of rain!!

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Overview of the mishaps from the trip.

One of the big hitters from the trip came on day two when we were travelling along the Gun Barrel and I could feel something was wrong in the rear end. We stopped and had a look at the tyres because I thought I might have had a flat, couldn't see any issues so slowly started moving again with in a few bumps I heard a metal on metal sound come from the rear right which didn't sound good.

Upon inspection we found this.



Which should have looked like the left hand side.



The suspensions was only fitted pretty recently however when you look at the washer on the failed side you can see that a smaller size washer was used than all of the golder coloured. This smaller washer had basically pulled through the rubber mount causing it to fail. So we came up with the idea of using the side wall of an old blow out to nurse us through.

About 100km later we came across the perfect candidate, it was also old enough to not be steel belted thank goodness. So we came up with this solution.



In Warburton the local mechanic was a champion and gave me some rubbers that we could make fit, in the end we decided to leave as is and if it started to move I could put a new rubber in place.

Although this wasn't a show stopper I was very disappointed with the guys who fitted the suspension and I will be following this issue up with them.

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Other than that we had a few bolts on the front under body protection which I will replace, a blown fog light and some gravel rash which you can see below.



Another interesting one was that the gravel started to knock off the zip ties that was holding the tow bar wiring up which meant it fell down and became exposed to the gravel, this also happened on the Patrol as well. The gravel also damaged the trailer light plug in socket as you can see in the below picture with the wiring I had roughly taped up.



We also had an issue with the bullbar moving around on the corrugations which meant the bar actually hit the plastic filler panel below the lights.

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For the fuel usage we averaged 15L per 100km for the whole trip, for the Simmo crossing itself I only used 92 litres so the spare jerry I took probably wasn't required however it gave me plenty of piece of mind.

I think a big part of the higher usage was due to the consistent head wind we experienced on the Oodnadatta, Birdsville and Nullabor which really hurt.

Another interesting point was the air filters, I took two spare and so did the Patrol and we both had to change the fitlers out during the trip. We took it in turns for who was leading and with the high winds were able to sit will out of the dust clouds yet we both clogged the filters pretty badly.

The Coopers performed very well, I dropped the tyre pressures to 34 psi for the gravel sections and ran 40psi on the highway. The tyres look like they have done some work with regards to the odd bit of rubber missing however overall I was really impressed with them.

That is a quick overview of our trip, now onto planning the Kimberly's for next year.....