Simpson Desert 2016

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

G'day all,
I know it's months away but I am already so excited I can't stand it!
Planning a Simpson crossing mid May 2016 and I would be keen for experience from other PradoPointers. Here is what we have planned so far: Vehicles involved: My 150 Prado, 2014 Amarok and a 2007 Hilux SR. Planning to depart Alice Springs around the 16th of May and go Old South Road to Finke, Lambert's Centre (my second time there), Mt Dare, Dalhousie, Across the Simpson (haven't picked a route), Birdsville, Maree, Parachilna (with a day or two messing around the hills), then time permitting back up the Oodnadatta track back to Ali Prings.

Given that the 3 owners of the cars involved live in Alice, Katherine and Darwin we have found an app that allows general listing of stuff. So I can make a list of required stuff for the trip and if a certain person has it then they tick it off and bring it (so we don't triple up on things like camp ovens and cooking utensils). Hopefully this will save more room for beer!

From reading up on the subject it takes about 95-100L of fuel to cross the desert and most recommend taking 150 total for reserves. Given that I have a 230L fuel capacity this is a lot of weight to drag around so planning on heading into the desert with about 170L but others opinions on the matter would be good.

Also I know that you can't take firewood from the park but can you burn stuff you've brought in? Thinking if each car carried one of those 20kg bunnings bags then it should be alright.

Keep you all updated!

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Hi Jimmy,

regards fuel use, I used 169 litres when I did Madigans, which is much further and much slower than a more conventional Simpson Crossing. Earlier this year I used 130ish litres to cross the desert but had a trailer in tow, we took the route below on that crossing. I don't think it makes much difference which way you go as far as fuel and time goes. Our route wasn't the shortest, but it also wasn't the hardest and all the people that were at Dalhousie when we were there rocked into Birdsville the same day as us regardless of the route they took.




Fuel at Mount Dare is not cheap and given your large fuel capacity I would be tempted to leave Alice with a full tank of fuel which should easily get you across the desert to Birdsville where fuel is quite a bit cheaper than Mount Dare, you may even make it down the Birdsville track without refuelling, but you can play that by ear.

We took firewood for our recent crossing, no fires are allowed in the National Park section, so no fires at Dalhousie.

We might even see you up that way, our parks pass will still be current and while our travel plans for next year are all on hold due to the wife having an operation early in the year, all things going well I would like to re visit the Simpson around May. Giving my weary bones another soak at Dalhousie would be great

Cheers Andrew

[Brisey Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Brisey]

Hi Jimmy, It is exciting isn't it. We spent 12 months planning our Simpson crossing (French Line) and I can't wait to do it again, East to West this time.
I've got a 120 2008 V6 petrol and we used 133 litres from Mt Dare to Birdsville, that included heaps of playing on the tracks and a few side trips as well.
We took an extra 20l jerry can but I don't think I would bother next time, having 180l in the Prado is sufficient.
You need to plan for the unexpected, I took 2 fridges, one as a freezer, thank goodness because one of them ceased to function when we reached Dalhousie.
As for firewood, no collection of wood or wood fires are allowed in the national park around Dalhousie but that's just one night to worry about, we used some heat beads to cook tea that night.
On the French Line you just pull up wherever you feel comfortable and then go scouting for wood, no need for a chain saw cause the wood is very thin, it takes a while to scrounge enough to have a decent fire but if everyone chips in its easy enough.
Have a great trip, the crossing itself is relatively easy the remoteness and need for planning is the hard part.
Cheers
Brisey
Adelaide

[Brisey Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Brisey]

Jimmy, feel free to pump me for information, I can't shut up about the trip anyway so I'm more than happy to help out as much as I can

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

Cheers guys. At this stage we have 2 cars with fridges (my 60 and mates 80L dual zone) and hopefully a third if my other mate decides if he wants to be a tight arse or not and buy one.
Glad about the fires though, I don't know what I'd do without one to cook my famous camp oven pork roast.
Taking spares as per usual spare list as well as a bunch of water. Going to take out the rear seats to make packing easier.
In regards to 1 or 2 spare tyres what are your thoughts?

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Highly unlikely you would damage 2 tyres to the point of being unrepaiable on a desert crossing, it's not a tough trip on tyres. The worst part in that regard is just South of Mount Dare, worst case you go back there if you wreck a tyre early on.

Cheers Andrew

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

Highly unlikely you would damage 2 tyres to the point of being unrepaiable on a desert crossing, it's not a tough trip on tyres. The worst part in that regard is just South of Mount Dare, worst case you go back there if you wreck a tyre early on.

Done that section of road... Worst thing ever! I'll have to look up tyre sizes of the Lux and Rok and see if they can 'fit' in an emergency. Worst case scenario one car gets left in the desert while another leaves to get a tyre.
Got any general tips I haven't thought of yet?

[Brisey Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Brisey]

I also took out ALL the rear seats and made a shelf system so in the remote case of a roll over everything was secure. I debated long and hard on a second spare especially considering none of the other in our group had compatible rims. In the end I couldn't justify the weight or room and opted for one spare and a comprehensive tyre repair kit. As it was my weight was 3.25 tonne, a fair bit over the GVM, of course every day into the trip the load got lighter. In my opinion every car needs to have a fridge, there's a massive shortage of ice in the Simpson, two of our group of 5 had 2 fridges. Figure out how much water you need then add some more, we went in Sept and it was 35 degrees so we went through a heap of water just for drinking let alone cooking and washing. Bore water is available at Mt Dare, I don't recall seeing boxed water at Mt Dare but I wasn't looking as we topped up on boxed water at Oodnadatta, $12.50/box!! A real must is to coordinate with the others in the group just what each car is going to carry so you don't end up with three tyre repair kits but no tent pegs if you get my drift. I tried to coordinate this with my group but it was a failure, everyone thought they needed to bring everything.

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

Yeah that's where we have that group list sharing app on out phones. The repair of tyres is seeming more likely than the need for spares. I have an old spare tyre at home well past it's rubber use by date but will be good to practice getting a tyre on and off a rim.
I think I read it in AJ's thread somewhere about using a spare good tyre as a suedo 'air tank' and pump it up to its max pressure and hook it up to the busted tyre to re-seat it.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Yeah the desert isn't the best place to learn how to repair or replace a tyre, the thread you mention is here http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...eplacing-tyres

Try not to over complicate things, in a Prado crossing the Simpson is fairly straight forward.

Like most outback roads and tracks your most likely to run into issues from driving too fast or running tyre pressures too high. There are some rough sections that can catch people out heading into the Desert, so just take everything slow and steady and you should be fine. We crossed all the dunes until the QAA line in low range, just walking up them slowly and gently, and that was towing trailers, speed wasn't needed at all to get over any dunes except the hard tracks at Big Red.

Cheers Andrew

[pradogang Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pradogang]

I have a group (120 D4D, 120 V6, NW Pajero diesel) leaving Brisbane in June. We are heading out through Charleville, Eromanga, Innamincka, Maree, Oodnadatta, Coober Pedy, Uluru, Kings Canyon, Alice Springs (where we are joined by our fourth vehicle, a Triton diesel) and then on to Mt Dare and across to Birdsville). I was thinking I would need some extra fuel for the V6 but Brisey did it easy using only 133 litres.
We have allowed for 4 nights camping in the desert. We are in no hurry and want to have a good look around. Is that time frame of 4 nights realistic?

Cheers

Jim

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

We spent 4 nights in the Desert, that seemed to be the norm. Any less than that and you would be rushing things.

Cheers Andrew

[Brisey Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Brisey]

We spent 4 nights in the Desert, that seemed to be the norm. Any less than that and you would be rushing things.

Cheers Andrew

Andrew's spot on, our average speed was around 15k/h, hard to believe but there's so much to see in the Simpson that you don't want to rush it. When we arrived at Birdsville I felt deflated cause I didn't want it to end.
Cheers
Brian

[Corigator Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Corigator]

We took the same route as AJ, only East to West. I used 130L I took a spare Jerry and tipped it in as soon as there was space in the main tank, but as it turned out I didn't need it.

We avoided the worst of the road from Dalhousie to Mt Dare by taking the 4km longer route via Bloods Creek. The road was fine that way. I took a cheap spare tyre only as a second spare and had no tyre issues at all. One of our group picked up a spike on the old Ghan railway North of Finke.

You'll have a great time.

[glen_ep Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close glen_ep]

During my last crossing (Mt Dare to Birdsville via French Line, Colsons, Rig Road, Erebena, WAA, Knolls, QAA) I used around 20L/100km with my v6 3.4L petrol, and I was driving quite vigorously (ie, tackling any difficult lines I could find - cause it's all rather easy to be honest). My tanks total 159L (140L useable), I did top up via jerry cans but drove out with enough spare fuel that the jerries weren't necessary.

As another has mentioned not much chance of puncturing a tyre in the Simpson (as long as you stay on the track) - there's a much greater chance of it occurring around Mt Dare - those roads are terrible. I only had one spare and carried a repair kit, didn't need either of them.