Preparations are under way

It’s been three years since our old Land Rover, Vin Rouge, had a good long trip.  OK, we’ve done a bit of travelling in the meantime but not in the outback of Australia. 

In previous years we’ve visited all eight Australian States, completed the circumnavigation, travelled many of the noted tracks (Birdsville, Oodnadatta, Strzelecki, Gibb River Road, Cape York, etc.).  We’ve driven the interminable length of the Nullarbor (with a head wind all the way!)  experienced the majesty of the Kimberleys and the wide open spaces of Western Australia, climbed to the top of Mount Kosciuszko and ridden the horizontal falls.  We’ve spent time with some amazing people, met up with quite a lot of other Land Rovers, had a couple of interesting breakdowns and generally lived up to the maxim of growing old disgracefully.  At least Mike has, Kim is far too young.

So what’s left?  For some time we’ve had a hankering to cross the Simpson Desert.  It’s the world’s largest sand dune desert with something in excess of a thousand dunes to tackle.  When we were last in Birdsville we drove out and motored steadily to the top of Big Red, reputed to be one of the highest dunes – that’s it behind us in the picture – without much difficulty.  How we’ll feel meeting it again with so many other dunes behind us, we’ll have to wait and see.

There’s two ways to cross the Simpson, east to west and west to east.  The latter, we’re told is easier going as the prevailing wind will be behind us and that makes the ascending side of the dunes less steep than the descending.  But we first have to get to the western side of the desert as we live in Brisbane on the east coast.

The navigator, that’s Kim, has a plan to take a northern route through Mitchell, Longreach, Winton to Boulia.  That’s a little over 1,700 kilometres.  We’ll then follow the Plenty Highway, which is mainly unsealed, through pretty much nowhere until we turn south to Alice Springs - another 800 plus Kilometres.  I guess we’ll take a couple of days in Alice before setting out for the Simpson and Birdsville, but more of that later.

For now it’s vehicle preparation time; servicing, checking and cleaning the equipment we take with us, fitting two jerry cans for additional fuel and finding somewhere for Cito, our Beaglier, to stay while we are gone.  He’s a bit of an old softy and likes his luxury.  And doggie demands must be met.

It’s almost time to load up, top up the fuel tanks and get ready for the off.  The scheduled date is Tuesday 7^th August.  First stop hopefully is Mitchell.  No doubt it will take a couple of days to get back into the routine of setting up camp and adjusting to life on the road/track but that’s all part of the fun.

Who’d have thought that I’d be camping well into my seventies.  Ho hum.

More soon.