The Simpson Desert

We’ve made it.  It took three days for us to complete the crossing.  Around 500 kilometres and 1,100 sand dunes apparently – Kim counted every one, but reached a slightly different total.  It was certainly an adventure.

Day one
We set out from Dalhousie Springs heading east into the rising sun which was a bit of a hazard.  But it was not long before it rose high in the sky and we reached the first sand dune.  It wasn’t very big but from the top we could see dune after dune stretching to the horizon.

The sand was soft in places but we made steady and to start with relatively good progress.  A group of three vehicles passed us going west and that was the last we saw until late afternoon.

Kim, as usual, took photos.  She loves plants and flowers.  We’d noticed that the desert was much greener than expected and with a bit of care, all sorts of tiny flowers could be found.

By the time we stopped to set up camp we’d covered 180 kilometres and crossed 345 sand dunes.

That’s when I noticed a growing patch of oil underneath the vehicle.  The repair carried out at Alice Springs had failed and oil was being forced under pressure from around a hydraulic pipe fitting.  After a bit of head scratching and a short discussion about whether we should turn back, I had a crack at a ‘bush fix’.  Then Kim spotted oil leaking from one of the front hubs and a quick check revealed that some the bolts had worked loose.  That was an easy fix but it did prompt me to go around to check if any other fastenings had also worked loose.  I didn’t find any!

Day two
Making an early start the breeze quickly increased to a fresh wind and then a gale.  Sand blew about, wiping tyre prints from the track and building banks of soft sand at the crests. Driving challenging at times as frequently the track would take a sharp turn just beyond the crest where the bonnet and spare wheel reduced visibility to guesswork.  Sometimes it was difficult to determine which was track and which was dune.  Then a gust snapped off the sand flag and we lost it.  Oh bugger.

Kim found more flowers among the desert scrub.  These on the left are called ‘poached eggs’.  We don’t know about the one on the right but reckoned it looked something like a daisy.

About mid-day we stopped at where we guessed was roughly the middle of our journey from Dalhousie to Birdsville and celebrated with a Polo mint!  And the bush fix was working.  Not a drop of oil had been lost.  Celebrate with another Polo.

Our position wasn’t clear so we stopped and took latitude and longitude readings and quickly found a track that took us to Poeppel Corner.  The marker post there showed the corner where three States, Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia all come together.  There’s nothing else there so we set off to find a place to camp.  We took a track heading north, driving along the relatively flat salt-caked surface of the bone-dry Lake Poeppel.

It was a hard day’s driving for me and an equally hard day’s hanging on and navigating for Kim.  The dunes were much larger with greater distances between them than we had previously experienced.  However, we covered 145 kilometres and crossed more than 450 sand dunes before camping miles from anywhere and miles from anyone.  A hot meal and we retired to the tent to escape the wind.

Day three
The sun quickly warmed a chilly morning and although the wind had abated slightly overnight, it was not a very comfortable sleep in the roof top tent.  Starting early we immediately encountered a very rough track that bounced us around.  Then we were back amongst the dunes.  These were again bigger and very windblown at the tops but we made good progress nevertheless.  And the bush fix was holding.

Kim found more flowers, although how she spotted them with all the bouncing about, counting of dunes and keeping track of where we were in her map book I do not know.

Passing a sign that warned us that Adria Downs Station, a vast cattle grazing area, was private property, a much smaller sign indicated that Birdsville was ahead.

A single vehicle approached us and we waved as they went by, then we noticed that they had turned around and were following us.  We stopped to find out if they were OK and were told that they had driven out from Birdsville in a hired 4-wheel-drive, had no recovery gear and could they follow us back.  No problem and we all made it back safely.

The final sand dune is known as Big Red and it has something of a reputation as being difficult to climb.  Indeed, Kim’s book warned that it should be walked first.  But we’re in a Land Rover and simply pottered gently up to the top.

The drive into Birdsville was dirt road with even a bit of tarmac for relief.  Dusty and more than ready for a shower and a beer, we pulled into the Birdsville camp site, set up, hastened to the amenities block and thence to the iconic Birdsville pub for that beer and dinner.

A bit for Land Rover people
The three-day crossing was completed entirely in low range.  On the flat(ish) clay pans between the dunes we could reach about 40kph in fifth gear which was as fast as comfort would allow.  Most dunes were taken third gear.  When the crests were very soft it was necessary to drop to second but when the dunes were shallow it was possible to get over them in fourth.  But third gear was the favourite.  Low enough to provide lots of power but high enough to maintain sufficient speed.

Where other vehicles had spun their wheels climbing the dunes, they dug holes in the sand.  These holes caused us to bounce up the gradients and to wallow down the other side.  Not once did we lose traction descending and it was often that we had to accelerate downhill to maintain reasonable speed.

There’s no doubt that our short Defender 90 bounced more than a vehicle with longer a wheelbase but even after 14 years of ownership it impressed me with its abilities.  Only on four climbs did we not make it to the top at first attempt and each of those was due to taking the approach too slowly.  And yes, we did make it up Big Red first go!

So here we are in Birdsville.  The famous Birdsville Races start in a couple of weeks and we will be long gone by then.   There’s time for Kim to get some laundry done, to check out the pies at the Birdsville bakery, to top up the fuel tanks and have another dinner at the pub.  Cheers.