Simpson desert trip ......winch needed?

from memory I was only on the French for a small distance before peeling off onto knolls track.........and yes it was wombat holed than the other tracks I drove

I travelled solo and had only just joined aulro a few months before the trip and did a heap of reading on other forums.......the other forums and here as well gave worst case which is good although if I was a novice 4wder after reading some comments on the net I would have shelved my plans. in reality it was no where near as bad as it was portrayed.......don't get me wrong there is some good advice been given in the thread

when you see the various types of rigs out there you will soon work out the defender will be OK

re: spare carcass.......if you ever consider this than first change a tyre at home, than think about doing it on sand, with a few hundred helpers (yep flies). by the time you purchase tyre level, rubber mallets, bead breaker (your jack will do) all the effort involved (my memories were its a pain in the arse, I had not choice back than cause that was what the employer offered)......I would rather have a complete second for piece of mine and the fact that I can relax instead of pulling a tyre off a rim.

re: keeping your weigh down........its a very common phrase however when I was on the simpson I didn't see one car with spare space in the cargo area, with or without roof rack, sure some guys might have been travelling a bit lighter 'without roof rack' than other but most seem to be loaded up. its human nature to fill every spot....esp when going remote. I would still carry the same gear second time around, my biggest saving in weigh is my new roof rack, its weighs 90kg lees than my old one. is it just the two of you? if so you will be light.....there is five of us so we have three more sets of cloths, sleeping stuff, tentage, food, water etc etc

have a well serviced car, relatively new shocks....don't read too much as it will confuse you even more......which I have contributed to.

its a great adventure..... have been there done it and hope t get back there one day

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

You will find in the Simpson there is nothing lying around, but with sensible tyre pressures and sensible driving, the only time you have any possibility of getting stuck is on an uphill - and you can always back down. If you screw things up, then a shovel really helps, but it is amazing how much sand you can move just with bare hands!

One thing nobody has mentioned, which is perhaps so obvious that everyone assumes you know about it - if you need to jack up the vehicle in sand, you need a suitable sheet of something to spread the load. It can be dedicated to the purpose, or something such as a barbecue plate or a small table that has other uses, but when you need it, you need it.

John

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good point JD re: jacking plate

Try reading this by Vesko. Some very entertaining experiences in a Freelander,, bog stock.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/multi-stat...ed-centre.html

Make sure you have a nice high sand flag and a UHF too...:D

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Originally Posted by n plus one

Make sure you have a nice high sand flag and a UHF too...:D

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lol....don't get me started on these two

yes wack a sand flag on........just keep in mind they wont prevent all accidents

re: UHF....gotta love when I read that travellers call up to check if somebody if its right to crest or they are about to crest a dune or they expect you to....grrr, I wonder if these keyboard warriors have actually crossed the simpson....I also got pinged by a traveller (member of a S.A. 4WD Club) for not having my radio on CH 10.........we had just got rolling from the knolls area at 7:30am ish travelling south, yes between the dunes and we could see each other when we were maybe 200m apart...... soon after seeing him I remembered I hadn't turned on my radio to scan........yep scan, much to his horror.....anyway I couldn't reason with him why I thought scan was a better option than CH10 so I selected 1st and pulled away mid conversation......:censored::censored:

sooooo yes UHF is handy, travelling solo it doesn't get used much.....set it to scan is my tip of the day this way you get to know which channels all the groups are on so that if you require assistance you know that say a tag a long tour was on CH22.....I didn't pop into there general chit chat for a radio check

My experience in the Simpson indicates that the general chatter on CH10 is useful as you get a sense of when you need to start looking out for oncoming. As we didn't chatter too much within our party, we regularly called out or approximate location and direction of travel, which saved a few incidents. Due to the up and down nature of the dunes any talk on the radio typically means some one is pretty close by anyway.

I run two UHFs now anyway - works well for scanning and 'private' talk - 40 channel UHF on scan, 80 channel for chat ;)

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Originally Posted by n plus one

My experience in the Simpson indicates that the general chatter on CH10 is useful as you get a sense of when you need to start looking out for oncoming. As we didn't chatter too much within our party, we regularly called out or approximate location and direction of travel, which saved a few incidents. Due to the up and down nature of the dunes any talk on the radio typically means some one is pretty close by anyway.

I run two UHFs now anyway - works well for scanning and 'private' talk - 40 channel UHF on scan, 80 channel for chat ;)

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we will have to agree to disagree.........buggered if I could work out where any other vehicle was apart from physically seeing them.....

I at times heard UHF chatter from travellers on the French Line.....I was on the Rig Rd....even if they were on the WAA I was never going to come across them

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Originally Posted by weeds

we will have to agree to disagree.........buggered if I could work out where any other vehicle was apart from physically seeing them.....

I at times heard UHF chatter from travellers on the French Line.....I was on the Rig Rd....even if they were on the WAA I was never going to come across them

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Fair enough, wasn't disagreeing with you, just my experience from running the French Line last year.

I caught the last of the Birdsville races crew coming the other way on my first day, so traffic was a bit of issue for a while there!