Thread: Simpson Desert in the mid sixties

Originally Posted by JDNSW

In the thread about the Austin Gipsy, a suggestion was made that I should post a bit about my experience working in the Simpson sixty years ago.

I plan on making a series of posts about this. I am not sure how long the thread will go for or how often I will be able to add to it. This first post will just be about the background.

I had been working for a geophysical exploration contractor for several years in Queensland, initially on a camp job in an area roughly just west of where the Adani mine is currently being developed, and later on a series of smaller jobs based in Roma.

In early 1965 I was promoted to be Party Chief in charge of a new exploration crew, which would be one of two operating for at least a year in the Simpson Desert, in an area of the Northern Territory from the SA border north to 25°N and from 135°30'E to 137°30'E. The second crew would be starting about two months later, and both would be supported by an office in Alice Springs.

The survey lines would be along the interdune spaces, plus a few at right angles to this. The camp would be largely a tent camp, with a kitchen caravan and an office caravan. Most of the key people were ones I had worked with previously. The total number of the crew was about 25 men.

Vehicles were as follows:-

Recording or instrument truck - LHD IH B162, 4x2, with limited slip diff and winch. The box body, where the observer would be spending most of the day was repainted white with special heat reflecting paint. It carried electronic equipment and batteries, plus photographic and recording supplies, as well as electronic spares.

Shooter's Truck - IH AB162 4x2 with a steel body having a water tank in the middle, explosives lockers all round, and a flat top giving effectively a tray back when the tank was empty. It towed a two wheel, four ton box trailer for explosives storage.

Shothole drill 1 - IH R192 4x2 with a mounted Mayhew 1000 drilling rig.

Shothole drill 2 - IH AB162 4x2 with mounted Mayhew 200 drilling rig.

Water Truck 1 - LHD IH R190 6x6 LHD with 1,000 gallon flat topped water tank

Water truck 2 - New LHD Zeligson 6x6 LHD with 1,200 gallon flat topped water tank. For the move from Brisbane and camp moves, it towed the mechanic's workshop, a 30' dog trailer with an 8' high mesh body covered in canvas. (The Zeligson company in Oklahoma remanufactured disposals Korean War vintage Diamond T 6 ton trucks, fitted with a larger engine and uprated to 12 tons. It was fitted with 19.75 x 20 single tyres all round)

Supply truck - Based in Alice Springs and used for both crews. IH AA 162 trayback.

Party Chief's car - New Toyota FJ45V 4x4

Party Manager's car - New IH AB120 pickup 4x2

Drilling Manager's car - New IH AB120 pickup 4x2. (The drilling manager was shared between both crews - spent much of his time repairing drilling rigs!)

Geophone truck - New IH AB120 pickup 4x2

Surveyor vehicle - New Toyota FJ40 hardtop.

Power generator - New trailer mounted Southern Cross 6kva diesel generator. Note - this was the only diesel engine, except for a compressor on the Drill 2. All the vehicles were petrol engined. Worth remembering that at this date, the only supplier of diesel light four wheel drives in Australia was Landrover, and diesel was still hard to find in a lot of places.

All these vehicles, plus the crew and initial supplies were assembled in Brisbane by the end of April 1965 ready to move to Alice Springs and on to the working location, travelling via Roma, Longreach, Mt Isa, Camooweal, Tennant Creek.

Very interesting, JD. I hope you keep the stories coming.
If the Tojos were the petrol, 3.9 litre, 3 speeds, how did you keep the fuel up to them? We had a few for work. Planning a working week was interesting, to say the least. We got the 4 speed models in 1974, from memory.

John, was there any bitumen west of Dalby, back then?

Originally Posted by Saitch

Very interesting, JD. I hope you keep the stories coming.
If the Tojos were the petrol, 3.9 litre, 3 speeds, how did you keep the fuel up to them? We had a few for work. Planning a working week was interesting, to say the least. We got the 4 speed models in 1974, from memory.

The FJ45V had a larger tank, the others had a second tank added (see later in the story!). Drummed fuel was supplied to camp as required (more or less). The contractor to supply the fuel used initially the owner of Andado, Mac Clark. He owned a Leyland Super Hippo 6x6 fitted with Michelin sand tyres, with a 30' tray, and a similarly tyred 6 wheel dog trailer. He carried 50 drums on the truck and the same on the trailer to the edge of the sandhills, unhooked the trailer, delivered the fuel to the camp, and then went back, transferred the drums to the truck, delivered the rest of the fuel, then picked up the trailer and went home.

And you are right about the fuel consumption. the FJ45V would do about 15mpg on the highway when new, but by the time we were returning to Brisbane, it was nearer 12. The FJ40s could be even worse - I have recorded as low as 4mpg on the highway from one. Those carburetors are awful.

I like the title of "Party Chief".

Originally Posted by V8Ian

John, was there any bitumen west of Dalby, back then?

The main road west in those days was via Condamine west of Dalby, and had a single lane of bitumen from Dalby to the junction with the Surat road, then 2 lanes bitumen to Roma. West of there, no bitumen except in towns until Mt Isa. From Mt Isa to the Stuart Hwy north of Tennant Creek and from Birdum to Alice was two lane bitumen, built in 1943? by the US army to link the existing rail infrastructure. In the 1960s it was still generally fairly good.

Neither the company we were doing the work for (Amerada Petroleum) nor my employer had any experience operating in Australian deserts, but significant preparation for the conditions were made. A good proportion of the load out of Brisbane was a second set of tyres and wheels for most of the vehicles. For the light vehicles, 7.50x16 offroad tyres were to be replaced by 900x 13 sand tyres, and most of the trucks had the 8.25 or 9.00 or 10.00x20 duals replaced by wide aeroplane tyres as singles. The recording truck had its dual rear wheels replaced by 12.00x20 single Michelin Sahara sand tyres. With the limited slip diff, we found this gave it excellent go-anywhere capability.

Note that none of the vehicles had airconditioning, and the only ones with power steering were the two 6x6 water trucks.

The camp was equipped with Outpost Radio (which I was familiar with and licensed for, having used it for a couple of years in Qld) and also Amerada equipped us with a large, elaborate (and troublesome) SSB radio. We also had several smaller outpost radio sets which were carried when temporary out camps were set up or occasionally carried if single vehicles were travelling by themselves. But they needed expertise to set up and operate (as well as strictly speaking a licensed operator).

Our convoy made Roma the first day without major problems, except for a few flat tyres - the tyre company had failed to install rust bands on several tyres. And the man driving the 6x6 R190 carefully checked all his fluids at lunchtime, and failed to properly replace the level plug in the power divider. By the time we arrived in Roma, it was a front wheel drive vehicle with the rear prop shaft removed. Fortunately parts were available, and he stayed in Roma for a couple of days while he and our resident mechanic in Roma fitted a new power divider. From memory, he caught up in Mt Isa.

Somewhere west of Roma we became aware that there was a drilling rig being delivered to the same exploration area as we were heading for - with a fleet of about thirty heavy trucks. They were traveling a lot faster than us, and some of them had excessively high loads, and had removed (without stopping) every wire across the main road west of Roma (where the rig was based). We had to strenuously deny any connection.

On the Barkly Hwy I received a stone from a truck going the other way, and drove from there to Alice without a windscreen - and a car full of bits of toughened glass. Being a completely new vehicle in Australia, there were no windscreens available until Alice. (The windscreen on the FJ45V was different to other FJs.) For comparison, I was able to get a windscreen for my brother's Citroen ID in Condamine - or rather I could have got one if I'd had enough cash or there was a bank (they did not take cheques). (No bank cards in those days - for company purchases I used a company order book, which were accepted like cheques - in fact many businesses preferred them as they were easier to cash than cheques!)

After about a week, we arrived in Alice, where the vehicles were serviced and checked while I went with the surveyor ahead to check the route to our entry point to the desert at Finke (after my windscreen was replaced.) There was no bitumen south of Alice, and I soon found the road had deteriorated badly due to the heavy truck traffic with the drilling rig ahead of us. This had left numerous dust holes. These were almost impossible to see, and could be up to ten feet across and over a foot deep. They were filled with very fine dust, the consistency of talc powder.
The route to Finke was well marked by the truck traffic, as was the route from there to Mt Dare and beyond.

We moved the crew the next day to Finke - the hotel did not have room for us, so we unloaded camp beds and set up in the street outside, using the hotel facilities. Next day continued on through Mt Dare station and followed the truck route to Dakota Bore. Here we filled the water trucks and proceeded about twenty miles further along an existing survey line to a spot the surveyor has found for our first camp location. Slept under the stars again that night, although the kitchen was set up for the night.

The following couple of days was spent setting up camp, while the surveyor went and started marking out the first line for the bulldozer, which had arrived separately.

I seem to be a bit short on pictures of our first camp, but this one of our second camp gives a good idea of a typical setup. (Having problems with picture. Will try again later!)

All very interesting John, thanks for posting. Were there any strip roads out there, basically two wheel tracks done in bitumen? IIRC I've only seen some near Goomburra Southern Qld about 20 years ago, a lot more popular in Africa.

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

All very interesting John, thanks for posting. Were there any strip roads out there, basically two wheel tracks done in bitumen? IIRC I've only seen some near Goomburra Southern Qld about 20 years ago, a lot more popular in Africa.

No, I've never seen these, anywhere as far as I can remember. But single lane bitumen about 2.5m wide was widespread in Qld in the sixties in the coastal areas, including most of the Bruce Hwy.

Roads in inland Qld in the sixties were mostly "formed earth", and basically impassable in the wet season. With my first work in Qld in 1962 the nearest town was Aramac. There was a good reason why the Aramac Shire Council ran a railway from Barcaldine for over sixty years until 1975.

There were very few bridges, even on main roads, at best a concrete causeway. Why have a bridge if the road is impassable in the Wet?