Thread: Simpson Desert In a SIII?

We did the Simpson mid 04,& ran into a large group of series vehicles.Apart from a few minor repairs,the only prob they did have was climbing some of the dunes,mainly the tracks that were washed out,lack of wheel travel was the culprit.I actually have some pics of them,bet there are some on here that recognise em.

It is an absolutely fantastic place,well worth a visit.
Prepare well and you should be fine,as others have said,you would need to work out fuel usage accurately.

Good Luck

Did the crossing in 1989 in a RRC and averaged 20.9L/100 over the 750km from Oodnadatta to Birdsville.


Martyn

I would say that finding your( personal and vehicle) limitations is important if you don't have a lot of experience.

This way you won't put yourself in situations that take you out of your comfort zone.

Go somewhere not too far off the beaten track, plunge that yellow lever and see what she can do!

Thank you folks for all your encouragement and useful advice. We have had a little sand driving training with our club, and we have wandered around some of the more difficult tracks at Arkaroola (albeit that is rock/dirt, not sand) and noted a consumption of about 18l/100k when crawling around in low range. I figure working on a fuel consumption of about 25l/100km should give me a fair margin and aim to monitor consumption over the first 45 litres (capacity of the auxiliary tank) and if the numbers don't add up, turn around and go back before I'm past the PNR (Point of No Return). Our main "backup" is the presence of the other club members. Our ultimate back up is a registered GPS- enabled satellite beacon (takes the "search" out of Search and Rescue) which we'll only deploy in extreme conditions.
The leader of the trip is planning to complete the crossing in 3 weeks including the drive up from Adelaide. Is this slow, fast, or somewhere in between?
Thanks again, everyone,

Coop

Originally Posted by Bushie

Did the crossing in 1989 in a RRC and averaged 20.9L/100 over the 750km from Oodnadatta to Birdsville.


Martyn

Which if I recall Martyn, was almost exactly the same as my Stage 1 V8 on that same trip.

Perry

Coop,

beacons are regarded as dealing with grave and imminent danger vis launch the cavalry.

The more polite way of dealing with the situation from a SAR crew perspective would be to rent a sat phone for 3 weeks with a reliable support person not on the trip. satphone and gps are providing the same info as the beacon and may save you being sent the search bill. They can organise what ever you need.

Keep in mind resupply for fuel or a broken halfshaft could cost you a couple of grand.
For your info EPIRB means empty petrol i require boat in some areas of OZ.

Cheers

have a read of this thread, it should give you some insights on how not to do it and what you might do.

I would love to join you Coop - 2 almost identical cars but I wouldn't trust mine without some fairly major checks and no time for that. I would trust yours though being such a low mileage vehicle and well maintained. I assume there will be quite a few vehicles with your club so while you don't want to be a burden and prepare properly, you still have lots of backup and I would be surprised if at least one vehicle didn't have a satphone or HF radio and also UHF that you could stay in touch with them - still I think the beacon is your ultimate backup for you. I might be a bit biased being an arid zone ecologist but fascinating country if you have your eyes open. I assisted with a govt biological survey back in the 90's and we hugely added to museum records , even discovered/defined a new mammal species! I drove an OKA in which is interesting launching over dunes sitting in front of the front axle! And my experience is there is not much out there that cant be solved if you keep a level head and my short meeting with you i don't think i have met a more appropriate person to be tackling such a task.

As you probably know the big thing with soft sand is low tyre pressures and if you have a compressor to put them back up a bit and give you flexibility thats a good thing and allows you to drop them really low. Also cool moist sand is way easier to get through than hot dry, so if it is late in the afternoon and you have trouble climbing a dune, roll back down, set up camp, open a beer and you might be surprised just how easy it is early next morning.

I would be very interested to hear your experience. From memory you have an overdrive which will only be useful in some parts for dropping fuel consumption. Has anyone ever heard of a rover 6 making it? I will be fitting an overdrive but probably still not much use. I am guessing I would be up against it on that factor alone.

One last thought, has anyone heard any theories about the reduced dune height? I remember in the early nineties that I just assumed the dunes on the Strzelecki naturally had drifting tops then Rabbit Calici-virus hit and suddenly these dunes were stable, the impacts across the rangelands were quite stunning. I wonder if less rabbits has meant less drifting sand overall and subsequent drop in height?