Thread: Trailer in Simpson Desert

Originally posted by barney


this ute of mine was carrying 220L of petrol,60L of water, 40L engel, esky, food and cooking gear (2 weeks supply) swag, camera gear, clothes and recovery gear. as the petrol in the tank was used, it was transferred from the jerrys in the tray, and the empties were them moved to the top of the rack to keep the weight low

Yeah but try fitting all of that in a disco with 3 people on board 8O

i know what you mean.
but like i said, "it can be done" it has the potential to not only sully an otherwise magical trip but depending on your travelling companions, could test your friendship aswell.
one good idea would be to make sure that the trailer can be attached to any of the vehicles, with our trip, every one of the non-towing vehicles was unable to attach the heavy trailer to it for one reason or another. he had a treg hitch on it attached to a hayman-reece style bar, but it was not standard dimentions and wouldn't fit the other recievers and my towball was welded on, which was frustrationg because mine was the only one that sailed over all of the dunes. (the only petrol V8 in the group)

point taken, and if your going to lug it, dont expect anyone to help you or waste their time dragging you out of the poop always.

in other words be prepared to be self sufficient and if not then you shouldn't be taking it.

i know we should all have the all for one, one for all attitude in a situation like this. but when you are with people day in day out that you only see occasionally, small traits of their personalities emerge and it's unfortunate but true that when you really want them to help you out, is when they'll let you down the most (it's all proportional).
four weeks of this and we learned to just walk away for a while and have some "me" time. it worked really well for the whole trip.

Originally posted by seqfisho+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(seqfisho)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-barney


this ute of mine was carrying 220L of petrol,60L of water, 40L engel, esky, food and cooking gear (2 weeks supply) swag, camera gear, clothes and recovery gear. as the petrol in the tank was used, it was transferred from the jerrys in the tray, and the empties were them moved to the top of the rack to keep the weight low

Yeah but try fitting all of that in a disco with 3 people on board 8O[/b][/quote]
We managed to fit everything we needed including 260l of fuel, 110 of water, a 40l engel, and everything else we needed in our defender on our simpson trip. We were totally packed though We now have a roof rack and pod, and I think next time we'll be comfortable

As to the trailer, with my limited experience I think the answer is depends . When we were there it had rained recently, and the French line was easy going. A crippled FWD playdo had no trouble. We even saw a subaru outback towing a camper trailer on his own!.

So, if you have conditions like we did the French track with a trailer would be doable. We spent most of our time off defined tracks. In these 8 days I can only remember getting past second low on a handfull of occasions. There is no way known I would attempt a trip like this with a trailer.

However, people I trust have been there numerous times tell me that the sand was really easy when we were there with all the rain. They tell me that when it's really dry it can be a nightmare. I think if you hit it with a trailer when it's bad you'll look at a tent and say that the small loss in comfort easily offset the pain you felt during the day.

This is IMHO