The Simpson Desert

We decided on a west to east route from Mt Dare, across the French line, down the Rig Road then following the WAA line east until we had to cut up the Knoll’s track back to the French which turns into the QAA once you cross the Queensland boarder. We picked the WAA over the more direct French line due to stories of its terrible conditions and high volumes of traffic. Who wants to see other people when you’re in the middle of the largest parallel dune desert on the planet?

Its now compulsory to have a 3.5m high sand flag on the front of your vehicle to help mitigate collisions at the crest of sand dunes.  We had a one-piece flag that we had to cut down to fit into the car. The fun came when we had to attach it back together. The three stages of flag building went as so:

Stage 1 – Hosepipe and duct tape.

Fail: it was already bending before we had driven anyway...

Stage 2 – Hosepipe duct tape and 3 pegs.

Attempt number 2 covered a greater distance but in the end...

Fail: so on to the next stage!

Stage 3 – Hosepipe duct tape and 4 pegs plus loads more tape.

The Winner! It held out all the way to the Eastern side of the Simpson Desert. Job well done.

In the desert it was all bush camping! Campfire and bush toilet pits dug...

...and to match Kyle's memorable birthday, Liz was given one too with a campfire stew in the desert.

The crossing went mostly without incident however there were a few hairy moments along the way…

Towards the East side of the Simpson Desert you start to encounter some saltpans. Our first sticky situation Simpson salty experience was a saltpan towards the end of the WAA line that was a tad boggy due to the recent rain. Lots of accelerator and praying kept the momentum up through the worst section. The main point is WE DIDN'T STALL!

From a distance the salt pan didn't look too daunting...

...but we gave Margaret a salty mud bath by the end of the crossing.

Heading towards the centre of the desert the tracks became rather bumpy. Think of speed bumps as you are trying to drive up some relatively soft sand on a steep incline when you really need acceleration and momentum on the go. Margaret generally did well until on a particularly chopped up dune she went from her normal buckaroo experience to buckaroo to the extreme and had a stalling tantrum.  Not normally an issue however Margaret had decided to stall 2 meters away from the top at which point the gearbox ceased and we couldn’t select low range or reverse from under the crest. She had also worked herself into a stable rut so we couldn’t roll back down the hill. Much panicking and brute force knocked it into neutral so we could try again in low range and roll back down the hill- PHEW!

The dunes on the Western side were a smoother ride...

... and we soon realised that Kyle had some good camouflage going on.

Margaret again had to point out that she didn’t like the bumps. We developed a knocking noise that seemed to be coming from the rear shock when going over really rough ground. With no spare shocks there wasn’t a lot we could do about it however thankfully on closer inspection it looked to be the exhaust banging against the rear bar when the car was getting thrown around. It may have taken us a hundred km to work it out but there was a massive sigh of relief when we did.

Towards the East the dunes got a lot bigger...

...and the dune colours varied depending on their age but just check out those aeolian ripples in action.

The sky may have been bright blue but on a fair few mornings it was rather cold.

The more we travelled, the more we realised this place was HUGE!

The drive in general was spectacular and other then being on a life sized Buckaroo game for some sections the whole experience was amazing. As we past the final dune out of the 1100 we had crossed we both had a lump in our throats and wanted to turn back for a bit more time in the desert. It’s a very special place that we will definitely come back to.

We made it to the corner of 3 states...

...but heading back into Queensland felt like going back home.

Big Red is the biggest sand dune but we didn't attempt it this time around. Instead we headed up Little Red and Kyle managed to "tactfully" stall at the crest.

Right after Big Red it is all flat unsealed road which was a bit of a shock to the system.

All in all it was our favourite part of the trip so far and Margaret got us through it! :-)