BreakawayOffroad4x4.com.au

Simpson Desert and Ayers Rock Trip

We had 13 people on the trip spread across 7 vehicles.

Day 1 - The group assembled at Mitchell Caravan Park.


Day 2 - Travel to Windorah.
Sunset from the dunes near Windorah


Day 3 - Travel to Birdsville.

Day 4 - The group made it to Big Red. Next - the Simspon Desert crossing.


Ok - I had to add a photo of me trying to climb Big Red using the direct track. It was VERY soft towards the top of the sand dune.


Day 5 - In the Desert


Late in the afternoon, we reached Poeppel's corner. So, what state was he in? Awake, drossy or asleep? Ohhhh - Left foot in Qld, right foot SA, body in NT. Just ask him for the exact time.


Day 6
We continued to travel through the desert. The sand dunes had a deeper red colour the further west we travelled.


Day 8 - Five and half thousand photos later, the group has travelled through the Simpson without incident. We're at Alice Springs today. Off to the MacDonnell ranges, and eventually to Ayers Rock. Will give another update then.
Just adding a photo of the warm waters at Dalhousie Springs. Below is a photo of the springs in the morning.


Day 10 - We continued on from the MacDonnell Ranges, and camped at Kings Canyon. Walk around the Canyon started with around 500 steps, but again, a different and very scenic landscape.


Day 12 - Today we arrived at Ayers Rock after driving through the MacDonnell Ranges and visited some incredible Gorges. We will need to return to this area to spend more time in this region.
Below is a photo we snapped this afternoon.


Day 14 - We camped overnight at a free campgroup near a creek (which was dry of course). The flies were really bad, but the sunsets and sunrises were fantastic.


Day 15 - Just before we reached Cobber Pedy, we stopped at the scenic lookout ..... The Breakaways. (Didn't know the club owns so much land in SA).


We arrived in Cobber Pedy. It's one of the hottest and driest towns in Australia, but when we arrived it was windy, cold, and we even saw a little rain fall.
Luckily we were able to camp underground. Yes - a guy dug out chambers in the hillside so that people can camp underground. Temperatures stay between 20 and 25 degrees all year round in there (much warmer than outside).


But by the time we left 2 days later, it was sunny again.



Due to rain east of Cobber Pedy resulting in track closers around Lake Eyer, we headed south to Port Augusta and spent a couple of days in the Flinders Ranges. Again some fantastic views, but the drive out through a gorge was the highlight of our time in the Flinders. It was a very windy and cold night camping in the Flinders.

Great trip report. Looks to have been a successful trip!

I didn't realize you were editing the original post or I would have seen it earlier.

Does anyone have any video they would like to share?

GREAT TRIP looking at the photos so sorry we could not make it,may be next time. Looking forward to the next instalment.
Was the club web site shut down while you were away, there was not a single post for the whole time.

Trevor

We had a wonderful full on trip with a great bunch of people, Many memories made, The helicopter flight over the Olgas and Ayres rock, We climbed Ayres rock, nearly killed us but we did it , Sleeping in a dugout, great food at Coober Pedy, Birdsville pub could learn a lot from them, they done the worst service and meals out of the whole trip and that's taking in to account my cooking. A wonderful swim at a Gorge with Kerri in our clothes after a warm walk there, It was awesome and would love to explore the others behind it, Jumping on the air cushions at the caravan park at Alice, CHILD...am NOT in Davids words. Hated the corrugations, Desert scenery was good, NO CAMELS though.

We left the group early at Coober Pedy to see family, The road out found a chap with a camper trailer and only on tyre on it the other had taken off bush by itself. Strange that 2-3 studs had broken off and the rest were in tact with the nuts on, Just ripped through the rim. David gave them a quick lesson how to use their shiney high lift jack that they just removed from the cardboard box. Then left them with it.

A detour to woomera as we were so close checked out the rockets etc, saw a person twerking a rocket, that you can not UNSEE. Our trip home was full of roo's goats and pigs, and rain, Had a sleep in a layby in the car as to wet, then moved on. The car in general was happy. The list of repairs to it are a Fifth gear cog wore out 900km from home, but carried on in 4th, hole in head light from a rock from a road train, chips in windscreen, and a new Arial, that's been wearing for a while, a new rooftent cover, got well used. Generally happy with it all. As most camping was in a civilised park, we returned with so much food and still some fire wood on top.
Bucket list ticks.
Climb Ayres rock
Fly over Ayres rock
All Deserts...lol
Sleep in Dugout.
Jumped on large air pillow
To be added back on:
Spend more time enjoying springs a gorges. damn that toll road expiry date.( aboriginal permit road)
As per everyone else nearly 1500 hundred photos some good some average, but still working how to put em up here, may need a lesson from the techs.....
Cheers Debbie

Well....it's not quite true that we didn't see any camels.
Just not what we'd expected - but our fearless leader got up close to them. And Cheryl steered us to the Birdsville Star show - which was absolutely Terrific.
Although how she organized a full lunar eclipse at no extra charge while we were there has me beat!

Ok - who from the trip is currently watching the Mad Max 2 movie. As I type, I see the landscape typically seen just West of Broken Hill. It must have been filmed mind winter, as I didn't see at least a dozen flies in front of the camera.

Thanks GridPack ... yes - all those camels. We certainly did a good job avoiding camels on the road, and in the desert, and everywhere else.

Yes a great trip was had.

It was very interesting all the way through, from suffering 40DegC with no Air Con just a fan and a spray bottle which really helped, to 40knots of wind at about 5degC chill factor Freezing!. Two flat tires of which one was destroyed. The first 50 kilometers was expensive as I had poly air bags fitted on my way past ARB Burleigh Heads because the tow bar was only 6 inches from the ground due to the load. They made a huge difference.

The Desert was fantastic, the MacDonald ranges were beautiful, Uluru, the Olgas and Kings Canyon were amazing. The sunsets and sunrises were devine. The early morning dip at Dalhousie Springs a real treat with the steam coming off the water. The list goes on and on. The people were great the places were great and a good time was had.

At Mt Dare the owner mentioned to get the rear coil towers strengthened and that I can buy a kit for this as the coil cab patrol and wagons are renowned for bending rear top Coil Towers. Guess what! I have bent the passenger coil tower and will be taking the car to Superior engineering in the near future to have it fixed and a Strengthening kit fitted. This may have been bent when I bought the car but most probably was bent from the trip.

After the rest of the group dumped me at Coonabarabran (just kidding - We Just headed our separate ways to home) I decided to take some back roads on the way home. Found an excellent Tamworth bypass through the mountains had to use 4x4 as it got a bit wet and slippery and at one stage thought I was just going to end up in someones front yard. I had no problems getting through in the end and all in all it was a beautiful drive.

Lots of praise for Dave he was a good trip leader having done most of the preparations prior and his efforts to try and please everyone. He even held the odd training session along the way ( see picture below) showing us the correct and not so correct techniques of sand driving and recovery.

Anyway you are all welcome to view all my pictures and videos on my drop box http://www.dropbox.com/sh/7txje0irwsqln ... -4Jba?dl=0

Gazza

Mel made a four videos a couple weeks ago but hasn't had a chance to put them on the forum.
Ill put the links to them below.

https://youtu.be/STvyWQz0m5w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5PlY_3whLk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn0CXfnkUiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5xD0e6NigY

Next trip I'm taking a different CD!!

I wouldn't mind taking a weekend trip and driving to Birdsville just to tackle big red again (yes that's right, weekend trip). Having never driven up a sand dune before I took big red very carefully. But now, after dozing through 1200+ sand dunes I would DEFINITELY take on big red again and ALL of its tracks up.

Hi Gary, Some great photos. I'm certainly keen to have the trip around your home area. Looks really nice. I'm booked out for the next couple of weekends, but we might aim for a trip soon after that. We will see when people are free.


Hi Mel ...... Excellent videos. They put a smile on my face as they brought back memories. They inspired me to put up that Ayers Rock video I compiled on the trip. I haven't even looked at a single video I took, as I'm still tyring to sort through my photos.
Ayers Rock Sunset video. Unfortunately we had some clouds that afternoon, but interesting anyway.

Tim ... I like your thoughts about playing on Big Red. I was thinking of taking the family out for a taste of the desert, but going no further than Big Red. So no 110 litres of water, less than 240 litres of fuel, no 150kg of firewood, etc. The Prado was just way too heavy to get up Big Red on that direct line. But it was SOOOOO much fun to attempt the ascent.
But it may be a bit more than a weekend trip (maybe an extra long weekend).

BTW - did anyone watch the Pat Callinan show on Sunday? It covers the Gun Barrel highway to Ayers Rock. He talked about the 1 million camels in the desert, and showed large herds of them. I can only assume that episode was made at least 5 years ago.

Well done Mel,
Those videos were terrific! You definately have a flair for that sort of thing obviously!

A weekend may be a bit tight for a Birdsville trip - but as long as we end up at Birdsville on the same day it shouldn't matter if some of us stretch it an extra day or two...or three. Hopefully the flys have been sorted out by the cooler weather. I think Tracey's exams finish end of June so I have a few weeks opportunity for longer trips following that.
The area around Gary's area and the Tamworth bypass route he trail blazed on the road back from our trip does indeed look very attractive. Once Gary has sorted out his coil tower of course.

Cheers,
Don