Simpson Desert & Binns Oct 2009

Well have finally done the dreamed of Simpson Desert crossing, & what an experience it was! Our group consisted of a Triton dual cab (the tour guide, "Where are we now Mike" leader), a short wheel base Jeep, dual cab Hilux & the Prado.
The crossing was from east to west via the QAA line then down to the WAA line. Very little traffic was encountered on the QAA & Frenchline (all up only about 5 vehicles) & none at all on the WAA line. We did meet 3 vehicles with camper trailers at the start of the Rig road (end of our crossing) but after explaining our day (had started at approx 9.00am & met them at approx 3.30pm, having covered only 60 odd km for the day) the wives looked less than impressed & we often wondered what happened to them. Personally I think it insane to take a trailer out there, from my experience.
The stock standard Prado performed very well in the extremely soft sand that we encounted on the crossing (the storm that blew all that dust to Sydney also desposited a lot of new sand on top of the dunes) & found it rather frightening having to back off the dunes when you just didn't/couldn't make it, that out of control backwards sensation was not good & with the new sand it made it more so.
I found that the Matrax that I had purchased to be a very good investment, as they came in very handy on a couple of occasions where the Prado was stuck in soft sand & the vehicle snatching was also in soft sand. The new 3 piece shovel was also a good investment (now christened Triton, as everytime it was used was to dig out the Triton), as very easy to store & very easy to change from long handle to spade as the situation required.
After we had done the crossing we headed for Mt Dare where we had decided to do part of the Binns Track up to Alice. Found it to be fairly rough with lots of corrigations & when they say on the map 'bulldust' they mean bulldust! It was easy to identify those sections as the track suddenly went in all directions with people trying to avoid those areas, having very deep ruts (Triton bottomed out & had to be snatched out. Great photo, as Triton looked as if it was just plonked in the dirt up to the bottom of the cab!).
PS
The Triton & Hilux members had done the same crossing last year, & said it was alot tougher this year & the flies weren't as bad either! (this from people who had major dramas last year where they bent a vehicle chassis, destroyed shocks, blew cans, mixed almost everything in the fridge together & on & on, but that's another story!!).

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