We were planning our trip around Australia last year and found limited information on how much fuel we should plan to have to crossing the
Simpson. This
forum had most information, however there wasn't much clarity on whether people were driving petrol or diesel vehicles. At the end of this post is a summary of the advice.
So, we're feeding back to the
Forum on our experience, in case others would benefit from this.
We used our Montero 3.8 L petrol (it's becoming difficult to have a diesel in much of the world today). Because this engine is not sold now in Australia, and because few people seem to use this model (equivalent to a Pajero) in Australia, we found it tough to get insight into the probably fuel consumption. Experience in deserts elsewhere in the world led us to conclude that we would need to plan on 25-50% higher consumption than on tarmac. We saw advice online telling us that we should expect to see consumption ranging from 50-100% higher than "normal". At Mount Dare the advice was to plan on 50% higher than "normal" and to plan on the possibility of taking the longest route (770 Km), since the shortest route was badly chopped up when we were crossing.
So, we calculated needing around 195 L of petrol. The tank holds 88 L, and we had cans for another 100 L, so we bought one more and left Mount Dare with 208 L. We ended up finding that the French Line wasn't as bad as we had expected, and ended up on the French Line,
Rig Road, WAA line, Knoll's Track, French Line, and then QAA line. 610 Km in all. When we arrived in
Birdsville we found that we had used 135 L, so a lot less than we thought we might need. We hope that this information helps anyone planning on using the same vehicle (petrol engine).
It was a beautiful trip - one other vehicle each day on the first 4 days, then a lot more traffic from Eyre Creek westwards. No problems at all with the vehicle. Crossed "Big Red" easily (not by the most aggressive track since we didn't see much point in stressing the vehicle before the next 20,000 Km or so of our trip). Fantastic starry skies and overall a great experience.
The overall trip is at www.discoverthedreaming.blogspot.com for anyone interested.
Forum advice we found on EXPLOROZ:
- oodnadtta to birdville used a 115 litres heavly loaded with 4 persons.
-
Birdsville to New Crown... same unit.. loaded !! 100 litres ...approx 660 kms all slow ones ...
-
Birdsville to
Oodnadatta ... on various tracks and used 113Litres. Worked out at approx,16L/100k. Took 20 Litres spare. ... in N/A 80's series not that overloaded,
- Mt Dare to
Birdsville via F line in grossly overloaded Pajeros (took recommended amount of fuel) 90L each.
- Most of the experts recommend taking 200l. However this allows for emrgency detours etc. We have just completed the west-east crossing…in a loaded Pajero 3.5 with 3 adults. From Mt Dare to
Birdsville we travelled just under 600kms & used 125l.
- We crossed the
Simpson by the French, WAA, Rig and QAA tracks, 650km from Mt Dare to
Birdsville - used 113 litres of diesel in a 100 series manual (with aftermarket turbo).