Simpson & Water

Hi Andrew
There will be 2 adults/2 kids. We plan on 4l/person/day. This is low but we have been acheiving 1.5l/person/day on previous trips - we pre-cook meals and so on.

We are planning a fairly typical west to east trip. Will go through Oodnadatta, and mt Dare if needed for water. Route we're thinking about is French line, WAA line, Knolls, QAA, Birdsville, Walkers Crossing if its open, Innaminka, Moomba, Leigh Creek.

Regards JD

Hmmm Andrew and JD

I found a soak last year about 90km north-northeast from Erabena Airstrip. T'was greenish but would have had to dig for water....LOL. And it was a bit of a hard drive to get there.

The last water collection point(good bore water) is a few kilometres before you get to Dalhousie. It is on your right and signposted. After that there is no drinkable water until Birdsville. Dalhousie and Purni are hot artesian waters with a high sulfur content.

I normally carry 100lts water when I go on treks, regardless of remoteness.

I hope you are well prepared for very soft sand as April is very early in the season. About 90% of the dune crests on the French Line had one to two metres of blown sand covering the track at the end of April in 2006. We didnt get bogged but some other travellers had minor dramas.

Cheers

thanks Willem
that's interesting about the sand too. I was in two minds about that as Vic school hol's finish before ours (SA) and NSW start a week earlier so thought a bit of traffic might come through before us, which might help??. Can't wait regardless! JD

thanks prado-wolf
What sought of water available (and from who) at Birdsville? JD

contra to some other people i can confirm that Dalhausie has tanks and if it rains , the water is very good and we filled up several times there. Birdsville has tabs at the pub , the information center if i remember correctly and the servos also have tabs and the water was good enough for me to drink.

B.r.

I filled up with tap water at Birdsville servo and used that for washing etc and kept the filtered water for drinking and cooking purposes. That was travelling the reverse route to your trip. I carried 70L in jerries plus 30L in boxes from the servo which was more than enough for me and 2 kids. We normally use less than 2L/person/day but always carry more just in case.

thanks Lindsay

Yeah, not ideal timing but have to go with school holidays. Actually I wanted to avoid July because of number of cars up there. Some people have said that with rain earlier in year area should be pretty speccy. We'll see. JD