Simpson desert

Shouldn't be a problem by June.

Before I tell you what we did I will ask just one question.

Have you towed your trailer in soft sand before?

If the answer is no then you have got till June to practice. I don't know where you are but I would recommend going to your local answer to Stockton Beach and get bogged, dig yourself out and try backing down a dune or two.

When you have done that a few times then you can take on the Simpson. The Simpson was not particularly difficult when we did it. We even got a bit of rain which slowed us down a bit but firmed up the sand.

We towed the Trak Shak across the SD and had no problems in the sand, the mud slowed us down a bit though. We had a bit of a look around travelling on each of the main tracks. It was great.

Remember to let your tyres down on car and trailer and once you stop going forward get off the gas. You can take a trailer across the SD without problems but if you do it wrong and damage the tracks the "no trailers" brigade will jump all over those of us who choose to travel with a trailer. Don't give them any ammo.

Duncs

When you get your Desert pass you will receive a useful booklet with maps and tips. You will be advised not to take trailers. Big Red is a rather significant dune. I would not like to try hauling a trailer over it.
Willem has done it and his comment above hides the difficulty you will face.
Perhaps you could go to Birdsville caravan park and leave the trailer. Go out to big red and have a play--- then if you are still keen (silly?) enough to do it then go for it.
I doubt your wife would be so keen though LOL Good luck.

We did exactly this 2 years ago, during October School Holidays 2004. 2 boys aged 9 and 6 at the time. We were in a Nissan Patrol Diesel automatic all stock other than winch and towing a Camp-o-matic hard floor camper trailer, which we hired and had good aquaintence with as we had used on a previous trip to Fraser Is.. Spent 3 days crossing via Dalhousie springs, Rg road, Knolls track, french, QAA to Birdsville. Got stuck on 1 dune not long after rejoining the French line and spent afun hour or so digging and jacking to extricate. Saw only 1 other car so had a fantastic remote adventure, though a bit nerve wracking on occassions. Took several attempts to cross a few of the sand dunes because I didn't want to get stuck again. This meant having to reverse down some dunes, so would bail out early while trailer was still straight (less chance of getting stuck going backwards) Or utilised side angled tracks on occassions. On our 3rd day we travelled with the other car that we met and this made crossing dunes much easier as they could report degree of difficulty and hence right foot requirement.
Be sure to secure trailer contents thoroughly though, as tough and as well riding this trailer was it's still not as robust as the car. I'd certainly love to do it again but in hind sight it would have been less stressful if we had a travelling companion from the start. Nights out under the stars with not another soul around made it all worthwhile though.
PS my wife was cra**ing for 3 days.

mickandchelle Did simpson july last year two familys,two camper trailers,west to east french line,waa line.got "stopped" not bogged on a handfull of dunes air presure & a sensible right foot are needed.saw a few not towing doing it far harder than it had to be.air presure? travelling with another vehicle sure does take some of the worry out of it though.your mrs will thank you for that bit of comfort the ct provides. hope this helps.

Two of us did the simo both towing campers. No problem but it is hard going and the trailers must be very strong. From Oodnattatta to Birdsville we used the following fuel travelling the french line in September.

Nissan Patrol Manual Petrol 170litres, Jeep Cherokee auto 130 litres petrol.

Cheers and have fun.

I have not done it in a camper, but I do own one now ,,
When I went thru with the Boys from the Yorke Peninsula 4x4 Club in 2005, there were 2 campers that went all the way, and one went into Poeppel Corner and then back to Birdsville..
My advice is to go for it, and do it with a couple of non towing vehicles, just in case you need to get " snatched " over a dune

Cheers Mate
Bucky

Mick

Anything to do with deserts, sand, dunes, sand hills......................rule of thumb is 15psi in tyres on tow vehicle and 10psi in tyres on trailer. High range first gear or low range second gear crossing dunes. No need to rush a dune/sand hill at all. Just keep to a steady pace.

Cheers

mickandchelle, did the simpson last July, after getting all the advice on this forum, we decided to leave the trailer at Birdsville and take the tent. We saw heaps of vehicles, but only one was towing and he said he had a hell of a time, digging etc. This is the 64 thousand dollar question. As someone said before , if u have or join up with a single vehicle, then go for it, take it easy and have fun. Its great country!!

cheers, Lance

Hi Mickandchelle,

We did the Simpson mid last year towing a camping trailer, there were four vehicles in our group with us being the only ones towing.

We did have to reverse up on a few dunes however so too did the others so towing a trailer isn't necessarily going to make it any more difficult.

The most important things to remember is to ensure that your camper is firstly up to the job, it must be a good solid off road CT, you must lower your tyres and you may need to lower them more than once depending on conditions.

Take your time and enjoy the experience.

Regards,

Kerrie.

Gaday Mick. Officially trailers are discouraged in the Simpson as in the past many people with little driving experience have got into alot of difficulty with quite a few lesser quality ones breaking down & occationally being left behind.
That said with some previous sand driving experience, correct tyre preasures & a suitable trailer that's not overloaded, the majority of people would have little difficulty at that time of the year.
Cheers Craig.................

Thanks to everyone for giving me info.....greatly appreciated....am leaning toward leaving the trailer at home so as not to "tear up tracks or the like"...as they say "tread lightly"