Hay river trip advice.

It is a great trip, but a lot of it is interdunal, and so not difficult if others have been before you. If first through, the southern part can be challenging as you find a way over the dunes and create your own route. You will need good GPS skills if this is the case and the waypoints from Joel. However in a few months time the route should be obvious as others will have gone before you. I would rate it on par to the French Line in the south and reasonably easy as you head north. Spend time at Batton Hill and go on one of the tours.

I'll second Phil's comments but if it is dry with not much vegetation and the prevailing winds are the way they were when we came down last year then wheel tracks dissappear in a matter of hours.
On the plus side there has been rain and the dunes may not be too soft on the crests.
The problem is that the 'track' crosses the dunes at an angle so you have to try and find the next dune crossing from down in the swale.

Hi Pling

Much that same as other posters.

There were new waypoints issued for sand dune crossing section last year and I believe we were first to use them which meant several km's of no tracks and 5 dunes to cross (think 1 or 2 pictures in members photo's).

This also meant knowing how to use goto waypoint on GPS .
This caused some problems with acouple in our party who essentially could not see there Magellan GPS screens in the bright sunlight.

We only had about 6 snatches on the track but did have a few issues with finding exact route. All in all it was more fun than hard.

For us some of the best parts were not on the actual track but doing things like driving part of the Hay river river bed which were never mentioned in the notes.

We put a report into 4wheelingsa but it was editited a bit much and on our yahoo group site is full report and detailed plot of everthing from Melb to birdsville Hay to Alice and return.

Robin Miller