Going east-west on the lower Rig rd after a sand blow just might do it !
Various commitments, friends availability and closed roads meant that this year our planned quiet trip around the K1 line and
Inside track turned into 7 days only,
Melbourne to
Melbourne in which to do a 5000km trip including a 600+km loop thru the Simpson from
Birdsville which turned out to be longer
and harder than any crossing we have done before.
Timing constraints meant we had to drive up the
Birdsville track Sunday as in excess of 500
vehiclesexiting the
Birdsville races came south.
A not to be recommended journey!
A nasty cross wind played in our favour by keeping the thick dust and sand from passing vehicles blowing sideways away from us, however while we escaped damage by lagging behind our 2 companion vehicles suffered both big stones into windscreens and loss of one rear canopy window as
well as 1 flat tyre.
We then got out of
Birdsville as quick as we could fuel up to aviod the aftermath of the big party, but it results in terms of damaged vehicles was everywhere.
The diesel fuel queue was endless but I drove straight into a vacant unleaded pump and paid 7c lower at $1.47 than our 2 diesels which further cheesed them off.
Our run of good luck continued as the quick fill got us to the
bakery first and the last of the Vegie pasties.
After an obligatory play at Big Red and quick lunch our 6 vehicles-> 4800 GU patrol, 4.2 diesel GU , D22 Navara and 3 trailbikes headed out with the intention of making
camp at the top of the K1 line near Poeppels.
The twin crossing channels of Eyre
creek both had
water in them, the eastern crossing was to deep but just then a Prado showed up telling us that the bypass 3.5km south was good but that the big sandstorm had made getting to Poeppels a 9 hour battle for them.
With 3 hours left to sunset we hurriedly got underway somehow misplacing a
full jerry of petrol for the bikes.
If you find it and return it to us in a postbag please tell the
post office to keep it upright as the cap leaks a little.
With 3 guys on the bikes and me driving my Patrol, we invoked plan B for the trip to the corner and put 2 wives together to drive one car as the middle car, with a friend bringing up the rear in the other Patrol pulling the empty bike trailer.
The girls were given strict instructions to stick close behind me and listen carefully to radio commands.
This was largely ignored until a double washout was encountered.
The rear driver reported that the girls car went down then got air then down again then air again and both landings were bone jarring despite the track being sand.
After this compliance from the girls car was a lot better, but damage from this event would soon make itself present.
The run to Poeppels was relatively easy, only requiring a few backups mostly from driver errors and we pulled into the K1 line and camped in a lovely spot at sunset, ready for the start of a huge 276km loop down the K1, west across the Rig , up knowles and back to where we were now camped.
I suspected this would be a challenge and we began the next day with 16psi all round.
We left late after our friends had not put filler packing in their fridges empty spaces and had quite a mixture of broken eggs, frozen split coke cans and other assorted mess to clean up.
Down the K1 is quite easy and was just a beautiful drive in the perfect weather.
There are only some 3 small dune crossings however the recent big winds had totally removed all wheel tracks and our leader at the time went over the first dune at an angle and did not see the drop off on the other side.
The result was a violent wake up call and this mistake wasn't made again.
Soon groups of camels were seen in this quieter environment away from the main tracks.
The junction of K1,
Warburton and
Rig road was soon reached and as we got a quick drink it wasn't noted that the Navara's shock mount was damaged, the rear bumper didn't look quite right and the shock rubbers were fully chopped out.
We fixed it with spares I had for the Patrol and headed off straight into a huge dune blown over the road with no
sign of any way thru.
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The size of this monster really caused a few cracks to appear in our plans.
It was after all the first and 70km more were to follow.
But it was just sand and I wanted to go first.
I charged up and promptly stranded the Patrol fair on its belly.
This was the cause of much ribbing, paybacks and dare I say "a rare" photo opportunity for the gang.
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Well taking a better path we got over and proceeded on to 3 more dunes.
What we faced in each case was a total lack of any other tracks and the steep soft trailing edge of the sand flows averaging 2 meters high. Its so much harder than coming the other way.
We explored various paths across the dune faces but in an hour of effort, digging and snatching we had only crossed 4 dunes and got 3km.
It was already midday and getting quite warm, and we realized that this just wasn't going to work.
Turn back comments began to be heard, so we decided to consider the options and after a talk decided on trigger point to turn around.
We had put our the bikes on the trailer for the K1 to save fuel to make up for the lost jerry and now we tackled the 5th dune but couldn't get over and took off the bikes.
This move proved to be the ice-breaker.
Not because it made it easier for the strong diesel patrol with its big fat Mickey
Thompson muds, but because the bikes began to explore the country ahead.
All of a sudden the bikes massively increased our ability to check out each dune and sort of without any real plan or discussion we figured out that the way to cross these dunes was not to look for the smallest sand wall to charge at but rather to scout out a section of dune where there was no slope but rather a smooth rounded hummock.
This indicates that the
sand dune hasn't been moving much and was basically harder.
Soon we got into a real rhythm.
The bikes would scout ahead, figure out the best path thru and then mark
the track with a bit of wheelspin.
As
well the dune blow overs seemed to get lower and we began knocking them off at an acceptable rate.
The mood of the group also changed and we past our turn around trigger point without anybody raising the subject.
Soon we were out onto the flat easy run along the lake edges and returned the bikes to the trailer.
We reached the impressive dune pass between the two lakes and had a quick lunch at 4pm.
Our first, much needed stop for food & rest that day, but we had only covered 28km of a planned 104km section in all that time.
But much of this track was now easier and there were just two east-west sections left that might hold us up.
By this point our 4.2 diesel Patrol driver was throwing caution out the window and towing the bike trailer headed off in the lead and began tackling the now smaller dunes head on.
Nothing seemed like it would stop his car and rapid progress was made as with
crossed the first section.
But the sun was getting low on the horizon and picking a line was getting harder. Mistakes began to be made, but we were nearly thru.
Then we came to one of the last obstacles, in the image below the camera has overexposed the face, but to us, looking into the sun, it just appeared as a black wall, meters high and there were no side tracks.
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Here the technique needed was to run a car up onto the dune, using the Patrols long wheelbase and power to plant the front
wheels on the top if possible then back down dragging sand off the top leading edge and forming a track, creating the conditions
for a less stressful second run to be made at getting over the dune.
Most of the time this succeeded except on the very last dune where our diesel patrol got hung up on a bad angle.
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Well it was sunset again but we had broken thru the east-west section and were onto the
easy straight run up to the Knowles/Rig
junction and camped just 12km short of our
planned stop.
From now on it was an easy run up to the french line, then 40km east back to Poeppels
then to
Birdsville after a last
camp in the dessert.
We had a bash plate on the Navara to secure, and a flat tyre on a bike, during these
stops our Navara driver noted he had left his toolbox behind probably at the
K1/Rig rd
junction.
lets know if you find it please.
The dessert was just perfect on the way back.
It was so much easier having wheel tracks to follow.
The car got into the groove, compliant
suspension, new adjustable Tough dog shocks,
low pressure tyres and plenty of power meant you could cover ground rapidly.
I love these sorts of conditions, you can put your entire focus into optimizing the drive, looking for the little clues to minimize track damage by avoiding corrugations and highsiding the track.
Rather than chug up the power sapping chopped up western dune slopes digging holes, you are often able to wash off speed by coasting up them and rolling safely over the dune tops while frequently stopping to take photo's while waiting for the diesels towing our trailer.
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Now, close to
Birdsville we thought of a last play on Big Red but it wasn't to be.
We had picked up a call on the
UHF radio, a tour operator supporting some bikes reported an accident. Our riders got to the scene first and via radio we organized to pick up a damaged bike on our empty trailer and cart it to
Birdsville whilst the tour guide organized an
ambulance (Troppy).
Thursday, a great holiday had now almost come to an end.
Birdsville now appeared deserted, although the now permanent Optus mobile signal has changed it.
Our friends cars had taken a bit of beating so we said goodbye then.
They took the bitumen home as we sneaked in some more
camping via
Coopers creek down the
Birdsville track.
Our 627km Simpson loop had only consumed 21 lt/100km in our petrol GU whilst the 4.2 Diesel (towing the trailer) came in at 23lt/100km, and we even managed to just make 20mpg (14.1 lt/100km) on the non-fuel stop 1093km run to
Port Wakefield which again had the cheapest petrol between
Melbourne and
Birdsville.
An even bigger sandstorm followed us, causing a complete whiteout near
Port Augusta so the tracks are be fresh again.
Well 7 days and 5000km had passed, I had expected a cruise and ended up being quite challenged.
I would never have got thru the lower
Rig road section without the determined assistance from my friends to whom I wish to thank, and you can bet we will be back.