CSR Comparisons

In the words of many an asian hawker I'd sum it up by saying

"Same same.......but different".

Corrugations are horrendus in many locations on the Canning and equal to some stretches on the Gunbarrell, only there are more of them on the Canning. The 30km north and 100 km south of Well 33 being a classic example. Again, the dunes on Googs are often much higher than the Canning and difficult in their own rights but the Canning has consistantly more dunes. The Googs dunes tended to have a lot straighter approaches as I recalled where as the Canning tends to twist and turn as you start the approach sapping momentum.

Haven't done the Anne Beadell since 06 but have heard the corrugations are constant and terrible. The Connie Sue corrugations are bad but only in isolated stretches. They differ from the canning in being much firmer with a solid rocky base where the Cannings are all sand based. Again, there are only a couple of 20 km stretches of corrugations o the Connie to deal with.

The video in these blogs may give you some idea of the both.

Canning pushing south to 38

Canning Corrugations around 33

Track Conditions 2009

Googs Track


Hope that heps.


Cheers Mick

Try this thread No. 75796 most things will be answered there.

I am sure you will be given plenty of advice.
The main one to remember is to take your time, and do not kill your vehicle ... there is no need to.

With regards to the corrugations, Sth side of Well 33 are real ordinary, I did not think the Nth side were as bad. Mind you, they are fairly horrific, to say the least, but if you have done the East side of the Gunbarrell, then SWMBO recons that you are qualified to do the Canning, as we both recon the CSR is no worse.

Low tyre pressures (as explained in my posts from the recomended thread above)
Dune approach, is critical, and I found that being about 1 tyre width off the main approach, seemed to smooth over the bumpy bits, and take out that bounce.
The dunes are easily be approached, just go straight up them, and there is no need to use the "Jumbo Jet" run-ups, or our other favourite name was the "55 pound club" run-ups.
Some peeled to the left, some peeled to the right, but none were dangerous, and if you have low tyre pressures, then there is no need to fly up them, just hit the dune, with a little more than a waddle, and give it to the 4B, as you begin to rise..
For safety reasons lift your foot at the top.

Feel free to contact me, if you have any other concerns

Cheers
Bucky

John & Vals pic of the corrugations pretty much sums up the worst of it but the vast majority has little or none at all.
The dunes however are nothing like Googs track. Googs is an easy drive even when the sand is soft & dry. The Canning dunes in general are bigger, have chopped up more due to the traffic & are far harder to get over due to the extra weight of the fuel & water you need to carry.
As the track zig zags between the dunes there are right angled turns to climb many of them & as Bucky has mentioned "Jumbo Jet" run-ups on some of the bigger ones. While most don't need the runups, when the sand is very soft those with heavily laden under powered cars may need to use them.
On the tops of the dunes there are also mutliple heads which can catch you out. After a dry hot blow the crests can be quite tricky with some steep side angles & direction changes.
The difficulty of the Canning changes each year. Prepare for the worst, pack as light as possible & have a great trip.
Cheers Craig............

Hi Blue Dog Red Dog!
Agree with all else said- and as suggested, corrugations are corrugations whether on the OTL to Cape York, the abandoned Gunbarrel or the CSR.

We try to deal with both the corrugations and sand dunes by keeping our tyres at 18lbs psi and driving slowly. At these pressures it's easy to crawl over sand dunes whether there's a bend at the bottom or top or not. There's no need for speed. This has worked for us in the Simpson and the CSR - sorry can't comment on the Googs until after May this year!

These tyre pressures allow the tyres to absorb the impact of corrugations and minimise damage to the vehicle, contents and passengers.

We manage in both situations by trying to do the following:

1. Treating our tyres as a consumable.
2. Sticking to 60k max at these pressures.
3. Camping early to stay refreshed.

Enjpy them!
Kevin
Image Could Not Be FoundPS Photo shows corrugations around Well 23!

Perhaps we could muster a few retirees, a govt grant, fuel company sponsorship and a donated grader and do the job ourselves....not too swish though cos that'd attract a very different cohort not to mention increased traffic levels.

The track south of 23 is starting to corrugate almost as bad as around 33, or will in a year or so. Driven to fast and most suspensions will give out.

I have only travelled from north to south, and the approach to the dunes is a lot smoother than the other way, south to north. But still the odd sharp turn before the final approach. This way the bad scalloping is on the down hill side, which still needs to be taken really slow.

We found the corrugations quite bad to & from well 33, with regards to the dunes we found the best approach to be to stop at the bottom,select 1st gear with tyre pressure's set at about 20psi & with reasonable light throttle opening we had no trouble. We did the CSR in June 09

Thanks a lot everyone for the feedback. This just puts a better picture in our head of what to expect in general. We are really looking forward to our trip! Have given ourselves 3 weeks to do the CSR alone - total of 6 weeks driving from Sydney - so we can take our time and just enjoy it. Can't wait :)