Planning Trip Poeppel Corner

Hi Siringo

Can't tell from your post your sand dune driving experience.

Do you know that Poeppels isn't another dirt road drive , but that lots
of sand dune driving is required.

Good thing is that the very first dune out of Birdsville is Big Red , and if its your first time you should play on it for a while.

If you can cross it from both sides ok, then you should make it to Poeppels ok.

Only take 1 spare here , but with ability to repair most damage, and never proceed unless I can.

Water - Its a day/overnight drive out there so you don't need much - 20 liters is plenty.

Prefer june myself , before winter sets in.

Prefer BFG AT

GPS - and know how to use is a very good idea as a sand blow can cover the track overnight.

UHF radio needed as is a sand flag.

Navara - check front end is in good order.

Thanks for the reply. Didn't know There was sand driving involved. Haven't done much but I live near a perfect training ground down here in s/w Vic, lots of beaches and dunes. Now I've got an excuse to go down there a few times :-)

Hi Siringo,

Sounds as though your are really starting at the beginning in terms of doing this trip :-). A link to our trip from Birdsville out to Poeppel Corner is here. And in the box where you have your original post you will see and article on the French Line which runs west across the Simpson from Poeppel Corner. These will give you some idea of what is involved. If you search on this site for Simpson Desert, QAA line, French line you will find heaps of info.

Given that you are a novice in this type of travel my advice would be to find some way to join a group doing the Simpson. Maybe join a 4WD club and get some 4WD training. Alternatively sometimes there are trips arranged through this forum that may be suitable.

Another thought - why Poeppel Corner? Depending on where home is there are probably other places where you can go to build up some experience before you start doing this kind of trip. And finally, beach sand dune driving is not really too much like driving over desert dunes.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Val.

Thanks for the advice and help. I've got about 20+ years 4wd experience, just none going into the centre of Australia. Done alot around Victoria mostly.

We went up to Cameron Corner earlier this year in a stock Rav4 and a mostly stock Rodeo, maybe we were lucky but I didn't see too much hard stuff, but then again we didn't go too far off road I must admit.

I'll soend time and look into those links you gave me, there may be just enough info there to tell me what I need to know.

Thanks again.

Siringo Hi,
That would be a great little trip, If You go during the winter months, check road conditions, common sense etc, You couldn't get into too much trouble (Presuming going from Birdsville).Best to allow at least one night under the stars.You could get by on standard tyres.
Regards Mike.

Hi Siringo, just to clarify in case it isn't obvious to you, the links you see in people's posts mostly link to pages elsewhere on this site outside of the Forum. If you use the blue links in the site menu you can access some very comprehensive trip planning info - especially for central oz. Go to Treks to find route notes and planning guides, plus Road Conditions is there. Places is a full database of waypoints with comments, photos too but each trek note links to the relevant Place so if you start with the various Simpson Desert trek notes, all the relevant Places will be linked within (tip - let your computer allow the Interactive Map section of the Trek Note toggle to show you highlights of the route and stop it and click to access the Place page for any points of interest to you). If you choose to sign up as a Member, you can actually download the GPS plot file and all the waypoints for any of our Treks and Places as a Member benefit too. You may even want to write a blog during/after your trip - another Member benefit.

Either way, hope this helps you find the info you were after! Good luck!

MM

Thank you all once again, I'll do alot more reading and so on.