Friday, Jul 06, 2012 at 16:04
Have to agree with Boobook, after researching the First motorised crossing by Reg and family and reading Griselda's book, it was indeed a Toyota that arrived in
Birdsville at 10 pm with the Nissan arriving at 3 am next morning. All vehicles had some issues, the Scout the worst breaking axles and eventually diffs, it was actually lashed to the Green Toyota midway across the Desert and the Toyota towed it across the dunes (imagine that!) The Yellow Toyota lost 1st and reverse gear on the western side of the desert but still completed the crossing unassisted (another incredible feat). As far as the Sprigg family were concerned, they considered the crossing of the Simpson to be from
Andado station to Alton Downs station and on this count, yes, the Nissan was first to arrive at a
wind mill on Alton Downs station closely followed by the Green Toyota towing the Scout (like 10 mins behind them). The Nissan with Reg driving went looking for the Yellow Toyota which had gone ahead but missed a turn to the
wind mill, Griselda and the children (Doug and Marg) jumped in the Green Toyota with its driver and went to
Birdsville arriving there with the Scout which now drove on one diff only, arriving at 10pm to a warm welcome. I've written a yarn about my trip across the Desert, being the first to cross it in its anniversary year and this will appear in Overlander Magazine hopefully around October, there will also be a DVD on our trip released towards the end of the year by Lifestyle Video Productions,
John Morton has done a fantastic job on the DVD.
Vic
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