How many days for a CSR trip?

It depends on a lot of things, How much time you want to dedicate to travel each day, how long you want to stop to sightsee and what detours you plan.
some people are early risers and travel to dark, others like to get up late and pull into camp early.
As a general rule, we get up when we wake up (you are supposed to be on holidays) Have a good brekky, pack up camp and should be on the road by around 9.00 - 9.30, Our other general rule is not to travel past 5pm, so anytime after about 3, we are looking for a place to camp. Our camp takes about 10 minutes to setup and pack up, so we dont waste a lot of time there.

Having said all that, when we did the Canning in 2009 it took us 18 days, which is enough. Whilst it is beautiful country it does get a bit monotonous

Our trip was 10 days Ian and this seemed plenty , we did not stay anywhere for more than 1 night and saw everything we wanted to.

We had some showers and a couple of cold nights with rain and so no real incentive to stay longer.

We thought Durba springs was overated, people everywhere - with locals telling us where you can't go , a bit dirty and with low levels of smelly undrinkable water. (shot through after an hour as wasn't worth camping there despite the pretty rocks)

Overall a great drive though and we will go back and go from north to south next time.

We did it some years back withour 4 kids (6 -12) and two grandparents (68+/-) with a plan for 21 days. We had to miss the bottom few wells due to conditions but we still took 18 days. That was fine. Get going when you get up starts, smoko morning and arvo, sightseeing, energy burning off stops for the kids, stop by 4ish (gets dark early ). That worked out fine for us, no stress, saw what we wanted to. Had a couple of two nighters which really helps.

Did it 2 years ago with 5 vehicles, south to north, we took 17 days, with 2 nights at Durba Springs.

I wouldn't do it in less, next time more like 20/21 days, and north to south.

Gidday

I reckon the answer is in your question --- somewhere between 16 and 21 days sounds about right. It is worth remembering that the CSR is very taxing on both man and vehicles and regular stops during the day are a good idea, particularly on the heavily corrugated sections. If you have a flexible schedule you can take a break.
It was while on the CSR a few years ago that the "never drive past a good camp site after 4pm unless you know exactly what lies ahead" came to the fore. Someone else was calling the shots and was worried about the schedule so we pressed on and come dark found ourselves in a less than ideal spot.
Most CSR travellers camp near wells, particularly those with water, but bear in mind there will be no firewood there and and the surrounding bush is likley to be littered with human waste and toilet paper. The more popular places like Durba will be busy. One of the best camps we had was in a grove of desert oaks just south of Lake Disappointment and we only stopped there because someone spotted a dead mallee that provided the firewood for the night. The point I am trying to make is be flexible.

Cheers

Rocco

Some terrific answers there and great tips too, finding unburied waste is becoming an issue and would prefer not to camp in those places!.

It seems the 21 day "plan" is not too bad, we are flexible but I am yet to retire so an open ended return date is not an option.

Bosses don't like not knowing when you might be back.

21 day averages less than 100klm per day which I was hoping was a nice easy pace with lazy starts and early camps.
And plenty of time to enjoy the trip.

for all the answers so far.

The Exploroz Trek shows a driving time of 1 day 22 hrs 36 mins for the CSR, but still recommends allowing over two weeks to do it. That seems very leisurely but I guess it allows lots of time for sightseeing and a rough road?

yep 21 days is good - plenty of time for a long look

We did it in 10 days but were waiting for the hard sections that never eventuated. We stopped at Durba and it was nice when we were there but we had the place to ourselves on the first night.

Some of the best places were in the Southern half with the upper half a little bare but we did find some good spots.

Agree with the 3pm camping, we pushed on a couple of times but agree with the earlier comment about settling for a less than perfect place.

You will have a ball, I would recommend fuel at Well 23 from Capricorn as it was cheaper than Kunawarritja

Cheers

Colin