We departed Perth for Phase 1 in rain, cold, cloud & wind, well provisioned and with enough pre-made frozen meals for the whole trip (the Travel Buddy oven worked a treat). Ian and Helen made the RV with us at Jibberding on 22 June. We left the rain behind and didn’t see anything but beautiful blue skies until 1 day out of Brisbane almost 5 weeks later – very lucky.

The trip to Carnegie Station was going well until I had a puncture about 1km from the station around lunchtime. We were staying the night anyway so an internal puncture repair was effected by station staff. We washed clothes, enjoyed a good station meal, good company and a good fire. The roof topper was surprisingly very comfortable.

The Gunbarrel is the Gunbarrel – it hasn’t improved and probably gotten worse after recent rain. Apart from the history, and the tracks of the early explorers, there was nothing exceptional to report except that my HEMA GPS started to shut down on corrugations then wouldn’t change and Jane is still looking forward to travelling the ‘’Highway ‘part of the Gunbarrel. We only met a couple of vehicles in the 4 days it took to cross between Carnegie Station and Warburton. One of them was towing a small caravan in the opposite direction to us and the wife was distraught at how bad the conditions were. We don’t know how they got on because they hadn’t even hit the really rough stuff yet and we didn’t have the heart to tell them what was ahead. We had great fires every night, great history and a few camels. We split up with Ian & Helen after Curtin Springs and met a week later.
Jane and I went to Ormiston Gorge and Finke 2 Mile. Then it was 3 nights in a fabulous AirBnB in Alice Springs from where we made some meals and stocked up for the next leg. Alcohol restrictions were a challenge. Alice Springs was quiet – not what we had expected. I reported my issues to HEMA and purchased a new HEMA HX-2+ in Alice Springs.

Phase 2 started spectacularly with great fires on nights at: Rainbow Valley 14 Rainbow Valley Aurora Australis and Lamberts Centre (the geographical centre of Australia). Chambers Pillar At Lamberts Centre we watched the great QLD team win the State of Origin Series in Game 3 through our Starlink. Unfortunately the water pump for our hot instantaneous gas showers failed so plan B (pump in a bucket) was put in place. Then it was on to Mt Dare where I managed another puncture (very small to the sidewall), just before Mt Dare. The hotel tried to sell me a rubbish 2nd hand tyre but I found out that they had someone in Alice Springs so we stayed an extra day/night while a new one was delivered back to the hotel – $650. Ouch, but it is remote and the tyre was brand new and necessary. Showers, washing, fires and pub meals were a welcome change to the trip routine.

On our 2nd day at Mt Dare our Starlink failed after only 17 days’ use so a new one was organised from Alice Springs by Mt Dare staff. Great service yet again. We then headed off over a terrible track (3 hrs for 70km) to the fabulous Dalhousie Springs where a hot soaking was thoroughly enjoyed by many travellers. The story of settlement at Dalhousie illuminates how tough life was out there back then, and the ruins are fascinating. Our original trip plan had us heading from Dalhousie Springs to the Simpson Desert but the filling of Lake Eyre had called for a change of plan and a roughly 1000km round trip detour via Oodnadatta. A 2 day trip ensued to William Creek where we showered, washed and had a pub meal then took a spectacular flight over a flooding Lake Eyre next morning – a once in a lifetime opportunity. We were very fortunate and excited to do the flight in Dick Smith’s twice round the world Cessna Caravan. We returned to Mt Dare to pick up our new Starlink, stayed the night, then met up with Ian & Helen next day at Dalhousie Springs where they had waited for us.

Finally it was off to the Simpson Desert, which had only recently opened after rains, where we had the pleasure of 4 camels leading us into our 1st night’s camp. There are reportedly over 1 million wild camels in Australia. Over the next couple of days we were on the tracks less travelled (WAA Line, Erabena Track, Rig Road to Lone Gun and Knolls Track) and saw very few vehicles which was great. Campsites were plentiful and really good. We did not have to share a campsite on the Gunbarrel or over the Simpson. Wood was plentiful on both. The wildflowers were spectacular over the whole Simpson, wattles were in flower and green was everywhere. We joined the busy main French Line track, detoured across Lake Poeppel to Poeppel Corner.and camped on the busy QAA Line for our 3rd (and last) night in the desert – that was the only night below zero for the whole trip. Up until then, 4 to 8 degrees C nightly had been the norm with 18 – 22 C and beautiful blue skies and no wind every day since Jibberding so we were very fortunate. Eyre Creek was still flooded so it was off to the bypass where a large group of nervous nellies were waiting & procrastinating over a pretty simple well marked water crossing of about 900mm on entry then about 700mm for the crossing. So someone had to lead the way. We joined the busy main French Line track, detoured across Lake Poeppel to Poeppel Corner.

We then headed to Big Red where we made it up the 4th of the 5 tracks, then onwards to Birdsville for the night. The Birdsville Hotel has a large number of very new donger style accommodations that are really good. We did not use Low Range at all on the Simpson even though we had 30 psi rear (heavy load) and 16 psi front. West to East was easier than expected and definitely easier than the reverse. Between dunes it was very up & down, porpoising, at 25km/h or less. Channel 10 and sand flags were compulsory but as always there are some with one and not the other, or some who didn’t listen to the radio – we almost had a head-on at the top of a dune on the French Line with some idiots who did not monitor their radio even when we had called and we were separated by only a couple of hundred metres. We saw a number of vehicles towing trailers and campers and even one with a sizeable boat. Motorbikes treating the desert as a motocross event were more dangerous with bikes doing 60 – 70 km/hr (plus) and no comms or flags. We had taken out the $495 Recovery Package offered by Birdsville Hotel, fortunately didn’t use it, but saw quite a number of vehicles who ended their trips on the back of recovery trucks either from Mt Dare or Birdsville – if you have no insurance then reportedly it’s 5k – $15k for a recovery – ouch $$$$$+. There were a couple of detours in place around flooded salt lakes but nothing difficult. Surprisingly fuel usage only increased slightly (around 20%) through the desert. We parted company with Ian & Helen after a great meal at the Birdsville Hotel. They headed back to Perth across the Nullabor into a howling gale and rain and we headed 1600 km east to the Sunshine Coast where we ended the trip just as we started with wind & rain.

Overall a great trip of almost 5 weeks, 6700km with spectacular scenery, fantastic history, great fires, from an overworked chainsaw, and fabulous memories. Jane says she deserves a medal. Post trip. We found out later that a lot of the roads and tracks we had just used from Mt Dare – Dalhousie Springs – Oodnadatta – William Creek and return were closed due to heavy rain soon after we had been through so, yet again, we were very fortunate. HEMA refunded the full cost of the new GPS, JB HiFi refunded the cost of the original Starlink and Starlink gave an account credit of $200 to cover the difference in cost from the original Starlink and the one purchased from Alice Springs. Great service without any argument.