Simpson Desert Trip Part 2, The Final Instalment.
So we left Birdsville and its iconic pub behind and headed for the desert.
We stopped to air down.
Everyone got up and over Little Red without issue.
We headed for Big Red next.
Everyone chose to take the easy track to start with, but after watching a few people struggle and hearing over the radio what was happening we shot up the medium track and positioned LJ ready to help the guys up the last bit with the winch.
First was Eric.
Followed by Tony in Betsy.
Mean while Eric was having a few issues with his engine. He thought a turbo pipe had come off but we had a good look and we couldnt see anything. He managed to plug his scan tool in and remove a fault code and that seemed to fix it.
The old girl needed a bit of a hand getting to the top so Tony hooked my winch hook on to a bridle to spread the load over the 2 chassis rails.
And up she came.
Brenton powered his smart black Hi-lux up next and managed to get all the way up without needing winching.
We moved all the trucks and arranged them on the top of Big Red for some pics.
We then drove back down so we could have another attempt at the hard track.
The hardest bit is the top section where the sand is softer and where most people run out of momentum by.
A combination of good driving skills, plenty of right foot and all terrain tyres saw Adam power the Mazda to the top and successfully get up and over.
As we would see over the following week all terrain's were king in this terrain, especially when combined with a petrol engine and auto box. This combo would see Doug in the white 80 making it up dunes no one else could!
I had about 5 attempts before I finally got LJ up and over on the hard track!
We finished playing on Big Red and headed deeper into the desert.
Soon a call came over the radio to say Betsy needed a hand so we turned around and headed back to winch the trusty classic up.
With Betsy over we carried on.
Soon Betsy needed another winch to get up another particularly steep dune.
The dunes got a little firmer after these first few and with even lower tyre pressures Betsy wouldnt need assistance over the next few hundred dunes.
We carried on.
We would see very little wildlife in the baron desert so seeing a bird was significant.
I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of greenery between some of the dunes, I'd kind of presumed there wouldnt be anything but sand!
A few hours in we stopped to make camp.
And started with a few ice cold beers under an awning to shade us from the searing desert sun.
Cooked dinner.
Bangers and mash again.
Tent up.
Then it was time for a few beers round the fire.
Not a bad view to wake up to from inside the tent.
Breakfast done we packed up and moved out.
The pie oven worked fantastically well and turned our frozen meat pies into beautifully hot cooked pies in only 1.5 hours of driving.
We stopped for a spot of lunch.
It got to mid afternoon and LJ became very bouncy on the rear end and it was obvious the rear shocks had faded. We pulled over and they were red hot!
We had a debate about what to do which unfortunately got quite heated as we stood around in the middle of the desert with the burning sun beating down on us.
I was annoyed that the almost brand new shocks had failed and at this point no one realised that it was because there was no bump stops fitted.
As I dont give up easily when I've decided to do something I was keen to go back to Birdsville and get new shocks. So it was decided that Nelson and I in LJ would head back with Ian and Ed in the black Mav.
The others would continue on and make camp and we would catch them up the next day.
At this point it looked like I was going to cost the group a day of travel as they would be waiting for us to get back, but as your about to see and read it wasnt only LJ who needed mechanical work in Birdsville and while we were gone the poorly fitted airbags on the rear of Betsy failed, so the rest of the group spent the next day removing the airbags, straightening the universal mounts they were fitted to and welding in some pieces of metal to straighten them before bolting it all back on.
Some top work was done by the guys including some bush welding using 2 car batteries. Its unlikely Betsy would have coped well without this work being done, so in hindsight the group would have had to stop for a day anyway.
Anyway.........................
back to the trip report...............................
So LJ and the Mav headed back to Birdsville.
Coming into Birdsville.
Back at the camp site, tent up and showered.
I was up at first light and removed the blown shocks from LJ.
The black Mav had a nicely rebuilt V8 engine but a whole host of other issues.
One issue they guys were keen to try and fix was the loss of power they had when switching from the aux to the main fuel tank.
They hoped this would just be a blocked filter, but as they wernt carrying spare filters we removed the panel in front of the filter so that the mechanics could have a look and hopefully supply us with some replacement filters.
I got my socket set out of LJ and we soon had the panel wipped off.
We headed to the roadhouse and waited for the mechanic to arrive.
If you need recovering from the desert you need deep pockets for this beast to even leave Birdsville to come and get you.
Sign outside the mechanics.
The mechanic arrived and I explained the issue we had and he had a look at what shocks he had in stock.
I bolted the new shocks on.
The mechanic pointed out that I needed to fit some bump stops or it would just blow the new shocks.
As stated earlier I had measured before I ordered the new EFS shocks and I obviously cocked up as I thought the springs would become coil bound before the shocks got any where near the point of bottoming out.
His son turned up who runs a fabrication business in the town and he soon knocked up some extended bump stops and got them bolted onto LJ.
Top work and pretty reasonably priced, especially considering our location!
We had been in touch with the rest of the group who had been working on Betsy sorting the airbag issue out and they requested some pieces of metal, so the mechanic told us to check out the public tip.
We found some suitable metal and I found this old Suzuki LJ 4x4 interesting.
We picked up a load of bolts and some other bits and pieces the other guys needed and prepared to leave town and head back to rejoin them.
But not before wed had lunch and a cold drink in the pub.
I spotted another shorty!
We headed back to the desert.
We stopped to air down.
While airing down Ed spotted that both engine mounts on the Mav were badly cracked where they had been welded when the engine conversion was done.
It wouldnt have survived the desert so we were forced back to Birdsville to get it fixed.
The mechanics dropped everything and got the Mav on the hoist.
While we played with their cute puppy.
They unbolted the mounts, welded them back up and re-fitted them.
They said it was only a matter of time until they failed again due to the fact the mounts are misaligned with the engine mounts and chassis mounts, but they hoped it would last the rest of the trip.
We hit the road again.
The drive that afternoon/evening was one of the best bits of the whole trip for us as we got to travel at a great pace up and over all the dunes!
It wouldnt have been possible to do this with the full convoy, but with 2 vehicles it worked really well and we got a lot of ground covered.
We were driving into the sunset and at one point the sun was constantly appearing and disappearing as we crested the dunes and then dropped back down between them.
After a few hours we saw the sign for Mount Dare and a quick satphone call to the others confirmed we were close to where they were camped.
We reached the others and had dinner around the fire with them.
The next morning we packed up and hit the tracks again.
We drove the short distance to Poeppel corner and we had a quick stop and a look around.
We carried on and crossed a few clay pans and heaps more sand dunes.
We discovered that the oven works well for making toast!
We were heading to the
Lone Gum Tree our camp for the night.
We started cooking dinner and I told Nelson to watch the potatoes that were boiling while I nipped 50 meters away to put some rubbish on the fire.
I got to the fire and Nelson shouted me.
I looked up and...................
BOOM!!! 
There was a very loud explosion and Nelson flew back off his feet and ran back away from LJ.
Seeing flames shooting out the back of LJ I sprinted over and turned the gas off.
It turned out the hose thatI had used to extend the hose on the gas stove wasnt gas hose and it had expanded and then burst and caught fire.
It could have been very bad but luckily no one was hurt and LJ didnt go up in flames.
One shaken up Nelson.
Steak for dinner.
We ate dinner and then spent the rest of night helping Ian and Ed with the black Mav. They hadnt managed to get a fuel filter and with fuel in the aux tank running low they needed to get all of the fuel out of main and into the aux tank as it wouldnt run properly when they switched to main.
Ed had managed to siphon some out but they were struggling to siphon the rest out.
Fortunately I was carrying loads of spare fuel hose and tools in LJ. I removed a cover panel to get to the electric fuel pump mounted on the chassis and connected my hose from the output into the filler neck on the main tank.
Chris then ran a wire from the battery to the pump and we pumped all the fuel out.
Eventually we made it back to the fire but we didnt stay long as it was now late and we were very tired.
Sunrise the next day.
Back on the tracks.
I positioned LJ ready for another winching operation.
We stopped for the night and made camp. The flies were once again horrendous.
We cooked dinner.
Some of the guys used a quad-copter to get some aerial photographs and video of our camp.
As we all cooked our dinner and milled around camp with the fire going Ian spotted a yellow snake which went straight through the middle of camp!
They guys videoed it and showed the video to a ranger who confirmed it was the most venomous snake in the world, the inland taipan. If any of us had stood on it, which could easily have happened as it was dark................and got bitten wed be dead within 2 minutes!
The next morning I was awake very early and for the first time in a few weeks found the sky full of clouds!
I went for a walk as I wanted to climb a dune and watch the sun rise.
On the way I saw lots of snake tracks crossing the track, there must have been heaps going through our camp overnight! As well as a few lizard tracks.
I remembered the
Dramatic feature on my camera, so there will be a few from now on.
The flies were still terrible!
We put more fuel in LJ.
And hit the tracks.
More aerial filming.
The oven was still working well at making toast while we drove.
We passed a ranger who checked all our desert passes and sand flags.
Chris had overheating problems so we all pulled over while he tried to get his electric fans working.
We stopped briefly at a saltwater pool.
We arrived at dalhousie springs.
The water was a beautiful temp! It was like a hot bath!
We needed to get fuel so we shot off up to Mount Dare, just behind Chris in his 80 and the Mazda.
The road there was the worst I've ever driven!
Terrible corrugations and rocks in the road as big as footballs!
LJ survived OK as did the Mazda but Chris's 80 had taken a beating.
The radius arm mount on one side of the axle had torn off and was leaking oil everywhere!
We filled up and had a cold beer and then left with the Mazda to rejoin the others. Chris would camp at Mt Dare and hopefully get the axle welded the next day.
On the way back to Dalhousie to meet the others I could hear them on the radio and asked why they were in their vehicles......................
It turned out they had tents up and were half way through cooking dinner when the mozzies descended in biblical proportions and chased them out of camp!
So we met them a few k's up the road at another camp and camped there instead.
Camp the next morning.
We had now crossed the Simpson Desert and had been on the road for 2 weeks and decided to leave.
This wasnt a decision we took lightly and nor was it planned from the start. I did contact Chris a few months before the trip to ask if we could leave early, but as he had said no we had cancelled going to the concert we had intended to go to back in Melbourne.
But we knew if we left early now, it would of course look like we had planned it from the start.
This made leaving early even harder as we knew it was going to piss people off, but we decided it would be better to leave early than stay and be unhappy and we dont regret that decision.
It had been a great trip but we had simply had enough and wanted to go home.
So off we went.......................................
We didnt listen to the satnav and managed to knock a few hours off the time, we got home in 27 hours.
It felt great to finally be back on bitumen!
While inflating the tyres I crawled underneath and spotted that the rear prop shaft had come loose on the corrugations and needed the bolts tightening.
It felt great to be home!
Lots of dust inside everything!
And that was our Simpson Trip guys.
seems like you provided a very pivotal role on that trip 
