Crossed it!

The Simpson Desert

One of Australia’s last great wilderness areas, where hazards include great heat, lack of water and extreme isolation from human habitation and any facilities. The tracks that were made by oil explorers during the 1960s, have become popular 4WD routes.

We soon gave up the plan to drive along the apparently easier ‘Rig Road’ after talking to some people at the Dalhousie Springs campsite. Even though supposed to be the easiest way to cross the desert our limited fuel resources forced us to choose the most direct route: the ‘French Line’. This track runs east-west in a pretty straight line. Due to the prevailing winds the western side of each sand dune is not as steep as the eastern side. This was good for us coming from the west having in mind that more than 1000 sand dunes were waiting for us to be crossed.

We meet two elderly couples - David, Jacquie, Sue and Bob - in Dalhousie Springs who assured us that many vehicles were travelling through the desert and that we might be in good hands driving some distance behind them.

Jacquie and David have been travelling around the world, but mostly around Australia the last 10 years! We were quite inspired by Bob (78) and Sue (75) who were doing these kind of adventurous trip in their old age. They sold their businesses some time ago and caught up with Jacquie and David to do some travelling together like the Canning Stock Route and the Simpson Desert…

Excited and anxious we were just curious whether our car and our driving skills will hold up all right. It is quite amazing how effective it was to just let down the tyre pressure and to roll up and down the dunes with a steady momentum. Due to some inch of rain a few weeks before the red sand dunes and valleys were covered with beautiful wildflowers. It is unbelievable how quiet, isolated and special the place was and how cold it got once the sun went down.

Some kilometers behind ‘Poepples Corner’- the place where the three states SA, QLD and NT meet - we had to fix our first flat tyre. When two cars came up behind us – to our surprise Sue, Bob, David and Jacquie - we thought they would be far ahead of us by now. They told us that they got lost and missed a turn off somewhere, which meant that we were lost, too, without even realizing. We turned around and soon found the right track… we were once again lucky to have met them! Who knows when we would have realized that we were not on the right track anymore. We camped together that night and drove in a convoy together to the long awaited watering hole – the famous Birdsville pub. We all manage the last and biggest dune -‘Big red’ with 40 metre to climb. Our Troopie proofed again it is a real work horse that we can rely on. After 4 days of driving and over more than 1000 dunes we only missed one (reverse back and go up again).

We had a well deserved cold beer and a fantastic pub meal at this iconic outback hotel that night.

The day after the six of us took a very entertaining tour through the impressive exhibition of the Birdsville Working Museum - a must see if you are ever in the area. We also visited the gallery of German born artist Wolfgang John, who lives in Australia since 1959 and moved to the small outback town of Birdsville 15 years ago. He was an interesting chap to talk to and we ended up buying a print of one of his paintings.














carpets of wildflowers everywhere






























































our first flat tyre




























Sue, Bob, Jacquie, David and us