Nathan Lee

As I’m living the life of a city dweller I’ll have to defer to my parents for something visually interesting. They’ve been dubbed wandering gypsies by my friends who hear about their adventures and they are bordering on needing a trip to the Betty Ford clinic for excessive motor-home ownership at multiple spots around the globe (2x Australia, 1x USA, 1x Europe). The advantage is that once past the startup costs and hassle you can travel quite efficiently and comfortably via normal shopping trips/ability to cook proper meals etc.

Here’s some pics with commentary from their current trip to the Simpson desert.. They should rent their “skills” for drought breaking as they have had the same situation 35-40 years ago in the same areas of Australia with widespread flooding. Combine with my abilities in my month of leave between last job and current one: you’ve got an unbeatable rain producing family. Sister I wouldn’t know: will tell you when she actually takes a holiday.

This trip is in one of their growing number of travelling Adventure vehicles: An Australian made OKA off road beast of a 4WD with Dad’s many conversions and improvements (e.g. solar cells, living area improvements etc).

Anyhow, on with the show. So note: this is “proper outback” none of that hug the coastal bitumen crap the rest of us call a trip out of the city. This is The Simpson desert. There’s mention of “big red”, so to explain: it’s a monster sand dune that kicks off the journey. Here’s an article talking about a motorcyclist getting up it.

Anyhow everything is looking a little greener than usual, but here’s my old man’s “guest” (well I didn’t bother asking) commentary (click on the pics to get a bigger view):

Simpson Desert – August 2010

Not easy to find anything resembling a desert. To even get to the first dune – called Big Red, but according to serious sand drivers, not very big at all – required a bumpy long detour around a long lake lying up against the dune.

I forget how many dunes there are between Birdsville on the Eastern edge and Dalhousie Springs on the western fringe, but it is a lot – and so far the view from the top of each one has been different enough to keep the drive interesting.

Not the sort of setting I expected for our first night on the trail. Eyre Creek – flowing, with lots of small fish and heaps and heaps of bird-life. We stayed for two nights.

Where is the desert we came to see? Hard to see the sand for the wildflowers. The red dunes set them off perfectly.

The OKA is remarkably capable of getting up the steepest dunes with a minimum of fuss despite all the axle-hopping dig-ins left by the pretend off-roaders, but there were a few that had the top couple of metres covered with dry wind-blown sand and a couple of times I got a bit complacent and had to back up a couple of metres before revving things up a bit.

As always happens, there are always plenty of spectators to see the mistakes.

Not always plain sailing. The angle of the tray relative to the cab is not a design feature. Apparently they are taking it with good grace and humour but you could imagine the worry at every bump. Been driving like that for several days.

And some more flowers. Shows the biggest and showiest and there are dozens of smaller ones just as spectacular once you get close.

And the account of the OKA’s 4WD capabilities.

The @##%$$^ rig very nearly ended up a smouldering heap half-way up the first dune.
Stopped for a coffee half way around the lake detour and let the tyres down a bit and also put it into low range 4WD
I was VERY confident about the capabilities so when I arrived at Little Red and saw the toys hooning up the sand with the tyres at 18psi and with their turbochargers on the point of disintegrating, I figured I would show them how it is done – so I decided to leave the tyres at 35psi (and made sure those at the starting gate knew just in case I fell flat on my bum) and headed up the slope in second low range at just above idle. Got about 5 metres on to the sand and ‘failed to proceed’. Bugger!!

Reversed back, muttered to the assembled smirkers something about too heavy and tyres too much pressure) and let the tires down to 24psi as seems to be pretty standard for OKA owners. Gave it a bit more revs. This time I got about half way up before having to reverse back down.
Damn and !@@W#W$%#%^&*

Of course I got plenty of advice from the experts – let your tyres down to 18, wind her right up and go back through the gears keeping the revs up, leave it in second and flatten it, etc etc.

Tried all of the above and the absolute best I could get was about three metres from the top. Tried about 6 times and things were getting desperate – but the family drinking wine at a table and chairs they brought to the top of the dune had a bit of light entertainment to liven up their afternoon, so I guess it wasn’t a complete loss for everyone.

What a disaster. The trip was over before it started because even if I managed to get over, I mightn’t be able to get back.

Anyway, couple of blokes in utes had said they would pull me over if I wanted but by the time they came up, I had decided to make it on my own with the help of the sand mats. Put a mat behind each back wheel and reversed back on to it. Limited slip diff on the back and normal one on the front, so figured that would get it off to a flying start.
Put it into gear and let out the clutch (gently because the ceramic clutch doesn’t take kindly to any abuse) and what happened? Exactly bloody nothing. Well, something happened of course. Betty reported that the front left wheel was spinning but the rear wheel I could see was just sitting on the mat doing nothing at all. Huh!!! Limited slip diff not limiting? Other blokes said no, neither back wheel is turning. Hmmmmm!

Put it into high range 2WD and it tried to drive off the mat. High range 4WD and same thing happened. Drove off the mat and stalled it.
Back into low range 4WD and the OKA – GREAT vehicle by the way – just ambled up to the top of the hill. Mouth of the ute blokes opened and they said that their vehicles couldn’t do that.

Smiles and HUGE relief all round and the trip was on again.

Still don’t know how it could happen that a transfer case could get just the front shaft driving without the rear shaft but it did happen. Reason I couldn’t get anywhere was because it was in front wheel drive. Guess it says a lot that I was able to get a nearly 6-tonne vehicle almost to the top of the first dune with the two back wheels not driving. When I first moved off after selecting low 4WD on the detour, there was a loud bang. Sounded pretty awful but I figured it was just gears getting into mesh or something and the vehicle moved off OK so my heart rate went down to normal and I didn’t think any more about it.

Anyway, I was so relieved at the outcome that I didn’t bother going down to Big Red to show them how to do it and just headed off into the setting sun – or something like that.

I’ll leave Big Red for next time. Piece of cake!

and bit of one of Mum’s email from the start of the journey.

..
We are now by the banks of the Coopers creek at Innamincka. This is our 3rd visit to this small centre. 1st in the 70s in the Range Rover and camper trailer via Strezleki track when we couldn’t get down the Birdsville track due to wet road conditions. 2nd in the Cessna when we flew in briefly. Seems more evidence of mining as in fuel cost now. Still a very small centre. Tibooburra is bigger. Tibooburra has gold as its attraction initially it seems. You actually have the choice of two food and fuel outlets there.

We went north from T through the Toona Gate and then on to near Epsilon in Qld last night. Tony did his bit for the wildlife at lunchtime yesterday – helped a bull ant get a chunk of salmon home to its nest and then later he pulled a joey out of a new, deep cattle grid just as we were entering the Sturt reserve. We stopped waiting for a ‘roo to get off the grid and then wondered why it wouldn’t go far from it and was raring up on its hind legs looking t us and the grid. T twigged that there might be something in it so he got out. He had to pull the little one out twice because the first time it went straight back over the grid and down again!

Seeing lots of budgies out here. The emus and kangaroos were particularly evident in the park but in NSW as well. In the cattle country this side of the park hardly any. Only seen one lizard so far. The 3 nights 30 kms from WC we heard heaps of frogs in a “lake” nearby. Seeing quite a few white parrots and here at the creek/river there are lots of white water-birds – some with spoonbills getting little fish from the clay-coloured water. Everywhere has had rain and though roads from WC and Tibooburra have opened up there are still heaps closed here. The road we came into town on is very well built as was the road across the top as we came off the Stokes track. That up to and from Toona gate had many bypass sections where the road had served as a marvellous catchment and dam area for the water. There was always evidence of the first(last?) vehicle through when the road was very wet. For kms some unfortunate had a skating time, leaving deep tracks.

Getting warm enough in these parts. Nights are quite cold at times. We have heating and good doonas so no problems.

…

Called in at a geothermal (hot rock) power unit just out of town. Not functional as they had trouble with a blow-out just one week shy of production some time back and now the rain is holding things up a bit. The blow-out cause H2S to corrode the metal it seems. They now predict production in a year or two using a different spot, close by.

So there you go. Sure beats the working caper (though does require a lifetime of working to afford such things I guess). Reads like a wildlife documentary almost. David Attenborough would be proud. Or maybe the Leyland brothers?
I guess it’s the prime time for wildlife with all the rain and growth around.