Post expedition report and pics

[Mickldo]

Okay it is finally time.

Heaps of guys in various threads have been at me to do a report on my trip I did in May this year. The build up thread for my rig is here https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=146800

I will start of with a general overview of the trip, post a few pics then I'll go into detail my thoughts on what did and didn't work in regards to all the mods I did to my truck.

I went on the trip with my wife and another couple who we travel with a bit. They have a Ford Maverick SWB 4.2 petrol but we won't hold that against them (oh OK just this once).

Every twelve months or so we go on a trip away somewhere together on our four weeks annual leave. This year we decided to go and spectate at the ARB Warn Outback 4x4 Challenge which is held around Broken Hill in NSW. I was born and raised in Broken Hill but hadn't been back there for quite a few years. My wife had been there once before when we first got married but the others had never been there.

We organised tickets for the event and got in contact with some old mates to arrange accommodation while in town. They have a big house and a big yard so they let us stay with them for the week when we weren't out on the stations watching the comp.

Even though the event this year was cut short due to excessive rain we had an absolute ball at the comp. I reckon I need to build a truck up for next years event. Who wants to sponsor me????? <grovel beg and plead icon>

After the comp we traveled into South Australia to visit my brother and his family and then across to Adelaide to visit my sister and her family. After doing the family thing the real expedition could start.

We traveled north into the Flinders Ranges then up to Lake Eyre hoping to see it in flood after all the rains the centre had had in the past couple of months. Unfortunately this once in a lifetime event wasn't to be as the section of lake we stopped at hadn't received the water yet, it was still flowing into the northern lake and we had visited Lake Eyre South. From Lake Eyre we traveled across to Coober Pedy and up to Oodnadatta before crossing the Simpson Desert.

The desert crossing took four days to do 520km between the fuel stops. and in that 520km we crossed 1100 sand dunes. At the other side of the Simpson it was basically a three day haul back home across the bottom of the state to Hervey Bay.

In total we travelled about 6700km in four weeks. We kept a fuel log for the trip which I will post up later in the thread.

 

[Mickldo]

First photo of about 2600 that we took on the trip (don't worry I won't post them all up) All shiny and full of anticipation ready to go.



This comp truck is owned by friends of ours from Brisbane. We followed their progress through the comp as the comp is a round robin style event so you don't get to see every truck compete in every stage.



One of the other comp trucks just for a bit of cruiser content. They weren't in our group so I didn't get to see them in action apart for the prologue stages in town.

 

[Mickldo]

First day of competition was the prologue night stage at Steven's Creek just outside town. Unfortunately none of the photos of the night stage turned out but the sight and sounds of all those big V8s, Turbo diesels and a couple of turbo fours screaming through the trees along the dry sandy creek bed with all their HID lights blazing was just awesome.

The next day saw a stage in at a local blue metal quarry in town.



At this stage all the spectators were called together to organise which groups they were going to follow for the comp. We packed our gear up and meet at the OBC HQ to travel out to Viewmont Station near Menindee to watch the Group A competitors in the mud stages. Due to all the rain the competitors had a late start that night for the nocturnal mud stages. We stayed up to watch our mates compete (they made it through the stage but were a couple of minutes over the cut off time so DNFed) and we watched the Thai teams compete (awesome little trucks those Suzukis were). The next morning saw another late start for the mud navigation stage.

One of the Thai competitors on the mud nav stage.



Later that evening saw another mud nav stage that went on into the night and saw them have to cross the billabong twice during the stage. The billabong was that wide they had to use all their winch extension straps just to make it across once.

 

[Mickldo]

After the night mud nav stage we all had to transport a couple of hours drive over to Denian Station for the sand stages. We had copped a fair bit of rain over the past couple days and this turned the station tracks to slop by the time all of the competitors, spectators, media and marshalls had been through. Quite a few vehicles got bogged on the transport stage that night.

The M/TRs don't like that type of soil! Mind you my mates Pro Comp X-Terrain 33"s didn't fare much better.



There was a night sand stage when we got to camp that night but we were stuffed by then and had an early night (if you can call 2am early) I don't know how the competitors keep going all week.

The next morning saw us heading off to watch a stage in the rain where two competitors race each other around a sand track.



We then went back to camp to watch the sand motorkhana.

 

[Mickldo]

After the motorkhana they all lined up for the famous sand wall.



This Suzuki was the event winners car. They were from Thailand and were the first international team to win the Outback Challenge. In action on the sand wall.

 

[Spud]

Wow that is some awesome stuff. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Mickldo]

In the morning of the sand stages we were informed that the next days stages in Broken Hill had been canceled due to all the rain cutting the roads. The roads were closed by the local road traffic authority because they didn't want to repair the roads after a couple of hundred 4wds had cut them up.

After the sand wall stage we set up camp and waited until the RTA would let us back out onto the roads to travel home. Of course it rained some more and some more and you guessed it.... it rained some more. We were alright as we were planning to travel through the desert next and had a heap of food and water on board but most of the others were traveling light as they only expected to be out for two nights. They were all starting to run out of food and water, not to mention alcohol.

The organisers of the event decided to get all of us together at the shearing sheds of the station to make it easier to manage all of the different groups. The problem was though that they took us from our comfy, well set up camp site and tried to cram everybody into the one shearing shed. For those of you who don't know fair dinkum shearing sheds are full of sheep $%!^ We are still trying to get the smell out of our swag. The area around the shearing shed was a quagmire.

The competitors had a stage after the sand wall that the spectators couldn't watch. It was a nav stage and the finish box that they normally have to stop in at the end of the stage was a flying finish instead. Our mates came in just after another competitor and the other competitor stopped in the box rather going straight through. They rear ended the stopped truck and wrote off the front of their truck.



The other truck suffered almost no damage. One of the rear tubes was out of whack.

 

[Mickldo]

Wow that is some awesome stuff. Thanks for sharing!

There is plenty more to come yet, including some expedition tech

 

[Mickldo]

My mates that had the accident drove their truck to the event from QLD and used their truck as their DD back home, shopping and dropping the kids off to school, etc. They were devastated when they had the accident but true to the comraderie of the event a couple of the local competitors chipped and donated labour and parts from their spares cars to get them mobile again.

Unfortunately the comp had been cancelled by then and they couldn't continue on competing.

The rain hadn't let up any and the organisers of the OBC were starting to get concerned that there were a couple of hundred people stranded on stations that were all cut off from civilization and were fast running out of food and water (and alcohol). The SES declared it a state emergency and overrode the RTA road closure to allow us all to transport back to town. We all could've driven out earlier, we were all driving modded 4wds after all, but the police were waiting in town and fining anybody coming into town $1000 dollars a tyre (including your spare) for travelling along the closed roads. Those of us with two spares would've been slapped with a $6000 fine, no thanks.

Anyway with the SES overriding the RTA we all had to get out along the one road. As you could see in the above photos with the tyres all clogged up it was going to be an interesting trip out, especially after a hundred or so 4wds had chopped it up even more and a couple of extra days rain had fallen on them. The organisers split us up into four separate convoys, all with competitors in each group to help in case recoveries were needed. All the standard 4wds and those towing camper trailers and the less experienced drivers went in the first convoys. The guys that were making the decision who were going in which convoy took one look at our rigs and rolled their eyes. They just went on to the other spectators. By the time the last convoy with the most experienced drivers in the more modded trucks came round there was only a couple of us left. The official event videographer and photographer were in our convoy so in all the deeper mud and water crossings they stopped us and filmed us going through so there is a pretty good chance we might make it onto the official DVD or at least onto one of their websites

Even though we were taking our time filming and had left a couple of hours after the previous convoys we soon caught them up. The less modified rigs were having a heap of trouble just staying on the road. Once they had slid off the crown of the road they got bogged in the spoon drain.

A pic of our convoy (except for our Competitor trip leader who had the lime green Hilux in the earlier pics). The white 100 is the photographers truck.

 

[Mickldo]

The evacuation from the station took quite a few hours to only travel a short distance. There was a pressure washer set up for us all at the SES HQ in Menindee so we could wash all the mud of our rigs before traveling on the bitumen.

That night the event came to an official end and a presentation dinner was held at the OBC HQ.

We spent a couple of days hanging around Broken Hill while we washed our trucks properly and cleaned and dried all our camping gear.

I'll skip the part of our trip where we visited my brother and my sister and go straight to where we got to the Flinders Ranges. We camped at Wilpena Pound where the night was bitterly cold. We all huddled around our camp fire while wearing our thermals and every bit of warm clothing we had. At least the roast cooked in the camp ovens was yummy.

Dawn at camp.

Exploring the Flinders Ranges.

 

[Mickldo]

More Flinders pics.

 

[Mickldo]

After the Flinders Ranges we traveled up the Oodnadatta Track to Lake Eyre.

Waiting on the side of the road for the sun to go down so we can use the spotlights rather than squint into the setting sun.



We set our swags up under the information shelter on the edge of Lake Eyre. In not sure if we were allowed to camp there so Shhhh.... don't tell anybody



Dawn over Lake Eyre

 

[Mickldo]

We then traveled the rest of the way along the Oodnadatta Track to the town of Oodnadatta.



Oodnadatta has only a couple of houses a pub, general store and the famous Pink Roadhouse. This can be the last fuel before you cross the Simpson Desert.



Fuel is available at Mt Dare but a detour is required. Our traveling mates had a petrol Mav and even though they had a long range tank and spare jerry cans they were concerned that they wouldn't have enough range. We went to Mt Dare just to be on the safe side.

 

[Mickldo]

At Mt Dare we met the owners. They are hardly ever there any more as their kids run the place now IIRC. They own this sweet HDJ79 which is fully set up for outback travel. They do work for HEMA Maps now by traveling outback tracks and checking the accuracy of the maps with their GPS and uploading their results via their laptop and a mobile satellite dish they are trialling for another company to get internet to the bush.



That night we camped at Dalhousie Springs.

After Dalhousie we traveled through to Purnie Bore where we met a French Couple that had been traveling the world in their Land Rover Defender. So far they had been on the road for about two years and had traveled 53,000km. They showed us right through the truck and answered all our questions about it. Very Now that is an expedition!



We passed another couple of vehicles and a couple of motorbikes that morning but after we turned off the main French Line and onto the WAA Line we didn't see another soul for another two days

Our camp that next night was on a clay pan between the dunes. There was a big storm that night and the others were concerned that we would get stuck on the clay pan so in the middle of the night we packed up and moved camp. We just slept in the front seats on the top of a dune.



The next morning saw a couple of cool photo opportunities.

 

[Mickldo]

More Simpson Desert pics

The biggest sand dune of the 1100 you have to cross in the Simpson is called Big Red. There is a chicken track around it but seeing as it is such an icon you give it your best shot to get over. We hadn't had any trouble getting over any of the other dunes but this one was a doozy After about eight attempts each we decided to get serious. The air pressure was dumped to about 12psi (from 18psi) and I got a really good run up and only just made it over the top. My mates in the Mav gave 110% to get over but their SWB was working agaist them. They kept on lifting the front wheel and they had to back off on the throttle. They had to take the chicken track;p whoops I mean

While we were having a hard time getting over the dune a couple bike riders turned up on their KTM 950 Adventures and went straight up and over the tallest most vertical bit like it wasn't even there. Now I want one.

 

[Mickldo]

Ok that's enough for one night. I have to work in the morning so I'll post the rest up tomorrow.

 

[crushers]

nice post, thanks...
the idea of the sheep s*** shed doesn't turn me on, a nice dry roof to tent would work just fine...
so the Thai's did go eh? them Zuks ae a hard truck to beat...i like the way they ran the mud tires backwards for the sand hill...i am figuring they did this so the sand would be pushed downward instead of chewed up...

 

[e9999]

great writeup!

this Maverick is that a real Ford?


did you take sat phones besides radios? these HF? what range can you expect?

 

[cbmontgo]

Great writeup. I really need to get to Australia one day.

 

[BulletHead]

Ford Maverick? Im almost certain thats a Nissan Patrol... Is that a Ford re-badge?