The Simpson Desert is the world’s largest sand dune desert at 170,000 square kilometres.  The desert is made up of over 1100 parallel sand dunes, and it spans from South Australia to the Northern Territory and across to Birdsville in South West Queensland.

For anybody with a passion for exploring “off the beaten track” through our wonderful country, tackling the Simpson Desert is one of the ultimate adventures.

We had never been to the Simpson Desert before, and I must admit I had a picture in my mind of a barren place that would be nothing but sand and hot sun.  Fortunately, we were soon to be very surprised to find the desert is home to an abundance of wildlife and vegetation – it is actually the bushes, grasses and trees that hold all of those sand dunes intact!

At the very least we knew that the desert was a place that is harsh and unforgiving, so it required a lot of planning to ensure we could be completely self sufficient, and to ensure a safe journey.  Most importantly, we had to carry everything for our family of four to live “off the grid” for up to a week, with safe and reliable transport.

We had heard that the roads would be very corrugated, so for this trip we preferred not to tow a trailer / caravan.  For a couple of months prior to leaving, we spent our weekends packing, organising, and re-packing, to ensure we could carry all of the necessities in the car and up on a roof rack. This included 60 litres of spare fuel, 50 litres of water, a car fridge, tent and sleeping gear, clothes, communication devices (GPS/UHF), enough food for a week, cooking equipment, first aid kit, some spare parts for the car, and a camera or two!

We were so happy to finally hit the road, leaving Melbourne at the start of the September school holidays and travelling up through the magnificent yellow canola fields of western Victoria, to our first stop in Renmark, South Australia.  After a big first day in the car, the kids were pleased to spend some time in the Big4 Holiday Park, where the water park was the main attraction – it was almost as big as the water park at SeaWorld Resort!

After a couple of relaxing days we left Renmark heading north west and stopped for lunch in the beautiful town of Burra.  This reminded me of Beechworth (Vic) with all of its old world charm and gardens.  A great pie at the Burra Bakery too!

We drove up through Peterborough SA, bypassing Adelaide on this occasion, and made our way up the aptly named Outback Highway into the Flinders Ranges National Park, where we camped at Brachina Gorge.  The gorge was an immense and beautiful place, and the local yellow footed rock wallabies were not phased by us at all.  Being a National Park, and knowing that we were only stopping for one night, we had pre booked a designated camp site that was only 30 minutes off the highway, and the Park Ranger was even good enough to leave us with a pile of firewood.

The Flinders Ranges is a destination unto itself, but we had to keep moving as we were meeting up with some friends the next day in Marree, which is about 4 hours north.  Here we really started to feel as though we were in central Australia because the ground started to turn red!

We met up with some friends who had travelled from Victoria and some from NSW, and then we made our way west from Marree on the Oodnadatta Track which takes you below the enormous in land sea that is Lake Eyre.  On the rare occasion that the lake fills with water (usually following huge rains in Queensland), Lake Eyre is the largest lake in Australia at 9,500 square kilometres.   We were fortunate to see water in the lake in 2009, but this time the lake was just dry, and white from all the salt.  It was 36 degrees and there was not a speck of shade.

Everybody was hot and thirsty, and we were keen to reach William Creek, where the town with a population of 6 offers a great outback pub; the walls lined with all kinds of paraphernalia (eg. business cards, photos, old hats! etc), as well as an opportunity to take a scenic flight in a small plane to see Lake Eyre from the sky, if you are keen.  You can stay in a cabin next to the pub if you happen to quench your thirst a little too much…

The landscape is vastly different to anywhere on the East Coast. The ground is red, the bushes are prickly and hard, and any sign of water is like an oasis.  Unlike in Victoria, where our early settlers and gold miners made buildings from logs (which have mostly now disappeared), out in South Australia the prospectors and farmers built everything out of stone.  We were constantly driving past old ruins of buildings which reminded us of how difficult life must have been back then.

We stopped that night beneath the Algebuckina Bridge, which was built by hand in 1892, and at 579 meters it remained the longest bridge in South Australia until 2014. After a solid day of driving we immediately regretted travelling so far that day, as we struggled to put our camp together in the dark because any sign of a torch light would attract a billion moths and mosquitoes from the nearby waterhole!

The next day we set out for Oodnadatta which is a small town marking the beginning of the Simpson Desert crossing.  At this point we were about as far north as Brisbane.  Oodnadatta is home to the iconic “Pink Roadhouse”, which is literally painted pink!  It is a big roadhouse where you can buy a nice meal, fuel and supermarket supplies, before heading into the home of the Simpson Desert – the Witjira National Park.

Driving into the desert was very exciting – we were feeling refreshed after a swim at the Dalhousie Hot Springs, and we couldn’t wait to get into the sand dunes.  Until now we had been passing through a town every day or two, so knowing that we would now be completely “off the grid” for 4 days or maybe more, was what we had been looking forward to.

Driving on sand is a very different experience – we had driven on sand before, but when it is your first time you would be forgiven for spending the majority of your time “bogged” down to the door sills!  The trick is to let some air out of your tyres, as this gives your tyres a much wider “footprint” and allows you to drive on top of the sand, rather than trying to “plough through” it.

We spent the next 4 days negotiating our way up and down sand dunes – they gradually become bigger as you head east, which means they gradually become harder to drive across!  Sometimes it takes more than one attempt to drive up a dune, and reversing back down a dune to have another try is a pretty safe experience, providing you keep the wheels straight and you don’t try to turn the car around while you are half way up the hill!  Most of all, driving on sand is the best fun!

We drove for most of the days, stopping a number of times throughout the day to have a drink or a bite to eat, or just to kick the footy with the kids.  Of an evening we would set up our camp, enjoy a cold drink and make a fire.  We found there was nothing more relaxing than sitting around a fire under a million-star sky, talking about the day’s events or even just staring into the red coals making plans for the year ahead.

The last day of our desert crossing was AFL Grand Final Day, and just like in Melbourne, it was pouring with rain in the desert!  This was a rare occurrence for sure, but nevertheless, for the first time in my life I was going to see my Richmond Tigers play in a grand final!  Unfortunately, at 2pm that day we were still at least 150km from the nearest town of Birdsville, which is a full day of driving in the sand.  Even though we could not see the game our journey was made all the more special by listening to the Tigers on AM radio as we drove madly up some of the tallest dunes in the desert.

We heard the last quarter of the game as we approached the end of the desert crossing, which is marked by one massive dune that is well known and revered by 4WD travellers everywhere – Nappanerica or “Big Red”.  Big Red is some 40 meters high, and it is a serious challenge for any driver to try and reach the top of the dune.

For the first and only time on the trip, my wife was genuinely concerned that we were going to have an accident – reaching the top of Big Red requires you to take a 400+ meter run up, reaching the fastest speed that you possibly can (in four wheel drive mode), with some bumps in the road which saw all four wheels off the ground at one point.  On the first two attempts we got to within about ten metres of the tip, when the big V8 Nissan Patrol just dug into the sand and bogged down on the steep incline.  We reversed back down for a 3rd try, this time letting more air out of our tyres, and with about 2 minutes left in the last quarter of the grand final we pushed our way to the top of Big Red (at about 7000RPM!) – my wife holding on for dear life, kids screaming with laughter, and rain pouring down!

Feeling excited (and a bit relieved) we sat on the top of Big Red looking back into the desert as the Tigers won the 2017 grand final – rain absolutely pouring down, the car covered in mud and still on an adrenaline high after the drive up. What a way to finish our adventure.

From Big Red is a short drive into the town of Birdsville – famous for the Birdsville Races that is held early in September. The town was a welcome reprieve after an exciting but exhausting (and dirty) outback adventure.  We thoroughly enjoyed a hot meal and a shower, refuelled the car the next day and began our meandering journey back to Melbourne via Charleville, Bourke, Cobar and Echuca.

This was 2 weeks that our family will never forget.  The only thing left to do now is to plan our next off road adventure!