2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the first vehicle crossing of the Simpson Desert by the late Reg Sprigg. Craig from TJM Darwin was invited by long time friend, Vic Widman from Great Divide Tours, to mark this anniversary by being the first 4WDs to cross the desert in 2012. The Simpson Desert is closed over the summer period for safety reasons due to the extreme conditions and reopened to the public on the 16th March.
"We planned to meet at Mt Dare Hotel on the 14th March with Vic coming from Sydney & the film crew who are making a documentary of the trip coming from Melbourne. As Central Australia and Eastern Australia had a huge deluge of rain in the preceding week, just getting to our meeting point at Mt Dare was a challenge in itself. Pam and I headed from Darwin to Alice Springs, down to Kulgera and across to Finke. Then the challenge in getting across the last 100kms to Mt Dare began. We battled our way through and around various boggy and flooded sections for 3 hours with Pam being navigator and even walking through various flooded creeks and paddocks to find the best way. After all it was her turn to drive tomorrow?!? (It’s a pity there is only one tomorrow in every week)
Pam & I got to have a lay day at Mt Dare as the rest of our party coming from down south had a bigger battle proceeding up from Oodnadatta. They encountered flooded roads and ended up camping the night some 40kms south of Mt Dare unable to proceed on the boggy roads in the dark. A good night was had at the Hotel as we were their first visitors since before Christmas with the Simpson being closed and the extreme summer temperatures making it unpleasant to visit the area. Next morning Dave from Mt Dare went out to meet our southerner counterparts and guide them in via a new “cross country” route.
It was so green and there is so much vegetation it looks like Southern NSW, not the deserts of Central Australia.
We all headed out the next morning, being the 16th - the day the Simpson opens, excited to be the first heading into the Simpson for 2012. A quick dip was had at Dalhousie Hot Springs before heading across Spring Creek Delta flood plains to enter the start of the sand hills of the mighty Simpson.
This was where the excitement started again, a 300m boggy section after lunch proved impassable. After a couple of hours of trying it was decided to set up camp and work out alternative options. Bright and early next morning we headed back to the bog, determined not to be beaten before we had really hit the desert. Five hours later after much winching, snatching, Maxtraxing, Diggaring & the shear brute power of Dave’s 79 series V8 pulling some of us through the deep, boggy wheel tracks, we moved on to skirt around more flooded sections. The film crew got some great footage that day.
The next 4 days were spent crossing the thousand plus sharply windblown sand dunes. Many of the dunes had near vertical faces of up to two metres high which were quite challenging to get over, we basically had to bulldoze our way over most of them with our bullbars and front under guards, although many did require some team shovel work. It was great to see the desert with no wheel tracks and in many places we had to look hard to work out where the track went. This was so different to previous visits to the Simpson where you follow a well worn track and pass other groups of vehicles. We skirted many of the salt lakes, not risking the soft, wet centres which make for difficult recovery when stuck.
Big Red, the famous sand dune on the eastern side of the Simpson, was a great site to see with water on both sides. Alas, the sting in the tail for the trip was still to come! Normally it is an easy 40kms on formed roads to Birdsville, but not this trip. Due to the recent rain, both alternate flood free tracks had significant sections of water over them, which of course become boggy sections requiring more snatching and winching in the fading light. It is amazing how practised we had become after 6 days of debogging & with the encouraging thought of a beer, meal & shower at the Birsdville Pub, we eventually arrived at 7ish. A good night was had by all celebrating our successful first crossing of the Simpson for 2012 and we certainly boosted a normally very quiet Tuesday evening at the Pub."
Craig, TJM Darwin
