Crossing the Simpson: Third Time Lucky

When I was asked to tackle Simpson by Soft-roader, I fairly jumped at the chance. I’ve been there twice before and loved it.

I was keen on getting back there for many reasons. Obviously the stark beauty of the place, the wildlife, the solitude, the ‘big sky’ and, of course, the challenge of actually tackling one of the iconic adventure drives in the country.

But there was more. I wanted to see how the Simpson was now as compared to when I first went across over 25 years ago. In those days there was no GPS, no signposts and no satellite phones. All we had were some topographic maps and a bit of knowledge from blokes who’d done it before.

I remember when we did our first east-west trip and were getting ready in Birdsville. There was a grumpy old copper there then and when we asked him what the track was like on the other side of Big Red, all he said was: “Ah, you don’t wanna go out there, you’ll kill yourselves.” Thanks mate, very helpful.

Anyway we made it to Dalhousie Springs despite his lack of assistance, and lived to tell the tale. These days there are numerous avenues of assistance, and we advise that you use them all, but even so it pays to get some advice from folks already out on the track, as we found on this trip.

Talking on the radio (it’s mandatory these days to have a UHF tuned to channel 10 in the Simpson), or just stopping to have a chat on the track can and does lead to vital information being shared about the conditions ahead.

One thing I did notice on this trip was the number and variety of vehicles. Back in the day, it was either a Toyota or a Nissan with a spattering of Land Rovers, and hardly anything else got a look-in.

Similar to this trip, my first trip across the Simpson was in vehicles that most people thought were unsuitable for the task at hand – namely a pair of VW Syncros which were Transporters with raised suspension and factory four-wheel-drive systems. We had a ute, which was the fuel truck, and a van with a camper conversion. The vehicles were being tested by Volkswagen Australia and we were invited along for the ride.

We had back-up in the form of a LandCruiser and a HiLux, the drivers of which gave us a ribbing about our Vee Dubs all the way across the desert – until I pulled the ‘Cruiser out of a bog at Dalhousie with my Syncro ute – that shut ‘em up for a while.

But I digress. This time we certainly saw our share of ‘Cruisers and Nissans, but there were more luxurious conveyances as well. Gone were the utilitarian bottom-spec vehicles of yore with sweaty vinyl seats and hardly an air-conditioner in sight, replaced by shiny top-spec utes and wagons of all varieties with the occupants carried in style with all manner of electronic traction aids and comforts.

Our Mazdas were a case in point. Our luxurious little wagons got plenty of attention from other travellers. We heard all manner of banter on the radio concerning us and our vehicles. Everything from “Do you reckon they’ll make it?” to “What? Can’t you drive that thing? The Mazda boys got through, so you should in your new LandCruiser!”

But seriously, the CX-5 I was driving never missed a beat. The 2.2-litre turbo-diesel was a cracker and the 420Nm let me idle up to the top of most dunes and then slip it back to first gear and enjoy a bit of engine braking down the other side.

I ran the air-con the whole time with the cabin pressurised and found the dust sealing to be excellent. Dust sealing is a real bug-bear out in the desert and there’s nothing worse than opening up the back after a day on the track to find everything covered in a thick film of red dust.

Not so the CX-5. The dust sealing was great and we got basically no ingress at all.

The i-ACTIV all-wheel drive (AWD) system worked a treat and fed the power to the rear wheels as needed. Turning off the traction control meant that as the slip was detected, the power didn’t diminish and when we had to gun it to get through a bit of soft stuff, we had all the grunt on-hand.

It got me to thinking that the technology and ability of these ‘soft roaders’ is often wasted as they serve as commuters or weekend kid transporters – they can do far more than that.

While we did get a bit of interest in the vehicles out on the tracks of the Simpson, it wasn’t as much as I expected. Obviously these days there is a wider variety of vehicles on the tracks and it’s really interesting to check them out.

Interesting too was the number of motorcycles, as well as people towing trailers and even caravans!

Talking to other travellers out there, it was interesting to note that there is a section of the off-road community who deride the trailer-tower, saying that they chew up the track too much trying to drag their trailers over the dunes. I guess they have a point, but certainly the skill of the driver and the set-up of the vehicle comes into play as well… live and let live, I say!

And what of the tracks? Well, the way we went on the first trip we were trying to take it easy even if we were going the ‘hard’ way, from east to west. Still, it was tough and we had to have a few goes at some of the dunes to get over them.

The second time I went was in a LandCruiser from west to east and that was comparatively easy with a gentle run up the dunes and then a slither down the softer eastern side.

On this trip, albeit with far less capable vehicles, I found it harder. The trip into Dalhousie was significantly rougher than I remember with severely corrugated sections and washaways more prevalent. Then, once we got into the French Line, the run up to the crest of the dunes was more difficult for the most part and the track seemed more cut-up and softer on the top.

Whether this is due to the increase in traffic, the proliferation of trailers as the detractors say, or the differences in vehicles with different track widths and ground clearances, I don’t know. It’s probably a combination of all of those and more, but it’s certainly no cake-walk.

There’s no doubt that the Simpson deserves its reputation as one of the bucket-list adventure drives in the country, but it’s not to be taken lightly and I’d strongly advise anyone attempting it to heed any and all advice proffered.

And just because you’ve done a bit of sand driving on the beach, don’t be assured of not getting stuck and successfully getting up the mighty Big Red – I didn’t.