Us at Poeppel Corner The brackets of our side step ripped off, so we all signed it and planted it in the Desert as a momento

Steve climbing a dune - Where do I go once I reach the top???

The track goes on forever

The recovery on the second day. This family slept overnight like this waiting for someone to come along. We happened to be "someone".

Our campsite on the first night

Will Dan ever forgive me for this picture?

13th, 14th, 15th, 16th July 2009
It’s finally here. The moment we have been building up to for so long. We have planned and fine-tuned our emergency plans, arranged for Terry to get an SMS each night from our sat phone as to whether we’re safe or not, we have plenty of water, fuel and supplies. We’re ready, but we’re not complacent. So much has happened on this trip that it has been our biggest highlight of our trip so far. I’ll break it down into days:

Day One:
We set off and life was good. Hey, we’re fulfilling one of our lifetime goals – what could be better. Early on the track we came up behind this convoy of 3 vehicles. Actually, we heard them on the UHF before we saw them. Man – do these guys talk – yap yap yap!!! Well, before long they pulled over and let us pass and we discovered over the radio they were going to travel the WAA line. Well, we thought, we only had to listen to the chatter for half a day as we were going to do the Rigg Road route.

Further down the road, we overtook these two support vehicles for a group of four guys doing the crossing on motor bikes. They were going to do the WAA line as well. We got to the turnoff – left for WAA line or right to the Rigg Road. We knew the Rigg Road was supposed to be easier, and we thought hard about the fact that we were traveling alone. BUT – we knew we had a 3 car convoy behind us, and another convoy of 2 cars and 4 motor bikes. We had our back covered, and we grew very brave. We took the WAA line, now there was no turning back.

We traveled on for an hour or two before setting up camp as we had to make sure we stayed in front of the chatty ones, we couldn’t afford to let them get ahead of us. Had a fabulous camp in the middle of nowhere. The night sky was the most bright and spectacular I have ever seen. We had a fire and cooked some sausages on the Barbie plate – what a feast. The camp toilet seat was set up, but we didn’t put up the privacy tent as we were the only ones around for miles and miles. Everyone needs to experience sitting on a toilet seat at 2:00am in the open air looking up at a Simpson Desert sky! We went to bed early, as we had to make sure we were first on the road again.

Day Two:
We woke early and pulled down camp, racing to beat the others. Moving again, we turned on the UHF and the chatter was on again and Yay – they were behind us.

After about two hours on the road we were cresting a sand dune to be met at the top by a woman waving frantically. We pulled up, walked over the dune and found that they had mis-judged the crest and fell into a hole and rolled their Toyota Tray-on completely on it’s side. All four wheels were in the air.

Steve put the winch to good use and got them righted, then the motorbike crowd turned up and helped pull them out of the hole. We knew the chatty crew were behind us, so I radioed through to warn them of the build up as we were really close to a crest. They soon pulled up and started helping with the recovery as well. I don’t quite know how to describe this moment – but we feel we have made friends for life from this chatty convoy of three vehicles.

There was Laurence and Mia with their son Jake in the Triton, Mia’s mum and Dad - John and Col in another Pajero and their friend Curt with his children Melanie, Andrew and Samantha in a Navara. After a morning smoko with them and a complete de-brief on the recovery we were soon part of their convoy and were chatting away on the UHF like the best of them. While scanning channel 10, they chatted madly away on 17 which was soon dubbed FM17. The family we recovered – Peter, Jan and their son Sam also joined the convoy for the rest of the trip.

Later on in the day, we came across the 4 bikers. One had broken his ribs, and another had broken his leg. Their support cars had a doctor on board and they had a sat phone, so there was nothing we could do and carried on in the trip. We never found out later what happened there next, but Steve and I were glad we had the support of FM17 with us.

This is also the day that we experienced some really steep dunes with deep wallows on approach that forced us to slow down on the climb just when we really needed to speed up. The dunes we were crossing ranged from 5 to 15 metres in height. On the first climb Steve tried to engage the front lockers but only got a sound of the compressor endlessly pumping. We hadn’t even used them – what was wrong? A quick look under the car showed that when it was fitted, the rubber compressor hosing was fitted too close in proximity to the exhaust headers which had heated up intensely due to the low range/high rev work the car was asked constantly asked to do, and the hose melted away. A few choice words were spoken as we considered having to do the rest of the trip without the locker. One of the reasons we were so sure we could do this trip was because we had a locker. Now it was up to us alone. Only one thing to do….grit our teeth, close our eyes and hold on……..

Day Three:
Before setting off, Steve managed to fix the front locker with some gaffer tape and we started our journey again feeling a bit more comfortable.

Today saw us on the French Line and stopping at Poeppel Corner for a photo opportunity. This is another border three-ways of Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia.

Every day it was sand dune after sand dune. The climbs were steep and the wallows were deep. It was swail (a word Curt called them, don't know it myself - I thought he was calling them whales and it was an "in" joke) after swail/hollow. Every dune was a challenge but we were rewarded at the crest of each dune with some of the most beautiful views we'll ever see. It was interesting to watch the change in sand from yellows to reds and back to yellows as we followed different tracks from the Rigg to the WAA to the French to the QAA line. That night around the campfire, I really needed a freshen up, so brought out the face creams and all the ladies and I had a bit of a facial bonding moment in the middle of the desert. Boy, it felt good!

Day Four:
Our last day in the desert. We had Birdsville on our mind for hot showers, big steak and cold beer. Unfortunately we still had to take the Lake Eyre detour which added another couple of hours of driving onto the day. We got to the Big Red turnoff but decided to come back and do it the next day, it was getting late.

This has also been the trip where Dan has come into his own. He turns 5 next Saturday and we are seeing a change in him. He has been the first to make friends with the children on this crossing and Cam has had to fit in accordingly. It hasn't been easy for Cam in this change of roles, but it has been exciting to watch Dan take all the initiatives and watch the other children respond to him accordingly. Do I have to tell you how indulged Dan was? He hasn't lost any of his "winning" personality.

Day Five:
After much anticipation and psyching up we drove out to Big Red. Now, I don’t want to sound smart or anything but we all found it quite a disappointment. After the approaches and crests on a lot of the sand dunes we had encountered in the last four days, this was nothing. I suppose it’s purpose is to give people a go at the dune without having to cross the Simpson – and that’s good enough. But I don’t believe being able to climb it is all that brag-worthy. We had one fellow tell us out-right that we wouldn’t be able to climb it because our car was petrol and manual (obviously he was trying to make himself feel better about not making it up). Needless to say, Steve had great pleasure in telling him we made it first go!

Also, no-one at Big Red was using their UHF’s so cars were going east to west and back all over the place. The motor bikes didn’t have sand flags and there were kids running all over the place (sorry, they were ours).

Best Advice we were given:
-If you don’t make it up a dune, don’t be afraid to make your own tracks to get over.
-If all else fails, get out of the car and walk along the dune. You’d be surprised how many bypass tracks you find. (We had to do this once – actually Curt got out of his car and did it for us)

Facts and figures:
We averaged around 18kph each day.
We used 191 litres of fuel (our car is manual/and petrol driven)

Our tips:
-Use the desert UHF channel 10. Call frequently where you are and what direction you are heading particularly when cresting sand dunes. Of all the bikers we encountered, none had sand flags on their bikes.
-Carry a sat phone and make sure people know what your crossing route is.
-Don't underestimate the amount of respect this desert deserves. We have experienced it at it's best, but have also seen it bring out the worst for some travellers. Be prepared, double check everything.

A big THANK YOU…goes to the Corrong crew – FM17. We feel blessed to have met you, and you will always be a part of our lives. After an amazing journey across the Simpson Desert kind strangers became our firm friends. We have shared the most hilarious jokes, personal insights, witty jibes, brilliant skies, one camel sighting, too many Scotches, Beers, Cider and one West Coast Cooler a night. And above all fabulous body odour! I have tears in my eyes as I write this partly from emotion and partly from laughing so bloody hard my cheeks hurt. John, Col, Laurence, Mia and Curt are the kind of people we want in our corner, covering our back – because we would always do the same for them.