General Trip preparation discussion...

[jetcrew]

Theo,
as an interested observer, where are you thinking of storing your water and how much do you think you will need to carry ?

MarkVS

I have this mate

http://www.dolium.com.au/Retail_Catalogue/WTP40FW_item.html?ref_cat_id=Water_(Poly)

used it at cape york and it was perfect .

Prob 10ltrs of water in bottles also

I will enter the desert with 50ltrs of water

Jet

[weeds]

i did the simpson solo and started with 92L.......probaly used 20L of three days 2A 1C

travelling solo you lean towards carrying a bit more i.e. 160L diesel but only used 75L

[swanny]

Jet, I have a mate who like you has an Oztent, and experienced the same prob with it over hanging the end of his rack. He did a bit of looking into it, and had a fab shop cut the ends of his rack were he wanted it located, and had a boat roller fitted each end were it had been cut out, he now just places one end on the roller when putting on the rack, lifts the other end and slides it on, works awesome, and hasn't lost any space on his rack for remaining gear.

Food for thought.

Swanny

[Alan Loy]

Trying to guess how much fuel to take.

Patrol CRD that normally does 15lt/100 km.  Guess 20lt/100 over 800 km (extra kms as a safety margin) so 160lt all up so I take 2 Jerries +1 to be safe = 3

What do you think?

[jetcrew]

Jet, I have a mate who like you has an Oztent, and experienced the same prob with it over hanging the end of his rack. He did a bit of looking into it, and had a fab shop cut the ends of his rack were he wanted it located, and had a boat roller fitted each end were it had been cut out, he now just places one end on the roller when putting on the rack, lifts the other end and slides it on, works awesome, and hasn't lost any space on his rack for remaining gear.

Food for thought.

Swanny

this was Plan 1 but then when the malee trax fitted underneath I had 2 probs solved so will do that but who knows I'll change my mind 50 times before we leave LOL

Jet

[jetcrew]

Trying to guess how much fuel to take.

Patrol CRD that normally does 15lt/100 km.  Guess 20lt/100 over 800 km (extra kms as a safety margin) so 160lt all up so I take 2 Jerries +1 to be safe = 3

What do you think?

Sounds good mate, I will take 80ltrs +140 onboard = 220ltrs I dont want to stress and just in-case we need to tow or go back ect extra capability is a must IMHO

Jet

[fuji]

I think I will take 4 jerrys+90 on board=170 litres. Water about 80 litres.
Wayne

[DannyG]

I dont think Ill bother taking any fuel, ill be the person who has turned up ridiculously under prepared so you are all so shocked you all have to ration out your fuel to me

Or Ill most likely have 185 ltrs all up! Im not sure how much water yet but ill have enough to not have to drink my own urine hopefully.

[fuji]

May I suggest that everyone buy a hessian bag of firewood and bring it along. Say the green coffee bean bag size. That's what we did on our previous trip and worked a treat. Taswegians are exempted of course, until they get across the border. Saves looking for wood. IMO

[jetcrew]

Just as an update for everyone I will be towing a camper trailer for this trip...WHY you ask..

We decided some months ago to make this trip 4-6 weeks seeing as we will out all that way and the amount of gear required (clothes /food ect to do that means I have been pushing the limits of the payload for my roof rack / car. ( even made lightweight jerry holders ect in an attempt to get sense of reasonableness )

So I was faced with 2 choices

1, overload the roof rack and the car badly and enjoy the freedom of not towing.

2, tow a trailer and have all the limits safely in hand plus enjoy the comfort and flexibility of a hard floor trailer.

So after lots of reading and speaking with people who have done the trip I have decided that option 2 is a clear winner. Had we only been doing the simmo x-ing then no issues but the extra 4 weeks certainly blew my payloads and amount of equip out of the park.

With correct tyre pressures , 4.7ltrs of V8 all required recovery gear and alot of common sense I am comfortable that the trip is in hand, obv I will be self sufficient in this regard as i do not believe it fair to expect others to be my personal recovery vehicle just so i can tow a trailer.

Just though i would keep you all informed.

Jet  

[jk]

Is that your gal trailer your taking mate 

[jetcrew]

Is that your gal trailer your taking mate 

No mate it will be a hard floor camper  but not one you think I can't have that one ...

Jet

[jk]

Bummer 

[Andrew_C]

I come back last week from an east west crossing from Melbourne, 2 cars, 5 people, 3 adults in 150 diesel prado and 2 in dual cab triton. 5000 Kay's in 13 days, dirt from swan hill back to mildura not including main streets. Swags as accommodation.

I have done heaps of 4x4ing in the past 15 years on the east coast and high country but I learnt a lot.
We did a bit of damage to both cars which I put down to bad luck rather than bad driving or bad preperation. It happens so worth being prepared.
Prado- battery isolator died at poepel corner and dent in guard after falling in a very big hole on a side slope on the WAA after going over dune with no visibility.
Triton - slab of beer fell out of tailgate on big red and was run over backing back down  (most were saved due to the soft sand)broken canopy window when fridge become unlocked and slid into window, and ironman bullbar crush can fractured in half.
What would I do the same or different -
-We had 6 x 15 litre bladders for water, worked well and didn't take up any room when empty.
-Lined the full back of the car including windows with corflute to stop damage and cut down on rubbing on the plastic.
-we checked over the car each day including things like battery bolts, but still had a couple vibrate out of the bullbar wings.
- I should have taken a warmer sleeping bag even though it was 35 plus each day. Still pretty cold most nights.
- better dividers in the storage in the back even though we have drawers,  everything was shaken like we had just thrown it in anyway.

Great trip and planning to go back ASAP.

[chester ver2.0]

Carton of beer falling out the back

That is not meerley inconvenient that is an emergency and the RFDS should have been called to fly another one in

[Andrew_C]

We only bought the slab in Birdsville, It had been in the car less than an hour. The cans with pin holes were safely debeered  :cheers:so they would not leak in the car.

[Glenno]

Hey guys,

I have a heap of suggestions, however will limit it to one for now.

Before you go, jump on eBay and buy some bulk paper plates, and even bowls.

When your out in the desert, the joy of not wasting your water on large amounts of washing, AND not having to wash (much) is very satisfying.


G

[SteveandViv]

Great idea with the paper plates, we did and even then did use them much as we planed dinners that didn't need plates like Sausage Sambos, steak Sambos. So one paper plate, butter the bread blah blah.
Get some of those high-gene wipes as well. While I know this is not every ones cup of tea, we didn't shower for five days while doing the crossing. We all stunk together. It was to much fun to care but we did wipe ourselves each day and change undies and shirts. Anyway, we only used 25ltrs of water over the 5 days.

[gclan]

There was a total ban on wood fires last year in the Witjira NP, and I think it's still current(might want to check), which covers Dalhousie Springs and Purni Bore.

You could have solid fuel fires in portable firepits/braziers etc... though. Maybe one of you could take one? or you could just have group snuggle time there...for warmth of course

[heath74]

Jealous I'm not coming, but you guys will have a ball, having done the trip twice both times in July, in the last two years, (once successfully) I can share some info.

In my prado d4d I used 90 something litres of fuel crossing, fully loaded, taking all tracks in all the way down to the rig road.

My mate in his 06 3 l diesel navara d22  also used about 90l. He has chip and exhaust mod.
We made no effort to conserve fuel. And played on big red for a while.

We went west to east. I had a puncture only 50 k out of mt dare, and the tyre was destroyed. Finished the trip with no spares.  In future I would carry a carcass.

Have fun.

[KingBilly]

We went west to east. I had a puncture only 50 k out of mt dare, and the tyre was destroyed. Finished the trip with no spares.  In future I would carry a carcass.

Have fun.

Just for clarification as I'm doing this in July.  Did you only carry one spare?  Would you carry one spare and a carcas next time or what.  Thanks in advance.

KB

[heath74]

Sorry KB, my post is a bit ambiguous.

I only carried the one spare, plus of course a repair kit.

We made it through to birdsville no problems, where I was able to purchase a new coopers. ( I think it was gold lined) which then matched none of my tyres, and on my return to Melbourne I traded it for a matching tyre. So all in all no harm done. But having a matching carcass would have saved me a lot of stuffing round.

If I'd had a spare carcass at least I could have continued on after the puncture, and if necessary changed it on the way, or even just had it fitted in birdsville. Or I'd have had the choice of returning to mt dare for fitting, knowing I had the tyre. ( no guarantee they would have had a 17 " in stock)
On top of this the drive from mt dare to Dalhousie has one of the worst roads you will find anywhere. So my feeling was that re- doing the drive was not a good option.
I also knew that my mates d22 spare would fit on the back of the prado.

I guess there's no right or wrong answer, just my thoughts on it.

Either way mate, it's just an awesome trip.

[KingBilly]

Thanks for the info.  I will be carrying two full spares plus a plug kit plus a tube so am hoping to be OK

KB

[cp]

Solar - I'll be running a 40ltr Engel with second 120AH deep cycle battery, am I right to think that I wont need a geni or solar given our vehicles are on the move daily, whether we're exploring or moving onto our next camp?

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[cp]

I guess we should plan for the unexpected, we'll have solar.

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