Roads Closed to the Simpson - how often?

[SimpleSi Member Find all posts View Profile Close SimpleSi]

So after about 5 mins research, it looks like: The Strzeleckie and Birsdville tracks are closed, Donohue highway 4wd only, and most roads around Mt Dare closed, it appears the Simpson is fairly hard to get to this June/July school Holidays. (Not impossible though, and I do stand to be corrected on the closures, some reports are a few days old). Big Red Bash is now the Big Birdsville Bash!

I'd imagine hundreds of families plans for a crossing are up in the air at the moment?

I'm thinking about doing a crossing in a year or two, this time of year, using long service leave. Is this a bizarre thing that these roads are closed in winter? Once in a lifetime, once in 10 years, once every couple? It would be bitterly disappointing to plan such a trip, get time off work, spend all sorts of cash pimping your Prado up, and then having to make alternative plans to camp at Cotton Tree for 3 weeks due to the (much needed) rain out west.

Of course it won't stop the planning, just asking out of interest's sake.

[Ian Reid Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Reid]

Most of these roads close everytime it rains, which generally isnt that often, especially this time of year. How long for depends on the amount of rain and the time of year, local rain in summer might mean only a day as it dries out quick due to the heat, cool weather obviously takes more time to dry out. Once the rivers start to flow some crossings can be out for substantial periods.
Its like planning for most trips, you hope "it" doesnt happen but it can


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[Rusty62 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rusty62]

http://www.mtdare.com.au/outback-tra...simpson-desert

Most roads are open. Check the Mt Dare web site.

[ozimacca Member Find all posts View Profile Close ozimacca]

If you go to the weather sites you can look up the average for each month, I read that some of these places have had 5 times the average, so not very common !

I always plan and hope, not much else to do really

[Nova Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nova]

The Mt dare website hasn't been updated wince the 18th, most roads up there were closed with the rain last week and the weekend. Birdsville track, Strzelecki track, Oodnadatta track all still closed yesterday, although it looks like they are opening again already. There was a big rain, roads closed from Lyndhurst all the way to the NT border.

http://www.dpti.sa.gov.au/OutbackRoads

Cheers, Nova

[Toopy Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toopy]

We left on the 27th from rockhampton to longreach, longreach to birdsville on the 28th (Road status was High clearance 4wd, not really a problem as we were simpson headed, there was a bit of water around. The forecast was for 5-10mm
Then we arrived in birdsville and saw the race track which looked more akin to a boat race track.
As we pulled into the campground a 150 (I think it could have been a 120) was being unloaded from the monster. Ran into the driver at the pub that night who told us his tale, they left on Mon 27th in the pouring rain and between each dune was sheet after sheet of water, they could see the tracks on the other side of the lakes but not across the lakes.
He made it to popples corner when he lost all power and it wouldn't restart, telling us that the conditions were the worst he had seen in his entire 4x4 experience. Was a bit of a concerning warning, but well we had come this far and after 10mths of planning we were going to give it a shot hell or high water.
Set out on wednesday morning, now I knew that they had some rain a few weeks earlier so was hoping it to be green, but was not expecting to see the lushious green fields sprinkled with flowers and huge lakes between the dunes, we took it steady and made it through (not without dramas, but not really from the weather). Took 6 days to cross all up but we enjoyed it, found out Mt dare had the most rain they had in 40yrs and the kms of cake mix type mud really showed it.