Meetup in the Middle Trip thread.

BIG RED!!

Attachment 46900

Attachment 46901

lined up at the bottom. It is much bigger than any of the other dunes. . .
It didn't take long for the anticipation and nerves to kick in, I think we were all hanging to have a crack. Last chance to adjust tyre pressures. After watching Darren not make it on his first 3 attempts I decided to go down to 12psi, and hoped not to roll a tyre off seeing as you have to hit it flat out and the bottom has a few decent lumps.

Attachment 46902

Snicko AKA Shaggs + Nev

Attachment 46903

Attachment 46904

View from the top. Managed to make it up second go which I was pretty happy with. Good feeling cresting the top to the cheers of the crowd at the top.

Attachment 46905

Roofy

Attachment 46906

Strop - made it up.

Attachment 46907

Attachment 46908

Attachment 46909

Ah yep, everyone loves taking photos of their own truck don't they!!

Attachment 46910

Attachment 46911

AB having a red hot crack - charging like a demon.

Attachment 46912

Attachment 46913

Soooo close. As Snicko said premature celebraton, I reckon the extra drag on the alternator from the horn was enough to make the difference.

Attachment 46914

This angle shows the steepness a bit better. The photos from the top looking down look flat, they don't do it any justice. The sand is also verrrry soft, walking down you sink half way up to your knees. Pure power sucking stuff, you really have to cane the bajesus out of the truck to get up.

Attachment 46915

With all due respect we can't forget about the old 60. Jokes aside it did well and never missed a beat the whole trip.

Attachment 46916

Another GQ selfie

Attachment 46917

Attachment 46918

It had to be done - group photo on top of Big Red.

I have to say, that Big Red was a huge amount of fun and a real challenge, definitely a highlight.

As most know I opted not to cross the Simmo and travelled a different path.

I do want to claim the most K's travelled tho at just shy of 10,500 and the dubious priviledge of most fuel used at almost exactly 2,000 litres

I saw Camels

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...psa5f5e892.jpg

and after 2 days and 100's and 100's of K's of W.A. and N.T. GAFA I saw mountains

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps9ac601c3.jpg

and little pebbles called Kata Juta

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps47bb78f0.jpg

and a big pebble called Uluru

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps350ba361.jpg

which is really red at sunset

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...psc2e76d05.jpg

but not as red as my truck

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps319ffc8a.jpg

and has pretty water holes

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...pscd51ca3c.jpg

and I saw Rainbow Valley which kinda sucked 'cause there was no rainbows

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps39b38a3a.jpg

but there was yet another Camel

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps850aa2ed.jpg

on the way to Chambers Pillar

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...psdd923042.jpg

where there were even more speccy formations like this

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps323d3d0c.jpg

and this

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps291052bd.jpg

and this

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps0ec10317.jpg

but it was good to go for a warm bath and blow fart bubbles at the guppies in Dalhousie Springs

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps77dc83ab.jpg

which is not all that many corrugated, dust choked, teeth rattling kilometres from the exact middle

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps665c92e6.jpg

where people told me only 500 K's further away I could visit Ormiston Gorge

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...psacf5c3ec.jpg

as long as I didn't hit any #&@#$% Camels on the road (which are actually yummy in a burger)

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...psf3897558.jpg

if I wanted to see the spooky beauty of Kathleen Springs

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps82d48b27.jpg

to prepare for the almost indescribable Kings Canyon

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...pse1070d7a.jpg

awesome

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps891b9b59.jpg

simply awesome

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps394a2da7.jpg

which left my trusty rig after it's surgery at Yulara and I

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps44de86e4.jpg

Mount Conner

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps125c1a89.jpg

and the painted Desert

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps922a8801.jpg

to check out on the way home

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps959ff939.jpg

Well done ET, loving these pics

@ ET did you get to Surveyors General Corner ?
Great pics BTW

DID NOT SEE A BLOODY CAMEL the Hole trip!!




I ate one though ;)

to far west for camels although they do venture that way depending of what season they had the year before.
Did you see any donkeys or Brumbies?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lhurley

So it's an actual inbuilt gps, not just an assisted gps that uses the phone towers. I didn't know they worked without the sim.

---

All it does is help speed up your GPS lock. So without a Sim it just takes longer to get the initial lock. All phones and tablets are like this. There is no such thing as assisted GPS only. Older phones without a GPS chip use RTT positioning nothing to do with gps

Great photos Rossco and ET! Good work guys! I did not realise you did such a big trip ET. bloody good effort and there's not much you missed out on

ET, did you stop at the Breakaway's Lookout near Coober Pedy, looking back over the Painted Desert?

Mt Connor looks fantastic.

Just another big thank you for all the pics. Much better to get a feel for it all with the pics.

Interesting/surprising to see how much growth there still is in the Simpson.

Photos never show up angles and how steep things are. Looks like one of the issues with Big Red would be how rough it would be trying to get a run at it with all the ruts from so much traffic. Can just imagine trying to get some good speed for momentum but bouncing around and feeling the pain caused to the truck in the process.