Oodnadatta Tk and nearby

Hey guys, I'm thinking of heading up from SE VIC to do Oodnadatta, up to Dalhousie Springs, then to Alice Springs, Back to Uluru, Cooper Pedy and then home again.

Few questions for those who have done this before..

1) Is three weeks enough to do this comfortably?

2) Any issues towing a camper trailer up the Oodnadatta? Being towed by a pretty capable GQ.

3) Is Ooodnadatta just a big long dirt road? Would I expect my fuel economy to jump considerably as it would doing beach work, or not quite that bad? From what I could see, there's ULP available every 200kms or so up the Oodnadatta

4) Anything else I should check out on the way?

5) Lastly, What's the LPG situation like out that way. Not for me, but a mate in his toyboater is lpg/fuel so trying to work out how many jerry can's he'll need.

Thanks in advance.

3 weeks is plenty of time to see everything.
Oodnadatta track is a graded road so should be fine for your trailer.
Ave speed would be 80kph to 90 depending on conditions
Not sure where your last LPG would be Leigh Creek was the last place I got it.
Drive to conditions and heed speed signs.
4wd wouldnt be required I dont think

Id say Coober pedy would have LPG

http://www.shell.com.au/motorists/fuel-finder.html

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Originally Posted by Throbbinhood

Hey guys, I'm thinking of heading up from SE VIC to do Oodnadatta, up to Dalhousie Springs, then to Alice Springs, Back to Uluru, Cooper Pedy and then home again.

Few questions for those who have done this before..

1) Is three weeks enough to do this comfortably?

2) Any issues towing a camper trailer up the Oodnadatta? Being towed by a pretty capable GQ.

3) Is Ooodnadatta just a big long dirt road? Would I expect my fuel economy to jump considerably as it would doing beach work, or not quite that bad? From what I could see, there's ULP available every 200kms or so up the Oodnadatta

4) Anything else I should check out on the way?

5) Lastly, What's the LPG situation like out that way. Not for me, but a mate in his toyboater is lpg/fuel so trying to work out how many jerry can's he'll need.

Thanks in advance.

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You should be able to do it in three weeks.
There will be a few big day of driving. If you want to relax abit once you get to the middle.

I just did that trip about 8 weeks ago. We didnt get as far as alice just to Uluru.
There is a great free camping spot about 80km out of uluru called curtin springs.

The oodnadatta track is easy going. Depending which way you go to dalhousie the tracks get abit rougher and chopped up. There is lots of water out there at moment.

As for the towing you should have no problems.

Not to sure on the lpg situation as I have a diesel and didn't take any notice

That's awesome, thanks mate.

Not afraid of long days. Have done the drive to Brisbane and Coffs Harbour a few times in one hit. Would rather do that, then I can veg about in the middle for a week or two.
Would be interesting to see how the young fella handles it, would be about 18 months old by then.

Thanks for the tip on Curtin Springs, I'll put it on the list :)

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Originally Posted by Throbbinhood

Hey guys, I'm thinking of heading up from SE VIC to do Oodnadatta, up to Dalhousie Springs, then to Alice Springs, Back to Uluru, Cooper Pedy and then home again.

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Helps to have an exit plan as well while traveling the Oodnadatta Track (or any outback track). My last trip out that way (August 2012) it started raining lightly as I was packing up camp at Farina. Got to Marree around 10 am, fueled up & headed towards Lake Eyre with the rain increasing, the track becoming slippery & having to use 4 high. Planned on camping near the lake for a few days but decided to push on around 2 pm as the rain was getting heavier.

By the time I got to William Creek (still in 4 high) I was only able to do around 30 km per hour. Bailed out & headed to Coober Pedy. Took 6 hours to drive the last 130 odd km`s & was completely knackered by the time I got there, first time I was glad to see a tarred road.

Went through a lot more fuel than planned, luckily I was carrying extra. Glad I bailed, heard later that there were guys stranded out on the Oodnadatta Track further north for weeks.

Carry as much fuel as you can & keep an eye on the weather.

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Originally Posted by VK2FMIA

Helps to have an exit plan as well while traveling the Oodnadatta Track (or any outback track). My last trip out that way (August 2012) it started raining lightly as I was packing up camp at Farina. Got to Marree around 10 am, fueled up & headed towards Lake Eyre with the rain increasing, the track becoming slippery & having to use 4 high. Planned on camping near the lake for a few days but decided to push on around 2 pm as the rain was getting heavier.

By the time I got to William Creek (still in 4 high) I was only able to do around 30 km per hour. Bailed out & headed to Coober Pedy. Took 6 hours to drive the last 130 odd km`s & was completely knackered by the time I got there, first time I was glad to see a tarred road.

Went through a lot more fuel than planned, luckily I was carrying extra. Glad I bailed, heard later that there were guys stranded out on the Oodnadatta Track further north for weeks.

Carry as much fuel as you can & keep an eye on the weather.

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Thanks mate. Yeah I usually tend to over plan these things, much to my partners dismay, but it pays off in a situation like yours.

Although, I don't think I'd mind being stuck on Oodnadatta for a few extra weeks, as long as I've got enough beer.

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Originally Posted by Throbbinhood

Not afraid of long days. Have done the drive to Brisbane and Coffs Harbour a few times in one hit. Would rather do that, then I can veg about in the middle for a week or two.
Would be interesting to see how the young fella handles it, would be about 18 months old by then.

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My view - you are biting off too much, especially if travelling with an 18 month old. I would suggest setting off & just evaluating things as you go. I recall travelling with an 18 month old not long after we arrived in Oz. Don’t underestimate the demands of keeping him happy in an unfamiliar environment (for you & him). I will never forget the trauma of trying to change a full nappy by a roadside, in the heat with ten million flies trying to make the job twenty million times harder than it needed to be! It doesn’t matter where you get to, only that you went.

If you are unfamiliar with travelling on tracks like the Oodnadatta you should plan to keep your speed down rather than pulling high daily mileage. It’s deceiving, it is just a long & remote dirt road but the need for constant scanning of the road ahead for soft sand, wash outs, rocks etc is tiring, & far more so at speed. A long day out there is not comparable to driving the relatively relaxed consistency of Brissie to Coffs. Expect the road to change all the time. You may get lucky & find sections recently graded but even then it pays to take it steady. It only takes one unexpected rock or wash out to ruin your day or worse. Others will recall how after much planning a chap who used to come on the forum (Billybleed) underestimated it & rolled his Patrol somewhere up that road, luckily without injury. The road itself is not the challenge, the real challenge is not becoming complacent & pushing too hard, very easy to do that on ‘long days’ when ‘destination focussed’. Note too that VK2FMIA & oddkid82 were both prepared to modify their trips rather than sticking with what they set out to do. It’s a wise attitude to take. If it took you all your holiday just to get to Oodnadatta & back because of conditions (it wont , I’m exagerating to make a point) you would have had a great adventure with stories to tell. Don’t convince yourself that you must ‘get there’. Enjoy the trip & if you don’t ‘get there’, it’ll still be around for another time, just as you will be. :)

Yeah might be best to do a few test runs with the little one on board if you can I reckon. I remember when our oldest was 18months old we decided to drive from Melbourne to Brissy. First day was home to Dubbo, bout 12hours it was. She slept 45minutes in that time, and by the time we got to dubbo, she, my wife and I were beside ourselves. I remember my daughter crying and crying, because she was so tired and not in a familiar place and all she was saying was, "home" with tears welling up and the saddest look on her face. So we spent the next day at the Dubbo zoo, she loved it, then managed to find a DVD player headrest thingo, and we bought about 10 dvds and we just played them one after the other on the rest of the trip.

So. You need to remember, if you don't already, kids of that age can't sit for long periods in a car and just look out the window like adults can. Prepare and arm yourself with everything you think you may need, and more. Now. My kids love the long distance driving. We spent 13hours on the road one day last year heading up to QLD, and not once did they ask, are we there yet? They now get all excited when they hop in the car. Ones a teenager and the other is almost so this will more than likely fade out soon too. Then it will be just me and the missus. WooHoo!

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

A long day out there is not comparable to driving the relatively relaxed consistency of Brissie to Coffs.

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Hey Cuppa, I meant driving Melbourne to Brisbane and Melbourne to Coffs. Thankyou for the advice though, it all helps and is all taken on board.
We plan to head up with some family. Hoping more to do the main stretches of Mel > Adelaide in a day type thing, then we can take our time on the Oodnadatta and take a week-week and a half to do that.

Once I'm offroad, I much prefer to take it slow and find a nice spot to rest and relax than push hard to the next spot. I got over pushing too hard on holidays after cramming 12000kms driving of the USA into four weeks. All on road though.

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Originally Posted by mudski

Yeah might be best to do a few test runs with the little one on board if you can I reckon.

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Great tips on the DVD player mate, it's something that I hadn't thought of but I reckon it's a must.

And yeah, we plan on doing a few runs with him, driving and camping, getting progressively further as he and us become more comfortable with it.

Thanks for the tips guys, it's all really appreciated. Haven't done the traveling with a kid thing before, so it's all a learning curve. We are reasonably well setup with the camper, so hoping that makes camping with the little fella a bit more comfortable.

Cheers for the advice, and if others have more, keep it coming :)

Been doing the occasional trip with the young one since he was 6 months. he is pretty good 2500km on black stuff in two days no worries. but the third day... didn't want a bar of it. driving at night was easier for him as he loved sleeping in the car.

as he gets older i find i gotta stop every couple hours to let him run around, keeps everyone sane. yeah got a tablet for him to watch now. he also sleeps while i go through the fun tracks.

good luck with the weather

When are you planning on doing this trip mate?

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Originally Posted by Throbbinhood

Hey Cuppa, I meant driving Melbourne to Brisbane and Melbourne to Coffs.

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:) Yeah, I was really only drawing a comparison between bitumen driving & outback tracks. Didn’t even look at distances.

12000 in 4 weeks! Whew! I learned my lesson doing around 13,000 in 7 weeks two up on a bike on Ozzie bitumen, in October/November about 16 years ago.

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Originally Posted by Throbbinhood

Great tips on the DVD player mate, it's something that I hadn't thought of but I reckon it's a must.

And yeah, we plan on doing a few runs with him, driving and camping, getting progressively further as he and us become more comfortable with it.

Thanks for the tips guys, it's all really appreciated. Haven't done the traveling with a kid thing before, so it's all a learning curve. We are reasonably well setup with the camper, so hoping that makes camping with the little fella a bit more comfortable.

Cheers for the advice, and if others have more, keep it coming :)

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We traveled with our two year old and a portable dvd player was a real winner.

Our first day was from melbourne to renmark and then to Parachilna in the flinders( great pub there). Then onto farina has a great camping area.
From there we stayed a coward spring for a few days. From there spent one night at algebuckina then on up to dalhousie springs. Awesome spot dalhousie. From there stayed at lambertscentre of australia just outside of finke. The moved onto curtin springs on way to Uluru.

Hope that helps with some spots to stay.

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Originally Posted by garett

Been doing the occasional trip with the young one since he was 6 months. he is pretty good 2500km on black stuff in two days no worries. but the third day... didn't want a bar of it. driving at night was easier for him as he loved sleeping in the car.

as he gets older i find i gotta stop every couple hours to let him run around, keeps everyone sane. yeah got a tablet for him to watch now. he also sleeps while i go through the fun tracks.

good luck with the weather

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Cheers for that mate, we plan to build him up a bit the same and get him used to the longer drives.

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Originally Posted by Doggy

When are you planning on doing this trip mate?

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Probably looking around Aug-Sept next year at a guess. Figure we start planning now so we can work towards it.

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

:) Yeah, I was really only drawing a comparison between bitumen driving & outback tracks. Didn’t even look at distances.

12000 in 4 weeks! Whew! I learned my lesson doing around 13,000 in 7 weeks two up on a bike on Ozzie bitumen, in October/November about 16 years ago.

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Riding 2 up for that many km's! Jesus! Hope you had a comfy seat hahaha!

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Originally Posted by oddkid82

We traveled with our two year old and a portable dvd player was a real winner.

Our first day was from melbourne to renmark and then to Parachilna in the flinders( great pub there). Then onto farina has a great camping area.
From there we stayed a coward spring for a few days. From there spent one night at algebuckina then on up to dalhousie springs. Awesome spot dalhousie. From there stayed at lambertscentre of australia just outside of finke. The moved onto curtin springs on way to Uluru.

Hope that helps with some spots to stay.

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Mate, that is awesome help! Will lookup all of those places, we plan to do a similar things. Stay a bit longer at the nice spots, and leave the long days driving for the black top.

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Originally Posted by Throbbinhood

Probably looking around Aug-Sept next year at a guess. Figure we start planning now so we can work towards it.


Riding 2 up for that many km's! Jesus! Hope you had a comfy seat hahaha!



Mate, that is awesome help! Will lookup all of those places, we plan to do a similar things. Stay a bit longer at the nice spots, and leave the long days driving for the black top.

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We will be out there at that time , i reckon best time to do it all the nomads have left 😊 we are doing Brissy to Alice via the Plenty hwy , the Rock and maybe Kings canyon, on to Fink and Dalhousie, down the ood to Farina ( cause its awsome , back up the Birdsville to Mungarrine , ( awsome pub and artisian pool ) then walkers crossing to Inniminka, Camerons cnr and on to home , Well thats the plan anyway! We are lucky our kids travel very well and look forward to our bigger trips , we have done 5000k in three weeks last year no worries at all , and 2000k in a week last month ,
Be open to a change of plans , depending on weather , track conditions etc ,
People say it's a push and that that they would wait for retirement etc .
My response is always , that day might never come !

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by gaddy

We will be out there at that time , i reckon best time to do it all the nomads have left 😊 we are doing Brissy to Alice via the Plenty hwy , the Rock and maybe Kings canyon, on to Fink and Dalhousie, down the ood to Farina ( cause its awsome , back up the Birdsville to Mungarrine , ( awsome pub and artisian pool ) then walkers crossing to Inniminka, Camerons cnr and on to home , Well thats the plan anyway! We are lucky our kids travel very well and look forward to our bigger trips , we have done 5000k in three weeks last year no worries at all , and 2000k in a week last month ,
Be open to a change of plans , depending on weather , track conditions etc ,
People say it's a push and that that they would wait for retirement etc .
My response is always , that day might never come !

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

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Awesome trip by the look of it did similar from Melb to Birdsville via old strezlecki track.
Mungaranni great pub as you said, we camped out at the Cully Murra water hole for a week
Doing Haddons , cameron and poepells corner along the way. Wanted to do a lot more exploring
but it was 2 weeks after the Birdsville races so all tracks were cut up bad, oh well next time

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Originally Posted by gaddy

We will be out there at that time , i reckon best time to do it all the nomads have left 😊 we are doing Brissy to Alice via the Plenty hwy , the Rock and maybe Kings canyon, on to Fink and Dalhousie, down the ood to Farina ( cause its awsome , back up the Birdsville to Mungarrine , ( awsome pub and artisian pool ) then walkers crossing to Inniminka, Camerons cnr and on to home , Well thats the plan anyway! We are lucky our kids travel very well and look forward to our bigger trips , we have done 5000k in three weeks last year no worries at all , and 2000k in a week last month ,
Be open to a change of plans , depending on weather , track conditions etc ,
People say it's a push and that that they would wait for retirement etc .
My response is always , that day might never come !

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

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Add in an overnighter at Claytons Bore when on the Birdsville Tk, you wont regret it. Great walk around the wetlands made by the uncapped bore, & the star light spa is hard to beat.

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

Add in an overnighter at Claytons Bore when on the Birdsville Tk, you wont regret it. Great walk around the wetlands made by the uncapped bore, & the star light spa is hard to beat.

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Yep stopped there last year . So many good place's to pull up and not normally many people around ,

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