Meetup in the Middle Trip thread.

[Rossco]

BIG RED!!

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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.

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Snicko AKA Shaggs + Nev

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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.

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Roofy

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Strop - made it up.

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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Another GQ selfie

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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.

[the evil twin]

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



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



and little pebbles called Kata Juta



and a big pebble called Uluru



which is really red at sunset



but not as red as my truck



and has pretty water holes



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



but there was yet another Camel



on the way to Chambers Pillar



where there were even more speccy formations like this



and this



and this



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



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



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



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



if I wanted to see the spooky beauty of Kathleen Springs



to prepare for the almost indescribable Kings Canyon



awesome



simply awesome



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



Mount Conner



and the painted Desert



to check out on the way home

[jack]

Well done ET, loving these pics

[threedogs]

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

[MudRunnerTD]

DID NOT SEE A BLOODY CAMEL the Hole trip!!




I ate one though

[threedogs]

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?

[lucus30]

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

[Winnie]

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

[FNQGU]

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

Mt Connor looks fantastic.

[cgm]

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.