hello and welcome back we pick up this episode on the morning that we're going to leave
mount dare how did you sleep last night actually slept really well okay yeah
it's good i think i slept pretty good too so we're well rested well fed from last night yep
well hydrated with uh let's call it water from last night um yeah that spicy water yeah gave
me a headache um and now we're just looking at what supplies we have for we're planning
on three days across the desert just take it easy and so we've laid out all our food
and let's have a look uh talk us through what we've got here dave um well so far where we've
got to is these are our breakfasts each morning so that's um three packets of quick oats which
we'll eat between the two of us and we've got some muesli bars for our lunches we also have
potentially these um little rice chicken meals for lunch we also have potentially for lunch some two
minute noodles which oh yeah on your forgot about those and we also have for lunch uh potentially
some wraps with cheese and maybe some can i've got some tinned ham and sardines and stuff so we've
we've got way too many lunch options we're to have to pick one and leave the rest behind
and then for dinners we have um start with tonight's dinner what's that tonight's dinner
tonight yes we've got the old faithful the big and chunky soup which oh yeah we'll mix with
this pasta which i actually had leftover from our last trip oh and look there's another one
we've got way too much food yeah we have way too much yeah so dave and i have perfected this
meal which is i bring a can of soup dave brings everything else and he makes this great pasta dish
um we might not end up taking that that's probably the cheapest to get rid of sean to be honest
we've got um these packets of oh yeah rice yeah and dehydrated meals as well those are about a
year out of date but i think they're probably still that's okay um so maybe we throw away the
cheapest stuff yeah keep the rest to be honest it's not like what can i just wait can i just
mention yeah sorry uh you're not gonna throw away that container though are you no no i'll keep
that okay oh but the weight i get in my system oh yeah what about um cereal that i brought so
you and i have doubled up on breakfast supplies oh look at that i've got some cereal which might
i don't know if that's better it uses those water yeah basically we're just trying to
streamline our food for the next three days so we're not carrying too much through the desert um
we've pretty much got enough and to be honest dave i think we've been stockpiling
some carbs over the last week yeah a little bit we've been conscious of that yeah anyway
yeah yeah don't forget the fruitcake oh yeah sorry we have no way no way we'll leave that behind
special fruitcake to celebrate our nights in the desert we'll share those that's our little dessert
if we should manage to make it okay to set up camp yeah let's not celebrate prematurely hey john
bear in mind when you're planning out these meals that i do eat more than you i think i probably eat
about 30 based on the meals we've had so far extra yeah how do you do that how do you eat more than
me but you're i'm fatter than you i'm more anxious than you anxious about anything in particular dave
let's not mention the elephant is
we spent the night at mount dare this is our little setup we had here
and we're preparing to head out that way towards the rising sun into the desert
we're about to leave mount dare we've just done a pack of the bikes just got to fill up our water
and fuel i just looked at my tyre i've done a few thousand k's out here and yeah she's a bit worn
so it's not going to wear too much more through the desert but i was hoping for a bit more tread
than that let's have a look at the front tyre
the front tyre is actually going good you can almost still see the um
the little ridges on the center knobs that hasn't worn too bad at all i guess we have been doing
100 110 for many many days on a lot of bitumen and high speed stuff
so and i've had 20 psi in the rear uh but i'm loaded up the bike weighs 200 kilos by itself
so i think 20 psi is fair but yeah the those center knobs have taken a fair brunt of the force
it's now being shared by the next set of knobs um and hopefully in the desert
we'll get through we'll see what they look like when we get to birdsville
slash if we get the birdsville just checking out dave's tyre i don't feel too bad about mine now
dave's tyre is worn a bit but uh i thought mine was excessive wear but i think it's maybe about
average for the number of k's we've done and what we've been doing hey how's dave's front tire
he's probably not best in the shadow but his front eye's same worn a little but still plenty of tread
left i think we'll be fine for the desert we're here at mount their hotel we met grant yesterday
he's traveling on this beast of a 950. grant where have you come from i've come from brisbane
brisbane wow and how long's it taking you to get here well it's taken me about probably
nine days but like six days to get here and three days camped on the side of the road i
think yeah and how was think for you uh it was fun like i enjoy the machinery
i mean i think they're nuts but um i like it yeah and actually i actually went in the thing
it was my first race when i turned 40. really for a bit how'd you go you finished i got became so
motherless last but you finished yeah that's awesome i beat 130 guys yeah that's awesome
that's my claim oh you're doing better than me and a lot of us maybe yeah but yeah you've got a
great set up here great yeah and wish you all the luck and great to meet you see you grant good luck
the mountain hotel i thought before we leave i better show you
inside see uh only pub in town i think it's this is the town
but it's full of memorabilia it's like a million stubby holders in here
it's definitely one of the iconic places when you're in the outback and doing the simpsons it's
depending if you start or finish it's definitely where you come to they've been great good food
cold drinks they've actually got premium fuel or 95 which is great so that's what i want to get
let's get some now it's time to fill up dave and i put up at the bowsers how good's mount
there they've got premium 95 at least that'll exactly what i want we help david it too and we
need to fill up the tanks fill up our bladders and find some water i filled up the rear tank
the main tank's filled up
and now we just got to uh do the bladder
a little bit more in there yeah eight and a half all right so let's call that full
make sure that's done up tight
and there we go i've still got four liters in there
that'll go there till this one get some water tidy it up and we're done see our day's gone
how you going dave good i've got 20 in there so far yep it's probably enough i'm going to fill
these up as well okay yeah the dave's got what size are these dave uh six liters so dave's got
12 liters spread over two um pannier size two six liter bladders that's good
all right so six liters here six liters there you can stop putting fuel onto me yeah okay
but i think that's it for fuel yeah hopefully
we'll measure it on the other end okay quick look in the bag some camelbak some water gatorade a
couple extra another gatorade in here build up the bike i think we're almost ready dave's full setup
water fuel camping gear everything we need
looks good this is my setup looking good this is it getting on the bike
i'm gonna ride the simpson unsupported
and i fit on i'm comfy all right i'm good dave great
oh i've got plenty of room yeah all right i'm happy with that
let's go dave all right let's do it see you in birdsville so dave we've done just a quick
8k i just wanted to check how you're going how everything's settled yeah good idea um
yeah it definitely i can feel the weight just that pendulum effect and everything and
speeding up slowing down turning trying to maneuver the bike you can really feel that
yeah that effect uh i guess it's a smaller or a smaller difference relative to the size of my bike
than it is for you so yeah probably noticing a bigger difference yeah so i'm just cruising
i've knocked my speed down to about 70 80 just cruising i'm in fuel conservation mode um but i
just checked everything seems solid and secure nothing's leaking um so i think yeah i'm happy
so after a little stop and check everything seems good and we're off until halsey springs
gonna have a stop there check it out just cj out there in the distance
looks so cool it's like the only thing around this day someone that didn't have a good crossing
no front wheel dave we've made it to delhausey springs
the first bit we've made it john we've made it don't celebrate yet dave hasn't been too hard but
yeah it is an accomplishment to get here yeah i feel like at least we've started yeah we've
set off on our mission yeah definitely let's go have a swim and see that okay sounds good
pretty warm yeah it's nice
oh it's good it's good i'm coming in okay come on in the water in delhousey springs
comes from a natural hot spring the water temperature ranges from 38 to 43 degrees
depending on where you are in the pool i've just been floating here
and i thought my feet were touching some weed on the bottom and then i saw some fish swim
past and there's actually little fish in here that are feasting on my feet they must like
six day old uh alpine star smelling socks i think they are i'm glad you see those little buggers
the landscape changes so quickly out here i was in sand a minute ago
and now it was almost like a moonscape all these rocks everywhere
it's amazing and again nobody out here watch out it's great you can see where it's been wet
and full drives it chopped up the truck getting out we have perfect conditions it's dry
a little bit dusty so it's spread out a bit but um it's good got a little taste of the sand
and it took me a day or two to get my uh sand legs again i'll just uh pull over here and wait for
dave see how he's going how'd you go with that first bit of sand um pretty good actually i'm
just taking it slow though i hit it a bit quick let's be honest yeah but um yeah i'm just kind of
getting used to all this weight in the sand yeah and how do you find it it's not too bad okay i
mean i know that's just a sandy road it's not a dune yeah um once i got kind of the feel for it
once i knew the limits that it's okay yeah yeah okay i actually don't feel like i can
go too quick yet but if i'm within my limits i'm alright yeah okay good yeah so i'm happy
with that as to how that compares to the rest of it we'll find out okay well let's go find out
again the landscapes change on this twin track low scrub around watch out buddies
and if you cut the corner you hit these trees and they look soft but they hurt when
you hit them so i've learned to avoid them up ahead is the first dune of the simpson desert
this is it probably no i'm here
up and over that's it the first dune okay that was the first dune in the simpson desert that
was great wasn't it yeah good feeling yeah yeah we're in it now we are in it i can see more ahead
yeah so you feeling confident yeah so far so good uh i mean i think this is the section
where you get in and you go oh this isn't so bad i'm feeling good and then about 200 kilometers
further on is where you go why the hell did i bring this thing into the desert yeah but you'll
have plenty of experience by then that's true i'll be an expert exactly so we're going to head into
puny what do i call it puny too yeah bernie yep so we're going to head into penny boar
check that out and then go and find a camp spot okay we're in the dune system now the dunes are
actually a bit more uh i don't know what the word is cut up whooped up see all these bumps
that's from the uh full drives and also people bringing trailers through here
we were hoping to come out here before the fink race
before a lot of traffic's been through but didn't work out with timings
so we're gonna have to put up with these whoops all the way through and i'm just taking it easy
at the moment because we've got a full fuel load we're pretty heavy we don't want to overwork the
shock but you can see it's just uh very whoopy on the way up and down the dunes
time will tell it just gets better or worse but
there's a section in here that dave was referring to in about 200k where it's really bad there's
no real clay pan between the dunes so you can see here we come down and there's this little
clay pan it's the flat between the dunes and solid clay and then we get back in the dunes
the bit dave was referring to is where the dunes are close together and there's no reprieve
there's no little flat clay pan to come pre-compose get a bit of momentum if you need it
a little 300 it's going great so far so good and she's loaded up this is the heaviest it'll ever be
200 kilos just the bike probably got i'm 75 with a gear and everything probably probably closed 280
kilograms moving she's doing good
so i have apparently
clipped the bush and knocked that penny right off snap the bracket and everything
see if we can do a little bush repair there
not great but i think it'll probably hold with this strap in place
let's see
i've dropped that on there not in great shape um i don't think it'll take another knock
without breaking the rest of the mount but i do have a couple of other straps so uh when
we stop i'll get them out and reinforce it a bit gotta watch out for those bushes
all right let's go find sean it's getting late in the day
it's almost five o'clock sydney time so maybe 4 30 or something south australian time
we're coming up to the rig road and we're looking for a place to camp so either we'll
hit the rig road we'll find somewhere to camp and call it at night yeah we're about
two k's from the rig road okay right but that's the french one's been going good yeah i'm used to
it now yeah i'm enjoying that yeah well let's set up camp this is us for the night we're
1.7 k's i think from the rig road so we're about a third of the way across is that right dave
that's right according to my calculations okay so a third today a third tomorrow and
the third the next day yeah sounds good to me i don't know if the video will do this justice
but this is what a simpson desert sunset looks like
it's gorgeous
we're literally the only people around for miles and the whole place as far
as you can see is ours we've got it to ourself that's the beauty of the simpson
we started a fire cooked dinner and settled in for a beautiful night in the desert
thanks for watching and we'll see you next time
you