Day 1

The adventure began at the iconic Birdsville Hotel, where we spent the weekend physically preparing the bikes, and mentally preparing ourselves for the crossing of the Simpson Desert. At the Hotel, our plans were met by laughs from some, and encouragement from others. We gathered advice from very helpful and experienced locals, and come Saturday night, we were feeling quite confident for the next few days of tough isolation.

On Sunday morning, we departed early, with our minds full of optimism and our pockets full with the Hotel’s breakfast. Before we were to reach the border of the Simpson, we had a 30km dirt road to cover, before ducking into the desert. All was well and good, until we reached a flood area which would make the Titanic hesitate. It wasn’t deep, and thinking that as long as we keep speed up, we will be alright. This is the point of the day when everything took a turn for the worse. Since our bikes are set up for desert riding, they are not familiar, nor friendly with water, which Ben and I found out halfway through this crossing. Both Ben and my bikes sucked water straight into the engine and cut out smack bang in the middle of this 150m body of water. After many repeat attempts to restart the bikes, the friendliness of the outback came to the rescue. Since this was not quite yet the desert, there were many cars coming through, and one offered their help and towed each one of us to the other side. We knew that fixing these water-logged bikes would be no easy task. Once safe (not dry), on the other side, we began the long process of removing all the panniers and gear, removing the seats and fuel tanks, drying the air filters, draining the carburetor and changing the spark plugs. We had to do all this twice! This set us back a couple of hours, and we were exhausted from pushing, pulling and draining in the heat.

Once on the border of the desert, we knew we would be greeted by Big Red, a 90 metre high sand dune, the first of over 1100 through the whole desert, and the biggest, most challenging section there is. We were expecting this to be tough, so as soon as we pulled up to the base of the first dune we saw, we went straight over, giving it all we had. Once over the other side, with only a minor mishap, our confidence shot through the roof. If that’s the biggest dune there is, we thought, we’ll be across the desert in one day! Back on our bikes, feeling pretty good and still laughing at whoever named that dune, we were soon silenced by a massive shadow overcasting the track in front of us. Looking up, we saw a gigantic black silhouette blocking out the sun. This must be the real Big Red, we thought, as we stopped in our tracks. We struggled up this dune, but could not make it over, and had to turn around. When chatting to someone at the base of the dune, and after a lot of confusion and denial, we found out that the direction we we heading over Big Red would have taken us back to Birdsville! The small dune which we had climbed earlier was actually an easier route over Big Red, and we were now facing the harder route over the dune, but back to where were had started. After being pointed to the right direction, we continued our trek.

These next few hours were some of the toughest, most demanding and frustrating of each of our lives. The three of us, with hardly any desert riding experience, were trying to conquer one of the most demanding deserts, unsupported. This means that we had all our 2 months worth of gear on our bikes. Not only this, but we also had an extra 40 litres of fuel, and 36 litres of water distributed in our backpacks or on our bikes. Trying to get these bikes, which now weighed over 250kg each, over soft and sinking sand, was no easy task. Each time we dropped a bike, it would take at least two of us to turn around and go pick it up. Exhausted from wrestling with soft sand, this was both mentally and physically tiring. After trying to negotiate these fully laden bikes up and down numerous loose sand dunes, we stopped to have a chat. We knew were were struggling too much, and we were risking injury by continuing, so we decided to accept defeat. We would go on for a bit that day, to see if we could get a hang of the loose sand riding, but will turn around the next day, before we got too deep into this territory. By this time, a 20 litre fuel drum, and a 6 litre water pack had fallen off the bikes, which we were too exhausted to go back for. So now it was impossibile to continue, as we didn’t think we would have enough fuel or water to cross successfully (as it turned out, we would have made it with what we had!). At the end of that day, after only completing 60km, when we had planned to have done 175km by lunchtime, we were barely walking. We set up camp for the night, and made plans to turn around and head back to Birdsville the next morning. This was a massive defeat for us, as the Simpson Desert was a big part of the trip, and it was tough for us to admit that the Simpson Desert had beat the Wahlhaus boys.

It was in these few hours that our Simpson adventure turned from a nightmare into a dream. To our campsite dart in 6 motor bikes and 4 support vehicles, all buzzing from an awesome day’s riding. The satisfied looks on their faces, compared to the depressed looks on ours, was quite a sight. It is quite rare to come across anyone in the desert, let alone other people on motorbike, so when we saw these guys, it was a real surprise! After a short chat, we found out that they had been cleaning up after our trail of destruction, and had picked up our dropped fuel and water! They returned it to us, and we explained our situation, and that we would be turning back the next morning. Luckily for us, these people weren’t only very prepared and organised, but also extremely kind and generous souls. They offered to take all our gear for us, and support us through the desert – meaning that we would be riding our bikes without all our extra fuel, water and bags. We were to meet up with them every evening to get our stuff, and could not have had a more comforatble and welcoming bunch of people to spend the evenings with.