Oodnadatta track

Dreamcatcher · Veteran Member

Oodnadatta track

Mutley · Senior Member

Hi Dreamcatcher, conventional wisdom would usually be the winter months on the OT. April - September are very popular. I've also travelled it in October & it was great, that year. BUT La Nina has put a spanner in everyone's spokes this year. I'd say, if it's a La Nina year, don't go! Unless you like mud & waiting for the roads to re-open.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

Just come up the Oodnadatta Track in company with a 23 ft Crusader van.
The season has been exceptionally cool this year, but I would typically suggest that September would be the latest.

Cheers,
Peter

Lamb Chop · Veteran Member

I have been toying with the idea of taking the Oodnadatta track from Woomera to Marla. Our rig is not an off roader but I'm guessing if tyre pressures are lowered and one slows down, the track would be dooable.

-- Edited by Lamb Chop on Saturday 14th of January 2017 02:17:36 PM

Mutley · Senior Member

Lamb Chop wrote:
I have been toying with the idea of taking the Oodnadatta track from Woomera to Marla. Our rig is not an off roader but I'm guessing if tyre pressures are lowered and one slows down, the track would be dooable.

-- Edited by Lamb Chop on Saturday 14th of January 2017 02:17:36 PM

Hi Lamb Chop, you could easily traverse the road in dry weather with a well prepared 2WD car & an on road van.

Even with well prepared vans & cars, things often do not go the plan though. We met 2 couples with beautiful off road vans at William Creek & both had unexpected "issues" one of them had the van door open whilst they were travelling on the track & didn't notice it. The bedding & decor in the van was white - I'll let you imagine the rest, but it was not nice! Not life threatening, or an emergency, but not much fun either I would imagine. The other one had the van fridge door come open on the road due to corrugations. The eggs fell out of the fridge & bounced around inside the van. Not as bad as the other van, but still a PITA while you're travelling!

I'd lower the tyres on both the car & van down to what the late Adam Plate recommended - for us, with our set-up, that's 20/26/20 PSI. Your set-up may be different, the Pink Roadhouse used to have a mud-map of a lot of different set-up's that Adam made up, if you can get a hold of one.

Next, EVERYTHING rubs on corrugations! So we pack everything with towels/tea towels/etc between plates/cups/glasses & we pack them in TIGHT.

We don't use glass bottles in the fridge on corrugations for the reason stated above. Even milk cartons can & do collapse from the continual corrugations.

The back window of your car needs to be covered by something like a beer carton (taped on) to absorb rocks thrown up by your car tyres bouncing off the van & back onto the car. If you break that window on a dirt road, you'll be having about as much fun & the couple who had their van door come open lol! I also use a home made shade cloth trampoline style stone guard - but that's up to you.

We block any vents at the back of the van while travelling. We unblock them when we stop (especially the LPG vent in the door), but we block them while travelling. (dust!)

If you haven't had much experience on corrugations, speed will be very hard for you to work out. Under about 70-80kmh they shake you to bits! Unless they're very bad corrugations, then they'll shake you to bits regardless of what speed you're going! (I've only struck corrugations like these a few times though) Usually, we let our tyres down & hit the dirt - get up to about 80kmh & stay there where possible. But..... the road usually constantly changes. I try to dodge any bad spots on the road & I pull about 20-30 metres off dirt roads when I see a Road Train approaching & let them pass.

Personally, I really enjoy dirt road travel! Its no biggie if you are prepared.