The biggest mistakes to avoid on an outback road trip

Steve Madgwick has made the outback road trip blunders so you don’t have to…

It’s lucky no one can hear you swear halfway along the Oodnadatta Track. I gingerly shimmy under the stricken Nissan Patrol for my third attempt to jack it up on the soft track. The passenger-side rear tyre has a gaping hole in it, thanks to a sharp rock that must have been lurking under the red dirt.

This was my first ‘real’ middle-of-nowhere outback road trip, last decade. The 4WD had threatened to fall on me twice as I tried to raise it. I hadn’t seen another vehicle in hours. And I knew that even if I did manage to change the wheel before wedge-tailed eagles snacked on my entrails, I would be sans spare tyre for the next few hundred kilometres.

Be prepared before you set off with ample provisions and knowledge. (Image: Maxime Coquard)

It’s obvious now that my hour-long obscenity-fest was driven by fear and should have been directed at my own ineptitude, complacency and ill-preparedness instead of inanimate objects. But lessons were learned.

Don’t learn the hard way if you don’t have to

My Oodnadatta Track shemozzle boils down to two factors. Number one: I ignored advice from locals and people who had gone before me. Number two: I began my journey with niggling, unanswered questions.

See the Ochre Cliffs of the Oodnadatta Track. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

If I’d deflated my tyres appropriately for that section of track – as advised by a servo attendant and bush-hotel publican the day before – they would have been much more likely to ‘spread’ than shred.

The 4WD rental company had offered to give me a thorough once-over of the vehicle and its features, but I’d man-bluffed my way through: “I’ll work it out if I need to.” (It took me 10 minutes just to find and extract the jack from under a seat.)

Condition your vehicle before navigating the rough terrain. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

I’d also left Adelaide still wondering to myself if I would need a second spare tyre and tyre pressure gauge. Fail. Fail. Fail. Recently, I applied lessons learned from the Oodnadatta Track and other outback near-misses to my most challenging road trip yet: a 2000-kilometre drive from Adelaide to Birdsville, via the Strzelecki Track and smaller, remote roads.

Coincidentally, I picked up my rental Toyota HiLux from the same place in Adelaide, but this time I owned my ignorance and popped all niggling thought bubbles. Naturally, I’d pre-ordered a second spare wheel and tyre gauge. I’d also rented a satellite phone because I’d had pre-trip daymares about the consequences of taking a simple but life-changing wrong turn and/or rolling the 4WD 500 kilometres from assistance.

Driving the rugged roads of the South Australian outback. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Stock up on old-school maps and a compass

I now treat outback journeys as analog rather than digital experiences. You simply cannot trust the internet to save your frying bacon out in the boondocks, especially if Telstra is not your service provider. Any country boy or girl worth their salt won’t trust Google Maps once the tarmac ends (even pre-downloading the maps).

It’s a long drive between stops on the Oodnadatta Track. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

Consider buying/hiring a dedicated GPS navigator (Navman, Garmin or Hema, for example) or even stocking up on old-school maps and a compass (and learn how to use them). Deferring to local knowledge extends to chinwagging with oncoming drivers – because they have been where you want to go.

Prepare for a desert road-trippin’. (Image: Jonathan Cami)

Do your research

On side tracks especially, I stopped and swapped anecdotes on upcoming track conditions, badly signed turn-offs and opening hours of fuel stops (which I’d already researched). I chatted about tyre pressure like pensioners converse about the weather. There are various schools of thought regarding when you should/shouldn’t deflate tyres to reduce the chance of a flat and increase your purchase in sand.

Suffice to say, this should be a well-researched decision that can be re-confirmed with your local peers, just as you drive headlong towards that gnarly sandy section or crawl across that naturally booby-trapped dry creek bed. Ultimately, the best advice I can offer is to read much, much more than just this when planning a jaunt along the Birdsville Track, Gibb River Road et al.

Embrace being a beginner; trawl 4WD blogs and gear review sites; dive deeply into YouTube wormholes on soft-sand driving techniques, tyre-pressure tutorials and low-range gear masterclasses. Never, ever be left wondering, “What does this button do?” You can’t bluff your way out of strife in the outback. But with some solid prep work, any foul-mouthed fool can do it. I am living proof of that.

The distinctive rock wallabies reside in the outback. (Image: Jonathan Cami)

Last-minute tips and reminders

• Carry plenty of drinking water (three litres per person per day, as a guide).
• Buy in bulk beforehand.
• Check current and recent weather conditions. As a rule, don’t plan outback trips in peak summer or after heavy rain.
• Never cross a flooding river.
• Tell someone where you are going and when you’re due to arrive. Update them about sudden itinerary changes.
• Take your sweet time and drive to the conditions. The outback can quickly turn small mistakes into serious ones.
• Give road trains a very wide berth, at least for your windscreen’s sake.
• Pack a ‘what-if ’ kit for longer trips: basic spares, jerry can, first-aid kit etc.