Birdsville Races by caravan.

Yes!

You can do almost anything with the right amount of care...

Enjoy, Baz - The Landy

There can be heavy gravel that will trash unprotected pips and wires underneath.

It's a pretty decent wide dirt road with some patches of loose rocks that can be sharp. If it rains then that's a different story.

Met a silver haired couple at Innamincka in Nov.'15, with a small Jeep and a pop top bogie axle van. They were heading up the Cameron Corner road. Never heard how they got on. They said the road through Cameron's Corner was excellent.

Might be as good to travel up through Arrabury?

Edit: Made a mistake above Ron. That couple travelled up the Cordillo Downs road, while I travelled up the Arrabury road, the same day.

Bob

Ron

You will have no problems , just take it easy .


Cheers

Agree with the sentiment expressed her regarding "taking it easy". One of the most important and often overlooked aspects is tyre pressures. Too high and you are more likely the get damage, too low and too much speed and the same result. If you do manage tyre pressures don't forget a good compressor and at every stop check tyre temperatures.
The other issue is that with a rough dirt road things can vibrate loose in the caravan. However, the essential message is keep your speed down and all should be good.
Make sure you check out camping options in Birdsville well in advance. It does get extremely busy up that way. We did the Big Red Bash last year and with 6500 people in Birdsville even fuel supplies become an issue.

Hi Ron

Providing that you are well prepared, you should have no problems at all. The Birdsville Track is a great drive and plan on doing it over 2 days, the first stop at Mungeranie which is a great stop, and then an easy drive the next day to Birdsville. If coming up that way, a must stop over is at the great campgrounds at Farina, and allow a 2 night stop there.

The only issue is flying stones that will hit your van and could bounce back and break the rear window on your vehicle. To prevent this, I can thoroughly recommend the Stone Stomper by Christian in Glenelg South Australia.

He can tailor make them to suit any vehicle/car combo and it will be a very good investment and will stop your van from getting stone blasted. The only other thing that I would pay major attention to is the location of water hoses and wiring that is exposed under your van.

Last year when we arrived at Marree, a chap in a stock standard road van was under him van trying to fix a major breakage under his van where the main hose comes from the outlet of his water tank, it was smashed off with rocks from travelling and he had lost all his water.

A simple stone guard will fix that and apart from that he had no problems at all.

Enjoy your trip, take your time and stop at the many features along this iconic drive and you will have an enjoyable trip.....providing it is dry. If it is wet, then steer clear of the area.



Cheers


Stephen

I've done most of the roads in that area with a Forester and light camper trailer (even when open to 4WD only), and later a with a 4WD and heavier trailer. Can recommend the Corner country for its historical and nature interest.

A Tib local gave good advice on my first venture out there: 'You can get anywhere in this country if you're prepared to stop'.

That's about rain closures but also about staying within the limits of the rig you have. Rain can shut the roads for a few days so you need to be flexible with your itinerary.

So Tib to Cameron Corner gets chopped up a bit; after that the run to the Strez is pretty good.Innamincka north to the Development Rd via Adventure Way and Arrabury can have some pretty good corrugations, heavy gravel and gibber in places. So just air down and keep your speed under 80 and you should be right.

According to Neale McShane*, former Birdsville cop, the standard vehicle accident out there is the roll-over. Drivers get in a slide and don't know how to recover. In a panic they hit the brakes.

Standard failures with trailers are wheel bearings and electrics. So repack your bearings before you go. I find mine need this about every 10,000 kms.Check your wheel nuts every day. Electrics suffer from vibration and dust. Go over everything to make sure the connections are clean and tight. Cable-tie together the Anderson connectors at the tow bar in the charge circuit. Take spare fuses and connectors and a continuity tester or multi-meter.

If there's an Avan forum I'd be asking there about common weaknesses in rough-road performance.

Having planned for failure most likely it'll all go without a hitch.

*(writing in the book Outback Cop).

We did Birdsville in 2015 with a 17' Big Red off road. A stone hit the only unprotected plastic elbow, so lost all our water.
Try and get to the races at least 4 days early, so less traffic and leave a few days later. You will then miss most of the people travelling to fast to get to and from the races.
I let my tyres down to 28 psi but would go a little lower next time. That is tug and van. We have a stone stomper which protected the van.
We got a few deep stone hits from stones going over the top of the cruiser. This was from people roaring past us in both direction, travelling too fast. You will see plenty of idiots on your travels.
Our van is very well proctected underneath.
Drive to a speed that you are comfortable with.

Bin there done that and doing it again tyres and speed down around 60 70 or less not an issue.