What's the go for driving through bulldust?

Anthony,
your biggest worry is what is under the, always large potholes or severe corrugation's, nothing worse than coming over a hill and finding a sharp bend or narrow bridge, you try to wash off speed but all you do is bounce over the tops of the unseen corrugation's.

In my book slow and steady wins the race, also the dust is very, very fine.

Have a good one

Momentum is the key,stick it in 4H,and keep moving,well thats what i've done in the past, Dust Holes up to 200 m wide i have experianced and that was up around New Crown Stn goin into the Finke communitiy,just have to be carefull of the ruts at the bottom of the bull dust hole so do'nt go to quick.cheer's GREENDOG

My advice is drive with care. Years ago we nearly rolled our Toyota on the Henbury - Kings Canyon road. We went round a bend and the outside wheels hit a deep rut that was filled with dulldust. The car dropped about a foot on one side and lurched up in the air. Me & the missus nearly bleep ! You never know whats under it till you get in it.

Louie

Keep the windows wound up ;-)

Anthony

This was the Connie Sue in 2007

it's up to 40 meters wide for a k or 2 and around 8 to 10 inches deep

Image Could Not Be Found

Image Could Not Be Found

Image Could Not Be Found

I've never seen that bad it was coming over the bonnet like a bow wave, and I only travel at 20 km/hr.. :-)

Cheers

Richard

I would further add to have your air on recycle, not fresh from outside. I recall hitting a deep patch in Victoria and had a lovely stream of brown talcum powder flying into the cabin in a torrent before I was able to switch the air to recycled.
The whole cabin was coated with the stuff that took a good morning of work to clean up.

Funny to watch, though!!

Jack

Anthony

Bull dust holes have all sorts of configurations, so no single rule applies.

A long shallow hole requires some measure of momentum, and the car can be thrown around a bit.

The worse ones in my view are the deep buggars, which may only be 20-50m long. The first thing that happens is a compete obliteration of view. All of a sudden you won’t be able to see anything for a number of seconds.

Some of them have what I call Bull Dust Cliffs. This is where the dust bowl meets solid ground again.

Sometimes they can be up to 12” high and you can imagine what happens to the front suspension when these are hit at any speed.

The last one I came across was on Halligans Track back in 2002 and I finished up losing a tooth.

Regards

Kim

I try to give bulldust patches a miss

Got caught out around a corner on the Old Andado Road a couple of years ago. Was only doing about 70kmh. Dust slid like rain down the windscreen and we had a total blackout (brownout?..lol). After that I took to the bush until the next grid came up.


Cheers

Just like you can't see how deep a bog hole is, you can't tell what's under bulldust either so one needs to slow down to avoid dust coming over the window or rolling the vehicle in ruts. Deep holes like below can usually be tackled in 2nd gear. I haven't found the radiator to blockup despite many km's of roads like this but the main concern is obviously the air cleaner. A cyclonic pre cleaner on the snorkel is a good investment if often doing this type of track. One finds on higher speed roads like the Plenty Highway that short deep bulldust holes form in places up to 500 deep & feels like the suspension is going to be torn off the car when you take a chance & don't slow down.
Cheers Craig................

momentum gets you into trouble.

Torque drives you through it.


sooo, slow down and be in a strong torque range.

as everyone has said, teh bull dust itself is not a major obstacle, but it does a great job of hiding other ones,

Good replies above.
Worst I have seen is on the Plenty, most probably the same Georgina River clay as the Donohue.
It is fine, if not finer than talcum powder.
First small patch we hit a bit fast (50km/hr) and it was like water, went over the car (grey out) and tricked down the outside of the windows. Kids thought it was great.
Up to then had only seen small patches on roads.
It was as deep as the bottom of the bull bar in places.
Dropped down to 1st gear and took it careful after that.

Patches over 50m across, and potholes in the bottom.

Friend decided to go around it. He kept going left and ended up where he started! Drove through it in the end.

Pushing through, it feels lighter than water.

Believe me it is Hell 2up on a motor bike, 10L water, 10L fuel + gear for touring for 3 months.
Biceps had muscles on muscles after the Gibb R Road in '76.

As Oldplodder said .... there are good replies above.

Thank you all for the tips and good advice in tackling the old bulldust.

cheers Anthony

When we did the Plenty Highway last it was a corrugated mess with lots of bulldust holes. They were mustering in the district so there were many stock road trains also. We were towing the van pictured below so each bulldust hole was treated with a GREAT deal of respect even to engaging low range on one very deep hole that covered the entire road for nearly 500mtrs. It was akin to driving thru deep water. Had the air on recycle and air con on.
We had no trouble and when we camped near Jervoise station made sure I shook both van and Nissan before setting up camp. This was done by giving each end a violent shove and then running very quickly out of range from the dust.
At other times I have crossed the Plenty without a problem as it has been a good gravell road after grading.
Oh and make sure that you reduce all tyre pressures and travell slowly, after all you are a long time dead.

..

..

...