17-Day Simpson Desert Expedition: Alice Springs to Birdsville via the Madigan Line - Britz

Sixteen nights and 1,100 kilometres from Alice Springs to Birdsville in a 4WD camper, across the Simpson Desert on the Madigan Line. It is the most remote itinerary in the Britz range.

Old Andado Station comes first, a cattle station on the western edge of the desert with the original homestead preserved, and from there the route follows the line Cecil Madigan surveyed in 1939, camping at his numbered sites as it goes.

The Simpson is a sand ridge desert: something over a thousand parallel dunes running north to south, which means a crossing from west to east goes over them rather than between them, and that is the whole character of the driving. Eyre Creek follows, then Little Red and Big Red on the eastern side, the last and largest dunes before Birdsville and the ones that defeat a good proportion of the vehicles that attempt them.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. The daily distances are short and there is nothing whatever in between, which is why this takes seventeen days rather than five. A desert parks pass, a second vehicle in company, sand flags, recovery gear and far more water and fuel than the distance suggests are all standard requirements out here, and the crossing is closed through the summer months. The Madigan Line is the harder of the two routes across the Simpson, well north of the French Line most crossings use, and it sees a handful of vehicles a season rather than a handful a day.