B-LINE FOR BIRDSVILLE

This page is under construction. There are design changes that should speed up the delivery of text and images. Please note the email address for the editor will change during the period of construction as well. Urgent enquirers are encouraged to call me on my mobile (0415 260 221) until the updates are completed.

The URL address also may change during this time although the site will be painlessly linked when that happens. Your patronage and consideration over the years is valued and I hope you continue browsing through my stories about the opening up of the Simpson Desert to every-day travellers. Contributions are welcomed. Please expect that it will take some more time for me to place and upload the recent material kindly provided by Simpson Desert old hands and admirers.

Click on the photo of Reg Sprigg to enlarge it. Reg and his family were the first to drive across the Simpson Desert in 1962 (rs1248.jpg).

REG SPRIGG WAS
FIRST TO
DRIVE THE DESERT

DESERT DIGEST

Cashbook and Claypan
Share in the tribulations of the admin manager as he balances the books from his Office-in-a-Blitz

Birdsville or Bust
Learn how French know-how and Australian muscle carved the French Line through the Simpson

East From Oodna
Marvel at the initiative of the early pathfinders who solved the mysteries of the Red Centre

Alive in the Dead Heart
Recollections from the crew who first burst the road through Australia's One True Desert

B-line for Birdsville
Join the CGG veterans on their return journeys to the French Line. Take their tip and travel with experts

(Under Construction)

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The Simpson Desert Bandwagon

Everyone is Climbing Aboard

What is Involved - How Might You Make it Across?

Many experienced touring companies conduct tag-alongs and fully-catered tours specialising in Simpson crossings as well as other exciting routes on the Australian map. Links to some of these operators appear on the side-bars within this French Line site. I have chosen these links because I know the operators personally or have good reports about them. New chums to 4WDriving will do well to begin outback touring with totally-supportive outfits such as these.

On the more demanding off-road targets that drivers aspire to in outback Australia, it makes sense to travel with experts for the first time, at any rate. Irrespective of the quality of the planning and preparation undertaken by the solo traveller going it alone or with a mate, there's nothing so confidence-boosting and downright smart as following in the wheeltracks of those who know the route and the pitfalls and most crucially, the means to bounce back when recovery is on the cards.

LINK TO THESE DIGESTS FROM THIS PAGE

For the most ambitious and daunting prospect in Australian onshore seismic exploration yet attempted, French Petroleum chose Compagnie Generale de Geophysique (CGG) to break through and conduct the geophysical survey of the Simpson Desert. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. Birdsville is Australia's last remaining frontier town, straddled at the head of the famed Birdsville Track and the eastern gateway to the enigmatic Simpson Desert. Marooned by floodwaters for up to three months every year, the people of the tiny Channel Country outpost have long been reliant on air transport to get supplies through. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. Camelback explorers David Lindsay (1886), Edmund Colson (1936) and Cecil Madigan (1939) all chose to begin their confrontation with the Simpson Desert from the western side, as did the first man game to attack the desert by motor vehicle, Reg Sprigg, who headed east and gallivanted through with his family in 1962. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. The French Line began as CGG Party S6507's bulldozed 'Line B' at Dalhousie Springs in South Australia on July 1st 1963 and ended at Poeppels Corner at the tri-State border two months later. In another month they had reached Eyre Creek. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. Join the CGG veterans on their return journeys to the French Line. Take their tip and travel with experts. One such expert is Vic Widman who runs Great Divide Tours

Vic Rules
OK Local Traders 35th Anniversary
Crossing Back Again
in 2003 Tag-alongs
And Tours

GONE TO MOTHBALLS .....	Thommo's Desert Report - Part A	The BeeGees Page
	Thommo's Desert Report - Part B	The Kid From Towra Point
	Bulldozing a Desert	Trans National Causeway
	Signwriter for the Simpson	The Long Haul
	Simpson Desert Birdlife	French Line Circa 1979

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Vic Rules OK	Local Traders	35th Anniversary Crossing	Back Again in 2003	Tag-alongs And Tours