The first 500 sand dunes of the Simpson Desert are punishing enough.
The first 500 sand dunes of the Simpson Desert are punishing enough.
Then there’s the realisation there are yet more remaining, ranging in height from a few metres to more than 40. It sounds worse than it is; the Simpson Desert is not difficult in terms of off-roading.
Any capable four-wheel-drive can traverse the seemingly never-ending collection of the world’s longest collection of parallel sand dunes.
But there is no short-cut over the Simpson. The steady 20km/h grind is by far the slowest, most laborious part of our 7000-kilometre trek across Australia, a journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the enduring Toyota LandCruiser.
Chosen as the ultimate test of Australia’s most popular 4WD - more than 500,000 LandCruisers have been sold there since the first 22 came into the country in 1958 - the journey covers all mainland states except Victoria, while spending a couple of thousand kilometres in the Northern Territory.
Starting in Sydney, our route heads north-west, taking in dirt roads such as the Strzelecki, Birdsville and Tanami tracks as well as the Old Ghan railway line.
It also crosses the world’s oldest river, the Finke, and visits such Australian icons as Uluru, Kata Tjuta and the Kimberley region.
As well as an adventure, it’s also the ultimate torture test for a car; punishing corrugations, flooded roads, rocky dry creek beds and thousands of kilometres of red dirt. And the Simpson Desert.
The journey will test the mettle of a vehicle that’s a very different beast to the industrial trucks that moulded the LandCruiser image and helped forge what is a legend to many, an irrelevant family wagon to others.
Over its nine iterations, the LandCruiser has never been bigger and heavier, nor as expensive as the latest 200-Series. The starting price in Australia of a Toyota LandCruiser wagon - rather than the more utilitarian 70-Series - exceeds A$70,000 ($NZ89,000), plus on-road costs. The diesel engine adds A$10,000 while the most expensive, leather-trimmed Sahara, is closer to $110,000. There’s even a luxury Lexus variant, the LX570, above that.
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