Bushwalk Australia

In March or April of 2019
We may or may not be taking the small trailer for the gear.
I'm just wondering how much extra gear for the car I need to plan for not having driven in the Centre for several decades. I know the road is bitumen sealed all the way and the Kia is new so I don't feel the need to buy a second full sized spare but the vehicles fuel tank is quite small for the size of the car and range is only 700/750 klicks when fully laden and/or towing and using the air-conditioner on high.
In my youth I would never have left town without a full 1000klicks of worst case fuel in the ute and a weeks supply of drinking water for 2
However given the amount of traffic on the road these days and the reliability of modern cars I am questioning my old thinking. Would 10 litres of diesel be sufficient reserve these days? The Kia gets about 12 klicks per litre working hard and about 15 when not fully loaded. Asking because while I have plenty of jerry cans they are all painted red for petrol and in this instance I'm prepared to buy new Yellow plastic units and there is little price difference between a 10 and a 20 litre container but the bigger one takes up double the space and space is limited if we don't take the trailer

A quick google search and found this Moondog. Has some info on fuel/distance/stops...

http://traveloutbackaustralia.com/drivi ... ings.html/

It's a lot more civilised out there than it used to be. I wouldn't worry about carrying spare fuel, just fill up as required given that (from memory) the road houses are about 200km apart and there is plenty of traffic. 20 litres of water should be ample.

Depends on the route to some extent.
I'm much like you and would always carry at least two jerries of fuel and 40l of water, but most people don't bother.

Mark I'd always carry 5l for a signal beacon, if we don't need more tho I guess the same goes for all the recovery gear we used to carry around. If we take the trailer I might then add in at least 10 litres but no more

In a small Kia you are not going to be off the black top so not much different to driving up the Hume to Sydney. The thing I learnt was to potter along at around 90-100kph and not try to imitate the Cannonball Run - helps with the fuel economy, limits overheating of the tyres etc. I also did a heap of dirt road/4wd track driving in my Forester again quite slowly - a loop around the East McDonalds (Box Hole Crater, Tower Rock, Binns Track, Arltunga, N'Dhala Gorge) Then Roma Gorge, Mereenie Loop, Painted Desert and Oodnadatta Track, Arkaroola and though to Broken Hill. For this you do need spare tyres, snatch straps, spare engine hoses, plenty of water, emergency communications etc. although I only had one puncture.

New Sorrento so pretty big; Cecile won't want to leave the bitumen but I'd be happy to duplicate that route Mark

It's probably autocorrect, but they're the East MacDonnells.
That's the second time today I've come across that particular misspelling.

I'll second what MarkF said. If you wouldn't take spare fuel on the Hume Hwy, don't take it to Uluru. It's just clutter.

But I do take a jerry can up the Hume, well at least when going up thesnow.

The longest stretch between fuel stops is Glendambo-Coober Pedy, around 250km.

Some of the tap water at roadhouses/campgrounds, if you're planning to use them, is a bit ordinary. Glendambo from memory used to be quite salty. And you might find there's limited access to taps where you can fill up a large container. So to avoid buying water at exorbitant prices, it may pay to take some extra.

Aside from that..... you'll be disappointed at how "crowded" the route is these days.

Other people have warned me to expect crowds but that seems to be Australia all over just now. We had planned to take a large water filter but that won't help with the salt problem. When I lived in Adelaide we often bought bottled water in summer because of the heavy salt and chlorine load , Nothing was as good as tea made with pure water when compared to the thin mud coming out of the taps there in the middle of summer.
OK A few extra cardboard cartons of water added to the shopping list

Personally I would add Kings Canyon to your trip even if it means a day or two less spent at Uluru seeing you are in the area. We did 3 days/4 nights at Uluru getting maximum value out of the 3 day pass. The Rim walk at Kings Canyon was my favourite with Kata Tjuta second although Uluru was also wonderful.

A decade and a bit back I drove the family in a campervan from Alice to Uluru and back. Roads where good all the way. Just to be safe I didn't let the fuel gauge get below 1/2 but this was over cautious, as mentioned earlier you are never more than a couple of hundred k's from a fuel stop.

Always crowds at Uluru and lots of big Dingoes hanging around the camp ground so put your food away at night. Didn't have any problems with the water at Yulara, I believe it is all bore water. Boil water if you want to, we didn't and none of us died.

Mark F wrote:Personally I would add Kings Canyon to your trip even if it means a day or two less spent at Uluru seeing you are in the area. We did 3 days/4 nights at Uluru getting maximum value out of the 3 day pass. The Rim walk at Kings Canyon was my favourite with Kata Tjuta second although Uluru was also wonderful.

Yes, Watarrka is worth the extra distance, and you can go from there to Alice via the West Macs. While the Mereenie Loop road is gravel, it's generally in reasonable condition.

The water filter I mentioned is a Brita, for taste reasons not because I'd be worried about bio-contamination. We will be taking along a trailer for this trip, mainly so we can put in the comfortable chairs and take along a decent sized stove for cooking.
Not sure yet about the timing, fast drive there and dawdle back would be my preferred but we only have 2 weeks