The Red Centre 2022

  I use a drone for landscape images where I can't get the image I am looking for from my land based camera setup.  I cater for the small sensor by stacking images and building HDR and HDR Panorama images from raw images in Adobe Camera Raw.  It is surprising how good the images can turn out - just need to follow the golden rule of no cropping so get your image right before you take the shot. I went to grab my old DJI Mavic Mini Air which is in great working order and was very surprised to find out that the drone is no longer supported by DJI and none of their software works on my phone so I couldn't fly the drone.  I did pay and download a third party product which still allowed me to fly the drone but with a big trip coming up, I decided to go down the forced upgrade path. To be honest, I am liking the new upgrade and whilst I didn't relish the cost of upgrading it has ended up being a good thing.  In addition to taking photos which have a number of improvemen...

  So remote travel is a fantastic experience but what do you take to ensure that if you do get into trouble that you have an exit strategy? Winch Never used a winch whilst 4WDing.  I do carry a manual hand winch which I have a lot of experience using as I do a lot of tree felling and lantana clearing around my property and the hand winch comes in very handy.  I have a manual winch as the cranking amps of the standard battery is about half what is required to run an electronic winch and whilst I have seen the footprint size of lithium battery with high cranking amps coming down - I would still need to do a number of mods to get the battery to fit. The other reason is with a manual winch, I can pull from any angle (given a suitable anchor point).  The down side to a manual winch is that they are slow - but if you are stuck out somewhere by yourself, it could be the device that makes the difference between making the news and continuing on your travels. Max Tracks I car...

 I have come from a sea kayaking background where we would undertake remote 3-4 week unsupported trips into the wilderness - in this case, island hopping around the east coast of Australia.  This has taught me the artform of making the most of every available space. Packing a Jimny is like packing a seakayak - the same principles apply.  Keep your heavy gear down low, keep your gear to a minimum, and ensure you have room for your camera gear and an ability to be off-grid for the whole trip. A key for packing is around your ability to cover your needs between resupply points, in this case for food, water, fuel and wine - not necessarily in order of importance 😉 No need for dehydrated food on these trips!  Though I do have some dehydrated food packs for emergency situations to cover a few days if required.  Having a fridge means that fresh food doesn't mean you have to catch a feed along the way! To the left of the fridge I have a single burner stove, tools, spar...

New shiny manual locking hubs!  In a move to eliminate possible points of failure in 4WD selection, I have replaced the factory vacuum hubs. I have had the vacuum hubs fail on occasion and even though the Jimny is brilliant on the sand, I would rather have 4WD being available when I need it - especially when crossing a Sand Desert with 1100 odd sand dunes. Unfortunately, the vacuum solenoid can't be taken out of the system and needs to be tricked so the rest of the electronics don't report a fault.  This means that the vacuum hose are no longer a potential issue, we still have the electronic vacuum solenoid switch and the 4WD selector switch on the transfer case to contend with. I am having a slight fault in the system where the car engine needs to be warm before the 4WD selector registers that the vehicle is in 4WD.  I am assuming that this fault is in the vacuum solenoid given I have replaced the selector on the transfer case so I will replace the vacuum solenoid as we ...

 Most of the gear I have is from my lightweight camping days with the exception of the Pop-up Oztent RV2 which weighs in around 22kgs but is a 30 second setup and high enough that you can sort of stand up in which is great for knees that have been around for a while! We have added a shower/toilet tent and a shower and a toilet - yep it all fits.  The thunderbox flat packs and will be carried on the roof (the hessian sack in the photo).  The shower is a wonderful invention - after camping and trying to heat water on open fires or in the jetboil - we can now flick the switch and instant (sort of) hot water happens.  This will be great when we are camping near waterholes on the trip and is something we have used regularly in a Renault Van that we have decked out for luxurious camping trips when we don't need a 4WD. Given I switched the roof basket over for a roof tray, I purchased a waterproof bag for all our bedding and clothes etc. The weight of gear on the roof would...

  The Jimny's engine had done over 270K without missing a beat but I thought I would play it safe and look at my options.  I ended up upgrading from the m13a to a m15a to allow for the extra work I would be putting the vehicle through.  I am really happy with the upgrade and the additional power for the type of work that the car does. I built a frame in the back of the car for our 2020 trip and gave this an upgrade based on some of the learnings from our first trip - I have added some non-slip carpet and have added a top shelf to the unit which sits above the fridge to the roof.  This can hold a lot of light weight gear such as food etc, allowing the drawer to be used for heavier food items and drinks etc. The travel buddy (that's the 12volt oven on the right) now sits on a sliding platform which has storage space for pans etc behind the oven. Behind this space is the second battery, a 120amp lithium battery which runs the fridge, oven, lights, 2-way, chargers, etc. ...

  This is a picture of my 2007 Jimny after climbing Big Red in August 2020.  Covid had brought the nation to a stand still, borders were shut, people were panicking, toilet paper was the new gold and we needed a holiday. Our holiday planing started with working out which borders were open to which states and it seemed the only two borders that had opened to each other that we could get access to was South Australia and Queensland - so a plan was hatched to do a solo trip across the Simpson Desert, east to west and then turn left and traverse South Australia to Kangaroo Island, returning via the Flinders Ranges and then across the Strezlecki Desert to Innaminka and back home. Two years on and the planning is well underway for another trip across the Simpson Desert - this time heading a bit north and west to visit the Red Centre of Australia.