Simpson westbound in a 79 — what I would change next time
Ran Birdsville toward Dalhousie in late August. Permits were current when we left; I still checked the desert parks page the morning we rolled because a wind event had closed a dune section two seasons back and I did not want to be the person who “heard it was fine”.
The 79 on 33s at touring pressures felt busy on the east-west corrugations. I dropped a little once the surface went to powder, then aired up again before the rocky approaches. No invented PSI here — I wrote the tyre pressure starting bands on the visor and treated them as a conversation with the tyre, not a rule.
What I would change: one more day of water than I thought I needed, a second UHF handset that actually lived in the passenger footwell, and fewer “maybe useful” kitchen bits. Recovery stayed in the tray and stayed unused, which is the correct outcome.
Happy to answer setup questions. Not happy to nominate a #1 tyre.