So after talking to people and gathering information on current conditions I decided to cross the Simpson Desert via the French Line. The line was built by the French Petroleum company in 1962 as part of their oil exploration efforts in the Great Artesian Basin. The track is the most direct route across the desert and traverses directly across the tops of over 1200 red sand dunes and is nothing more that wheel tracks in the sand and tyres ruts over dunes, however nowadays its reasonably busy and at this time of year you can expect to see at least one vehicle per day. The desert is closed from December through to March every year when the temperatures gets extreme and vehicles start to breakdown in the heat, rangers have officially recorded 50c in the shade but locals will tell you it can get up to 60c in the shade, whether you believe this or not is up to you. The desert is one of the most arid in the world and the driest place in Australia which can hope for 15cm of rain per year if it&rsquo;s lucky. The track is 550km between fuel and water stops between Birdsville at the East side to Mount Dare on the West. If you&rsquo;re interested in more history and details of this track then check out the website http://www.exploroz.com/TrekNotes/Deserts/Simpson_Desert_French_Line.aspx. This page on the French Line gave me the inspiration for this crossing. I&rsquo;m doing it in the reverse direction to what is laid out, which is fine but it is more difficult traversing the desert from east to west because of the way the dunes are formed. The Simpson is the largest dune desert in the world and is all parallel dunes 300 &ndash; 500km long running north-south created by the consistent south-westerly wind and this means the east side of the dunes are steeper and more difficult to climb with 4WDs. To attempt this crossing you need an equipped heavy 4WD with plenty of extra fuel, water and a powerful UHF CB Radio and ideally a satellite phone or emergency GPS rescue beacon. In retrospect I should have hired a satellite phone and if I come back here I certainly will next time. They are quite costly and I wasn&rsquo;t planning on venturing far from the relatively busy track but would have been nice for the added security. I already knew that if I had a mechanical breakdown I would be hitching out of the desert as the cost of recovery would total more than 3 times my vehicles value!