Counting Sand Dunes in the Simpson Desert

A Ranger Super Duty development trip across Australia’s Simpson Desert turned into an informal attempt to count its parallel dunes. The team drove the route fully loaded with passengers, camping equipment, water, fuel, tools and spares, and assigned a navigator in one vehicle to keep a tally. Counting proved less straightforward than expected: ridges often break into smaller humps, so the group agreed to count only clearly defined ridgelines rather than every rise in the sand. The task also passed between passengers as they rotated vehicles, and the rough ride sometimes made writing impossible. One improvised technique was to count five dunes at a time and mark the total on the vehicle’s ceiling.

The group’s final estimate was about 797 dunes between Birdsville and Mount Dare, rather than the commonly cited figure of roughly 1,100. The number is approximate because dunes fade, re-form and vary by track; farther west, they become smaller and more frequent, making them harder to tally. The team travelled east to west, a more demanding direction because the steeper, softer dune faces are shaped by prevailing winds. Their direct route was about 590 kilometres, though extra dune runs and repeated climbs at Big Red added distance. They completed the crossing with fuel to spare, after four nights of camping and cooking. The account uses the counting experiment to show how a playful idea became a practical challenge in the desert.