Whilst Australia is full wonderful landscapes and terrains, it hard to deny the vast endlessness encountered, when hitting the long and open desert tracks, and nothing quite like the ultra-fine bull dust that seems to find it’s way deep into every crack, nook and cranny within your 4WD clothing, bedding, and up your nose and in your ears.

If you are fortunate enough to have never experienced the perils of bull dust, it resembles a rust colored talcum powder, and whilst it can find any small crack in your weather seals, it presents us with a slightly more serious obstruction whilst touring long and far.

Because of its fine powdery consistency, and unpredictable depth, keeping control, particularly at speed will have you at the edge of your seat for hours at a time. Driving through bull dust gives a loose and skiddy sensation, similar to driving at fast pace on ice or drifting on a skidpan and offers little respite until you drop your speed right down.

Some enjoy the sensation of balancing the fine line of control and chaos, for the rest of us, the risks of losing control and coming up worse for wear are fairly off-putting prospects for the newbie to desert driving!

So here are our top tips for keeping it rubber side and out of the ditch on the great bull dust tracks across Australia;

If you are approaching a bull dust patch sitting over the track you may not even be able to recognize it, as it looks solid and stable enough to drive over, however in time you will learn to recognize these patches from a mile away. The best course of action when driving through shallow bulldust puddles is to keep your steering and speed steady with your vehicle engaged in 4WD hi range, no worries.

In other situations you might find the bull dust to be seriously deep, presenting you with more trouble than you were expecting, whilst on any other super soft surface, the objective is to keep your momentum up so that your vehicle ‘floats’ across the surface easily, so the surface won’t bog down your vehicle as you loose your momentum, however the soft is generally ended abruptly with a hard packed edge, similar to a mud puddle, which if you hit it at a fast pace, may result in some serious damage, with bent rims, a burst tyre or even damaging your suspension or chassis with the dramatic impact that can occur, so travelling slow.

If you are travelling in bull dust country, it seriously pays to keep an eye out for a handful of signs that you may have to slow right down for, when approaching a bull dust patch, you will see the ruts up ahead disappear, and no sign of vehicles passing up ahead, for this reason, you should slow down and have a squizz to see exactly what the track is doing, how far the dust goes how deep it is and exactly what your course of action might be.

When assessing the patch of bull dust keep an eye out for broken bits of vehicles that have travelled through the patch before you, this will give an indication of what you are up against.

If you haven’t got a course around the patch of dust, you should drop your tyres down to around 16-18psi with your Adventure Kings Kwiky Tyre Deflator. Engage your locking hubs, change to 4WD high range, turn your lights to low beam (use your flood lights if you have them fitted).

The driving technique of driving through the soft stuff is to keep your pace rolling but not being too excessive, by staying below 70km/h or so you should maintain plenty of control without being thrown around too dramatically, with minimal steering inputs you should try to keep your vehicle pointed at the far side of the dust, whilst keeping plenty of distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.
With great caution taken, you will have made it to the other side, so you will probably want to increase your air pressures back up to highway pressures, this is where it pays to carry a fast working air compressor like the Thumper MAX, or Thumper MKII whenever the convoy has to air up, there is always a race to be the first up to pressure, and there isn’t much else on the market that can compete with its massive output.

When you return to civilization (or camp) a thorough check over of your vehicle will ensure that you haven’t broken anything, make sure you check your suspension components and all four tyres to make sure you haven’t damaged your tyres at all. Make sure all your fluids are up to the recommended levels and that you check your vehicles air filters. Bull Dust can wreak havoc on your filters, pull it out give it a shake to clean it out, and replace it if necessary.

Another way to make sure your engine is performing at its best is by employing an Engine Data Scan to help you keep an eye on all your sensors readouts making sure everything is running smoothly!

By taking caution when hitting the desert trails, you will be rewarded with an excellent trip away, night skies that are unbeatable, and open country that is more spectacular than can be put into words.