Queensland Parks is admirably blunt about this place: there are no walking trails, and you are advised not to leave your vehicle unattended. The main route is the QAA Line, a sandy survey track that runs west from the Birdsville side toward Poeppel Corner, where Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory meet at a single surveyed post. The dunes here typically stand 10 to 35 metres high, occasionally reaching 50, and they march in parallel ridges roughly a kilometre apart, so that crossing the desert means climbing and descending hundreds of them in succession. It is slow, physical driving, and it is the entire point of coming.

There is nothing to buy inside the park. No fuel, no water, no food, no signal you can count on. Birdsville, about an hour to the east, is your last reliable resupply, and it should be treated as such. Camping is permitted only along the QAA Line corridor, and there are no facilities of any kind, so everything you carry in must come out again, including waste and, increasingly, your own cooking fuel. Rising visitor numbers have stripped so much firewood from the dunes that authorities now urge travellers to bring gas stoves, sparing the sparse native timber that desert wildlife depends on.

Munga-Thirri is not open year-round, and the closure is not a formality. The park shuts each summer, generally from the first of December to mid-March, because daytime temperatures in the dune fields can climb past 50 degrees Celsius and a breakdown in that heat can be fatal. Even in the cooler months the desert demands respect: winter mornings can drop below freezing, and the same sand that bakes you by afternoon will have you reaching for a jacket at dawn. Plan your crossing for the April-to-October window, and check the parks website for closures and warnings before you commit.

This is country for travellers who already know how to handle remote terrain, not a place to learn on. The standing advice is to travel in convoy, ideally a two-vehicle party, and to carry long-distance communication: a satellite phone, an HF or UHF radio, and an EPIRB. A vehicle-mounted sand flag is essential so oncoming traffic can see you over the crests of blind dunes. You will need recovery gear and the knowledge to use it, plenty of water, and a realistic sense of how far help actually is. Cross the desert prepared, and Munga-Thirri rewards you with a horizon of red ridges and a silence most people never hear in their lives.

The QAA Line has a destination, and it is one of the more curious survey points on the continent: Poeppel Corner, where the borders of Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory converge at a single marker out among the dunes. It is named for Augustus Poeppel, the surveyor who fixed the spot in 1880 in conditions almost impossible to imagine, dragging chains across the desert in brutal heat. Reaching it is a milestone for desert crossers, a chance to stand in three jurisdictions at once in the middle of nowhere. From here, travellers may continue west into the South Australian park or turn back the way they came. Either way, the only sensible exit is the long sandy haul to Birdsville, and a cold drink at the famous pub waiting at the end of it.