Brisbane to Maree
It’s official, the hardest part of riding a motorcycle around the world is keeping an online diary. Instead of buying a hard-backed journal, I decided at the last minute to go for the A4, spiral bound, explode in your bag, get destroyed by the mistingest of rains, eaten by the mangiest of dogs, unsturdiest piece of stationary on the market. A typical night sees me in my tent lying on my side with head torch on scribbling what I can remember about the day through the heat, concussion, hangover. Okay, I admit, sometimes I may have, just possibly let it slip and not written anything. Luckily, what I have written down should be enough, with the assistance of a few photos, to describe how amazing this trip has been so far.
Brisbane
Best place for me to start is Brisbane. Murray and I left on Monday October 16 after a weekend of last minute bike preparation which involved Murray breaking his bike to a point where it would be difficult to continue. A bit of ingenuity and some swearing helped him get it fixed and happy with our bikes; we organized to meet up at Murray’s girlfriend Sinead’s place before leaving.
Bunya Mountains
Monday we departed from Sinead’s and headed up towards the North Coast and had our first introduction to dirt road about two hours into the trip. The dirt was amazing, soft, forgiving through dense, lush forests. My bike and I handled it well and before long I was considering myself a pro dirt-rider. We arrived at the Bunya Mountains on a high just on nightfall; the sunshine would have best been described as dappled. I was very proud to have made it safely through the first day. Murray’s brother Cameron arrived moments before dark having traveled from home near Toowoomba so we headed to the restaurant for a few beers and hit the hay reasonably early. In the morning we headed off down the mountain and ran into our first spot of bother. Some light, misting rain was affecting visibility and as Murray rounded a corner, a 4WD traveling in the centre of the road met him on the bend. He rode off the edge on the hill-side (not the cliff side) and fell off facing back up the hill. The car didn’t stop and I came around the bend to see Murray on the ground under the bike, very unnerving for us both on day two.
Our Bunya Mountains campsite.
Murray’s grazed leg from the fall.
We ate a fry-up breakfast in Dalby and approached Dalby Moto for some help with Murray’s battered bike, which they fixed for a tenner and we met an older guy on a very expensive BMW. I asked him if he wanted to swap bikes but the answer was no for some strange reason. Determined to ride a reasonable distance by the end of the day, we sped on through the decreasing scenery towards the increasingly drought-stricken farmland. Unfortunately Cameron had to leave us at Miles because the bros doesn’t have a very large tank range and the stretches were getting longer between fuel stops. Murray’s brother was great company and we all got along well together. He was good for a laugh and it would have been fun to have him with us for a few more days. I met a girl on the checkout at the local supermarket that noticed my Grates shirt and told me she’d seen them at the Big Day Out, I was glad to see some people in the outback are listening to Triple J.
Roma
Roma was uneventful except for the BBQ, pool and our first encounter with “Grey Nomads”. Grey nomads are elderly (usually retired, always very friendly) folk traveling around Australia in 4WD’s pulling a caravan. This particular couple was from Germany, at that time still a novelty so I labeled them “ze germans” a la Snatch. We headed off from Roma early and made it to Injune before deciding on a “back” route through a place called Arcadia Valley. It was shown on the map as dirt track and Murray and I were keen to do some more dirt riding because the hour we’d spent off-roading a couple of days before had turned us into professionals, or so we though.
Injune information centre.
The bikes, barely worn in.
The second stack of the trip was a result of my over-confidence in riding on the dirt. With my new status of pro dirt-biker to back me up, I had no problems riding straight off the bitumen onto the sand-covered road at about 80km/hr without checking the surface. As soon as I rode onto the sand I knew something was up and I now know what a “tank slapper” is. The handlebars slap from side to side against the tank and the bike swerves violently. Not knowing how to deal with it I let go of the handlebars and put my hands over my eyes, which was a big mistake and I went down on the road, smashing my head against the ground and seeing stars for a few seconds. I stayed down, performed a mental check of all the bits of my body that existed before the crash and tried to work out whether or not they were still there. Murray came running over and I jumped up in a cloud of dust. He described the crash as looking something like bike-ballet mixed with a dust storm. I was quite shaken and worried for the bike, however it was nowhere near as bad as I thought my first crash would be, and in the following days I would come to grudgingly accept falling off as a necessary part of my off-road riding education. You can see in the picture Murray holding the bike up, the embarrassingly short distance I’d traveled off the bitumen before falling and if you look very closely, the swerve marks and massive slide I did before coming to a stop. From this point on we were proud to see ourselves as the hard men of adventure motorcycling.
Falling off, Murray looking about as dazed as I was.
More bike falling over action
Pretty nasty bushfire country
Very hot and dry
poser…
Carnarvon Gorge
We had a great day exploring Carnarvan gorge and listening to the Grey Nomads swapping feats of caravan endurance. We met ze germans again and had to buy some fuel off other Grey Nomads due to a slight miscalculation and one Grey Nomad had a shirt with slogan “Do it yourself, I’m retired!” which became our motto for the next few days.
Chillin’ by my pond.
Ferntree Gully.
Aboriginal art gallery.
Emerald
Next stop was Emerald where I met up with Gav and Fi Lotz, friends of the family since when I was young. They have two incredibly cute young boys, Carl and Mikey and we all had a BBQ and chatted about farming and remote-control cars. This was the first maintenance day and I changed my air filter. I also sent a large box of unneeded junk back to my parents for storage.
Below Mikey learns to ride the KLR! Get in son!!
Longreach
On the way to Longreach I devised a method of cruise control that involved tying a piece of rope around the handlebars and pulling it down alongside the throttle. With my right hand free, I could then attach my camera to my backpack and take photos while riding. Somewhere along the line we must have fuelled up at a place that sold syrup instead of petrol because Murray and my bike began misfiring. A short trip to the Honda and Kawasaki dealerships in Longreach sorted out the problem.
Murray easy-ridin’ down the highway
Ingenious cruise control via piece of rope
A knowledgeable (if slightly dead) tree in Barcaldine
Our place of lunch, Barcaldine
Longreach’s claim to fame is the Stockman’s Hall of Fame and I wasn’t disappointed. The Hall is a museum filled with info about everything that has happened in the Australian outback since before European settlement. More impressive still was the Qantas founders’ museum, not because of the info but for the massive jumbo jet someone decided to land in the middle of the desert. We paid for a tour through the plane, which I loved. We also happened to meet a very friendly older biker in the campground called John who was traveling on a slick-looking BMW and kept enthusing about how great our modest bikes were.
This movie shows how fun Longreach is.
The star of the show!
A storm brewing on the horizon.
The campsite.
A jumbo in the desert.
Someone’s home movie of the jumbo landing.
Windorah
On the road to Windorah
Windorah was the next stop after Longreach and I chose to do some more bike-ballet off into the mud while trying to get there. We arrived at the pub at about 10am and I did what any sensible person who had fallen off their bike into the mud would do – started drinking. A guy with crazy-eye and no front teeth called Caveman befriended us and we discovered he works as a stockman on a station in the area. He let us stay at Roachie’s house that night. Roachie wasnt home but “everyone stays at Roachie’s so don’t bloody worry about it mate”. Just let yourself in. A lovely English girl behind the bar at the hotel helped warm the atmosphere. She was working in the outback for 3 months at the local pub. I respect anyone who can work in a pub and serve Caveman, plus she’d agreed to go out to a station and help put up fences. Will have to find out how she’s going!
Chocolate coated bike!
Murray, myself and some Swiss adventure riders. They turned back on the next section.
The Dreaded Windorah to Birdsville
The most soul-destroying part of the trip so far would have been the road between Windorah and Birdsville. Imagine riding along a road covered with banana skins and you’ll have a good idea of what the conditions were like. We didn’t pass a single vehicle in the eight hours we traveled and the landscape was post-apocalyptic. The handling of the bikes meant we could only average about 80km/h and the going was incredibly tiring. We took a break at Dion’s lookout, named after a young farmer who’d crashed his helicopter into a hill nearby. The wind was strong enough to blow Murray’s bike off its side stand onto mine, knocking my bike over in the process and breaking the rack on Murray’s bike. We took two hours battling the flies and trying to rig up a piece of rope and some quicksteel to hold the rack together until Birdsville. The view was so wide and expansive, it was almost scary to be able to see so far into the distance.
Interactive attractions on the way to Birdsville. The sign says “The pointer will direct you to view the hole through the hill.”
Really? I’ll check it out on the way back..
Murray and I go for a space walk.
The shelter where we discovered mind-blowing views, had our bikes blown off their stands, were assaulted by a million flies and almost lost all hope of getting to Birdsville.
The mind-blowing view from Dion’s lookout.
Birdsville
What’s in Birdsville: a hotel, a campground and a very well-known race-track. Every year thousands of people flock to Birdsville for a one week race carnival so we were relieved to find a very good mechanic at the petrol station who’s been fixing broken down horse racing enthusiasts for the past eight years (their cars, not their minds). Murray had his rack reinforced and I had a dented front rim hammered straight and my steering head nut tightened. I was so happy to get a piece of plate welded to the bottom of my kickstand, every time I’d park the bike it would threaten to fall over, the new stand was rock solid. We needed our bikes in top condition before trying to tackle Big Red!
Theo fixing my bike.
Big Red is the first sand dune of the Simpson desert and supposedly the largest. The challenge is to ride up the face of the dune and down the other side. We took some of the factors into account like getting back up the other side if we managed to get all the way over and decided to just ride up to the top and back down the same side. If we got stuck, it would be embarrassing to be rescued only one dune in! Initially I was scared because I’d experienced a few falls in the sand and couldn’t imagine riding 100m up a hill through it. We both did it though; I just floored it, looked at the top the whole way and imagined I was Steve McQueen.
bout to go up big red. That’s me, the little speck in the centre…
Cruising up the sand dune.
The Birdsville Track
The thrill definitely wasn’t there with the Birdsville track, no danger, no tough bits, just 550km of clay highway. The whole way we rode at 100km/h and never felt like we’d come off. The inside track at the start was a blast and we visited an abandoned cattle station called Alton Downs, which was very eerie. A pump was going and it felt almost inhabited, but all of the buildings were run down. I had that really creepy feeling as if I were being watched. The old guy at Mungerannie Road House was really friendly and I enjoyed reading all of the stuff pinned up against the walls. We popped out the other end of the track in Maree and had our first taste of South Australian schnitzel.
Parked beside the Billabong at Alton Downs abandoned cattle station
The Billabong at Alton Downs station.
F#$kn Eerie Abandoned cattle station.
The Birdsville “Highway”.
An approaching sand storm.
Well, I’ll have to leave it here as I’m about to have my bike weighed and say goodbye to the friends who put me up in Alice Springs. I still have another big post to catch up to where I am now, which I’ll strive to do in Darwin in a few days time. Hope you’re all well and having a great time with whatever you’re doing.