Day 17 - Katherine to Darwin

NOTE: Please accept my apologies for having taken 2 days to put up this post. I returned in Sydney and I left the bike in Darwin, as it was planned. The second stage of this trip, Darwin to Perth will start on the 8^th of August.

This is the last day of the 1^st stage of this trip. I reach this level with a small degree of apprehension. It’s been a great experience, one that I will never forget. However, I get this feeling that I did it all too fast. There is so much to see and experience out there; I really had no idea.

On the one hand, the decision of which machine to use was a good one. I put a lot of emphasis on comfort and reliability. This proved to be correct. I have met other people on adventure bikes that gave them the opportunity to visit some remote areas on dirt roads, whereas I avoided dirt roads like the pest. What they told me is that in the beginning, they visited a lot of stuff that was on dirt roads. However, whenever they were back on the highways, there were in pain, as the long distances made their bikes a torture to ride.

I did not have that problem; I missed some things, not that many, but the rides on the highways, which were the bread and butter of this trip, were done in perfect comfort and style.

When I arrived to Katherine, I met Trev, who was camping just next to me. He is 79 years old and is living his dream, he bought the biggest tourer Beemer, that he could find (a K1600) and is riding all over Australia at his leisure, on this own, like me. He is my hero.

Here is Trev, with his trusty steed.

...and going on his way. I hope our paths cross again sometime, fellow traveller.

He told me some stories of his trip. He had a fall some time ago during a rainy and windy day, his bike did not want to make a bend and it spat him off. The bike ended upside down in a muddy ditch alongside the road. We are talking here a 500kg+ sitting upside-down in a hole. He thought he would have no chance of getting it out. Many cars stopped and then somebody said to him ‘No worries mate! I’ll just call a couple of mates and we’ll get you sorted in no time!’ He got on the phone and after a few minutes about 10 young farmers from the area came and got the bike out and up in no time.

This is something that I experienced firsthand and it surprised me no end. Coming from Europe and South America, I am used to people not stopping for anyone on the road. However, here in Australia people are so incredibly helpful and friendly. Before leaving for this trip I was worried that if something happened to me on the road, nobody will stop and help me, so I implemented a lot of mitigation strategies in case something like this happened to me and I am left out there on my own. I used to stop many times to take photos once something tickled my fancy, and there were many, many things that did that to on the way. Whenever I stopped, almost instantly somebody, sometimes even two cars will stop and ask me if I am ok, if I needed any help. It was just so reassuring! I learned to keep the camera very handy, just on my tank and as soon as I stopped, I would take my camera and keep it very visible, so that people will see that I was just taking photos and was not in any problem. Isn’t that incredible that you have to do that just to stop people from trying to help you? That’s the nature of the Australians; a nice bunch of people.

This is even more true here in the outback, if I remember right, it was John Flynn (the founder of the Royal Flying Doctors) who said something along the lines of how the huge distances of the Australian outback makes people be very friendly and helpful to each other.

In the morning, I visited the Katherine Hot Springs, I had a dip in one of them and the feeling is something out of this world, I do recommend trying this at least once you your lifetime.

The hot springs at Katherine





Then it was onto the road again, this time to my final destination for this leg of the trip, the capital city of Darwin.

On the way to Darwin, the Stuart Highway was a continuous stretch of repairing crews that had only 1 half of the road open at a time, so I kept having to stop and wait for long periods of time. As soon as I could I took the scenic route and avoided most of these stat and stops.

Constant stops due to road repairs on the Stuart Highway

Chose the 'roads less travelled', but more scenic routes

This is what I am talking about. No traffic, no stops, no road trains, a lot longer....

Gong on these routes gave me the opportunity to find other, unexpected discoveries, like humongous termite mounds, like nothing I've seen before.

Gigantic termite mounds

The road less travelled

By taking these roads you find places like this.

Just before the night broke, I arrived in Darwin and I booked into the Discovery Campground. Very expensive, the most expensive I have paid since I left Sydney, $45 for a small space for the night, whereas I was paying $10-$18 everywhere along the route. On top of that, it wasn’t really a well setup camping and it was the only one that I saw that locked the camp kitchen at 9PM. Very strange and restrictive. This is a camping where I will not return or recommend.

The next day, I had a full day to burn, so I did a lot of sightseeing and attended to the Dalai Lama conference at the Convention Centre. It was very interesting and it’s nice to hear such a wise man talking. I hope I learned something.

The Dalai Lama in Darwin. He's been in Oz 8 times, but this is his first time in Darwin, lucky me.

Next to the Convention Centre there is this ‘wave’ pool where there were a lot of people having fun. I guess this is a reflection of a city with beautiful beaches, but where you cannot relax on the sand or you might find yourself eaten by a ‘saltie’ (a salt water crocodile).

The wave pool next to the Darwin Convention Centre

I left the bike on storage until the 8 of August, when I plan to start with the second leg of the trip, Darwin to Perth, following the west coast of Australia.

Here is where I left the bike

I left Sydney with 12,000km’s on the clock. I am now at 19,000, so the first leg of the trip clocked at 7,000kms exactly.

7,000 kilometres on the first leg of the trip.

The trip so far

Will be back ont he 8 of August. See you then!

Day 9 - Winton to Mount Isa

Day 9 - Winton to Mount Isa

I thought that it is about time to put a map indicating what I've done so far. Here it is.

Sydney to Mount Isa

The nights here are very, very cold. This morning it was 6 degC




Cold, cold...



Just before leaving I saw this baby Harley.

The road leaving Winton is interesting. It starts with full vegetation and then slowly and clearly, as it approaches Cloncurry it became barren and dry.

Nice, barren landscape

Some beautiful rock formations, the one on the left, I mean.

The flat area is spotted with small short and flat mountains, the aborigines call them 'jumps'


The 'Jumps' in the horizon

After leaving Winton, thre was a sign indicasting petrol at 180km, when I arrived this service station, it's pumps were faulty (for some time apparently) and there was a caravan there that didn't think they'd make it to the next town.

Caravans in trouble

Of course I didn't have a problem, as my range is now near 600 km, so I can now even travel for a full day and will not need refuelling (i.e. Sunday).

I stopped at this very old Roadhouse, outside there were 3 huge brolgas.




The 'Blue Heeler' Roadhouse, on the Matilda Highway

Brolgas

On the way, I saw this sign, for all the ones out there that didn't believe me about the lengh of the Road Trains.

Here it is closer, in case you missed it

Termite city, a huge quantity of termite mounds, they were everywhere. Termites, anyone?

Another view of the termites

 On the way, I found this Memorial to Burke and Wills. Apparently they passed this area. The story of Burke and Wills is very close to my heart. One of the first books I read about Australia, before choosing this country as my own, was the one describing their fateful journey. since then I wanted to travel this wonderful country.

This is a memorial conmemorating Burke and Wills

When I arrived at Cloncurry, I went to visit a friend of mine that was working at the Oasis Hotel. Her name is Shelly.

Some interesting contraption at the Oasis. I would love to try one of these.

Do they have anything against the irish?

In case you are wondering; a gidgee is a type of wood found on the Acacia trees.



Finally got to the 'Isa' Apparently now I am a real aussie.

I might be a real aussie now, but I am also really tired and this night I will splurge in a bit of cabin luxury. I miss a soft comfy bed.

Day 7 - Emerald to Barcaldine

Today I found a bit hard to get up. Controlling a motorbike, and a big and heavy one like that, is quite exhausting. I feel as if I had been going to a gym every day for several hours. Every muscle in my body aches. I keep telling myself that this is good for me.

Anyway, I finally pulled up the tent, made myself a chai tea and left to visit the huge dam that is near Emerald.

Getting ready to start the day

I am sorry, I cannot remember the name of this dam



Another view of the dam itself, the lake is huge and beautiful



A really nice stretch of road to get to the dam

The 'honest system' works. People just grab what they want and leave the money in the box. This helps me believe that human nature is ultimately good.



Amazingly, this sign is on the EXIT of Emerald

 On the way west, there is a nice little town called Rubyvale, it's a miner's town, people claim small sections of land or buy a lease to an existing claim. Then they spend their lives digging around their claim, hoping to find sapphires, rubys, diamonds and other precious or semi-precious stones.

Visiting one of the mines

Apparently a volcano erupted here a few millions of years ago and then a river formed, where a lot of precious stones gathered around iron rocks that had been thrown by the volcano. Then the river bed was covered by mud, sand, etc. What the miners have to do is dig until they get to the clay river bed and then follow that, looking for the iron rocks and when they find one, then look around it and that's how they find them. The catch is that the ancient river bed can be about 7 metres below the surface.

A very nice hotel in Rubyvale, It comes with chickens included, look above.



This is what people like to do in the 38degC heat in Australia. Do you want to come fossicking with me?

No kidding, this is considered hot where I come from.

On the road to Barcaldine I had an incident.

I was driving behind one of those 'road trains', with the sun in my eyes, at about 4PM. Since I left Rockhampton I have been driving west, so I have the full sun in my face after midday.

The sun here is incredibly bright, I have been wearing my dark helmet visor and the polarised sunnies inside the helmet, and even then , even with the little awning that I installed on top of the visor, it still hurts of how bright it is.

Anyway, back to the road train. I was behind it and I was about to overtake it. I had a look and there were no cars coming in the opposite direction, so I commenced to overtake. However, just before I passed the truck, something told me to stop and that I am not really in a hurry, so I pulled back behind the truck again.

At that instant, a black car that was coming in the opposite direction went pass me. I had a chill, as I had not seen this car and if I had overtaken the truck I would have surely planted myself right in front of an oncoming vehicle coming a high speed.

The reason I did not see this vehicle is because it was black, the road is black, I had the low sun in my eyes and I was wearing 2 sunglasses.

Do you believe in angels? The movie 'City of Angels' (Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan) comes to my mind, I remember a scene where the angels stop people from suffering accidents by putting their hands on their shoulders and making they change their actions. I can only guess that this is what happened to me today. I cannot fathom another explanation to why I didn't continue overtaking that truck.

In any case, now the risk manager in me comes into operation. I stopped using the 2 sunnies together, and from now on, if I decide to overtake a truck, I take it off and I look first with my naked eye to make sure I can see all the colours. Since I do this, it's been fine.




Maybe this angel helped me...

Arrived in Barcaldine and shared a meal with 4 very nice people from Victoria. From left to right, Lindsay, Trevor (his brother) Helen and Sandy.