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 11 - Mount Isa to Barkly Homestead

Day 11 - Mount Isa to Barkly Homestead

This morning I met with a very nice group of people doing the same thing that I am doing; going around Oz on a motorbike. So, it's confirmed; I am not the only one that is crazy, ther are others like me.

The trip from Mt Isa was a very smooth run, in the beginning we continued on the Selwyn ranges and then it was flat for as far as you can see.

After a little while we arrived to Camooweal, we had coffee there and fuel. I was surprised to find that the price was $1.97/litre.

We took a photo here of our group.



The 'ccbikers' in Camooweal



Another view, from the left: Colin and Loeen (2 up), John, Jim, Phil, me, Kevin

They have a group in the Central Coast, their website is www.ccbikers.com and they organise rides every 2 weeks or so.
Shortly after leaving Camooweal, we were at the border with the Northern Territory, with the relative freedom of 130km/h limit (in every other state, it is 110km/h)




Petrol prices at Camooweal




A sign at Camooweal




Queensland 5 years ahead of NT? After seen the speed limits and the quality of the roads in the NT, I am not so sure...


The only indication I had that we changed state was the sign that said it, and the new speed limits. Other than that, the roads were very good and they werre straight. Only after about 1/2 hour we found a slight s-bend, ther than that, the scenery was the same the whole time, just a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere, with the horizon all around you, no trees, no animals, no fences, no towns, no nothing.




Gus at the border




The team at the border


We encountered huge Road Trains, and now something worse than that; we found trucks that cover almost the whole of the road, both lanes, leaving only about 1/2 metre on one side for our bikes to get through when overtaking them. Cars just move out of the road, but we can't do that on a bike. I wonder what will happen if we meet one coming in the opposite direction. Not something I am looking forward to.




I saw this picture of the type of Road Trains that we might encounter when we reach the WA minefields.



Anyway, between Camooweal and the Barkly Roadhous there is nothing, no petrol stops, no campings, only the odd rest area every 80kms or so; all we found was an apparet unending stretch of straight road. When we arrived to the Barkly Roadhouse it was a refreshing change. We got a shock however with the price of petrol, $2.09 a litre! I will probably take advantage of my 7 litres emergency fuel here and then refuel when I get to the Stuart Highway, it has to be cheaper there as there will be more competition, here the Barkly roadhouse has a monopoly, so they charge what they want.


Here we are, all camping on a nice patch of grass, for $10 a head




I set up my tent in 3 minutes approx, the design of the tent proves again and again to be the best for this trip



I keep finding signs like this one. Something strage happens in this area of Australia



Another use for the handlebars that you probably haven't thought of before

 Set up my tent, had a good feed at the Roadhouse, a quick chat with the guys and soon will go for a shower and into the envelope for another needed rest.

Tomorrow will separate from the group when we reach the Threeways at the Stuart Highway, the group is heading north to Darwin, but I am going south to visit the Devils Marbles first. I really want to see them, I am told that they are spectacular and that the photos do not make them justice. I will probably re-join the group in a day or 2.

Tomorrow I will camp at the Marbles, ther is no formal camping ground there, I will be camping int he middle of nowhere, under the stars; I dont; expect that I will have mobile signal, let alone internet, so tomorrow I might not be able to post anything. However, teh next day I will, and I expect that the photos fromt eh Marbles will be great, i will make sure I take photos at the sunset and at the sunrise. Cheers!

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.

Days 1 to 4 - Sydney to Grafton, then to Noosa

Day 1 - Thursday 6/6/13
Reached Grafton at 6.30PM, some 700 km's. This is 1 hour after dusk, which is 1 hour more than I am comfortable driving. Thankfully the new LED floodlights that I installed are great, they really make a difference.

During the trip, I discovered some strange behaviour from the other road users; they reduced the speed when I approached them from behind and then they moved over and let me through. I had no idea why this was happening. Then at a service station, somebody asked me if I was a cop. I asked him what would give him this idea and he said it's because of the lights that I have under the front mirrors. Then it hit me, the reason of the evaporative behaviour of the other drivers is because when I approached them from behind, they see all the lights on (I keep them on all the time to make myself more visible) and they think I am a cop. Interesting, ha?

Anyway, I installed my new tent and spent the night in it. This tent is designed to park the bike inside, but I was so tired that I left it outside; it is really heavy to move, especially on the grass.

At night, I woke up hearing noises of somebody touching the bike; very carefully, I opened the zip of the tent and I shone my torch onto it to find the most spectacular sight. There was a possum sitting on the bike seat (I covered the seat with a lamb fur to make it more comfortable) and he was purring like a cat, moving his paws over the fur, opening and closing the paws the same way cats do when they like something. It was incredible; he kept doing the same while I was shining the light and at the same time, looking at me with huge eyes, he really was on cloud nine and I decided to let him be and I went back to sleep. Unfortunately, I did not have the camera with me to record it.

The next morning, the seat just smelled a bit funny, not bad, just funny. I cleaned it with a bit of detergent and it is now fine. I just have to make sure than from now on, I keep the bike inside the tent.

Day 2 - Friday 7/6/13
Travelled from Grafton to Noosa, where I met with Mary at a resort. The plan is to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday together, then we will part on Monday, when she'll fly back to Sydney and I am back on my trip.

This Friday I popped the question to Mary and she said YES. I am very happy.

Day 3 - Saturday 8/6/13
Spent the day visiting Noosa Heads, incredibly beautiful place.

Day 4 - Sunday 9/6/13
Today we visited Fraser Island and Mary swan in Mackenzie Lake. this place if beautiful, it is the biggest sand island in the world and the roads are all (obviously) made of sand, even the beach is a road, some 120km long and with a max of 60km/h.

A Dingo patiently waiting for food 

Sirens in Fraser Island



Finally, the trip started today. This is my first night, I made it to Grafton. So far all good, no problems, other than a lot of road repairs that made the trip very slow (many, many 40km/h zones along the way)



Finally, ready to go.
This is how the bike looks like at the start. Will it maintain that look after a few days?

Another look from the front...


...and the back.