Trouble Free Trip

We left Tom Price to another great section of dirt road out from the Park and back out to the Great Northern Highway. There is always something about being on a dirt road that adds an extra excitement and touch of risk about a ride, as well as the feeling of isolation and a road less travelled. This is only a tiny road, but it is exactly like this. You can stop and look around and there are no signs of anything but wilderness and the only sounds are the birds. The dirt road trails in front and behind and there is nothing else. It’s the best feeling!

Back on the tarmac, we’re onto the beach hunt. Coral Bay is the home to the Ningaloo Reef and some of the best diving and snorkelling in the world. A couple of the riders, Joachim and Gunter, are PADI divers and have been eagerly awaiting this opportunity; others stick to the glass bottomed boat over the reef. The waters here are warm and clear and shallow. Only a few metres off shore and manta rays shimmer in the sand and brightly coloured fish dart about. We’re also here for whale shark season, but at a ridiculous AUD$390 per person, everyone sticks to better value activities. A free snorkel in the shallows is equally rewarding.

It’s also free to be with the wild dolphins at our next stop, Monkey Mia, so at 7.45am, we are all up to our calves in warm blue waters, waiting for the dolphins to appear. Never work with animals and children. We were patient and patient and waited. After half an hour, many started to drift off and then the little buggers showed up. They are really strict about monitoring how this activity takes place now. In the old days everyone frolicked with the dolphins, touched them, swam with them and fed them anything. The result was that many ended up dying as they lost their ability to hunt and look after young. Now you have to stay back and just let the dolphins do their own thing and they only get a small fish snack.

It’s hard to believe we are only a couple days away from Perth. We’ve been in contact with the freight agents and they are all ready for us. Our pallets are all pre-built, most are shipped over from Sydney from our USA freight shipment into Australia and are being re-used (cheaper to freight the pallets across the whole of Australia than get a man to build more in Perth – crazy, eh?) It’s been a largely trouble free trip. A few minor incidents with kangaroos, turning cars and dirt roads, but nothing that has resulted in any serious issues. After a small hiccup with a few bikes in week one of this trip, there’s been no mechanical issues to deal with, and despite our initial fears, tyres held out much better than expected. Only Alex, our pseudo team photographer, with his brand new Bridgestone tyres in Sydney, rolls in smooth.

We had only three nights in Perth to turn around the team. That’s no mean feat. On Thursday lunch time we rolled into the hotel, removed luggage and immediately headed out to the airport. Our agents were already waiting and the pallets were out on the warehouse floor ready for the bikes to rolled on and strapped down. Alex, intrigued by the freight process, decided to stay behind with the support crew to help with strapping down the bikes, whilst everyone else got back to the hotel for a shower. By Friday, all bikes had been checked by Customs and the airline. On Saturday, they left for Bangkok. Many thanks to Guy in Perth and Josh in Sydney for their excellent freight service.

So we departed Australia in a flurry, with the excitement of Section 5 ahead!

Karijini National Park

On our day off in the Kimberleys, Kevin takes the riders to the Gibb Rover Road. This is quite an infamous adventure road, 590kms of dirt and plenty of river crossings. It’s not for this trip. The rainy season has been so bad that most if it remains closed to traffic, but the riders get to have fun on the first 60kms to the Pentecost River. The Pentecost is deep and wide and by the looks on a couple of 4WD’s coming through the waters would be over the cyclinder heads, not to mention how much the 4WDS are bouncing from side to side, the invisible river bed must be pretty rocky. With still another 4000kms in Australia and a whole final section from Bangkok to Europe still ahead, everyone admires the view, plays at the water’s edge and leaves crossing this raging torrent to the 4WDs. There are plenty of small creeks and mud puddles back along the 60kms to the main road.


From the Kimberleys we head to the small seaside town of Broome and the beautiful stretch of white sands and turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, called Cable Beach. This feels like a traditional holiday – sun, sand, sea. We pop into the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile farm, a sort of rehabilitation place for bad tempered crocs terrorising the public along some of the creeks, except they don’t get out. It’s a life behind bars, being feed and watered and their off spring to becoming handbags!

Broome to Port Hedland ranks as one of the most hypnotic rides on the planet. These are straight roads at their best, with an upsurge of the amount of road trains, all used for transporting the iron ore mined here. Port Hedland is a stopover, a mining town, where prices are sky high because the mining industry can pay whatever it has to. Still it brings us closer to our diversion into the Karijini National Park, some dirt roads and amazing gorges.

We turn off inland and finally, the roads starts to curve gently over the Hamersley Range, ridges, escarpments and crags appear. Once in Karijini, it’s a great dirt road to get to see Weano Gorge from Oxers Lookout. The dirt flies up coats everything and stains the tyres a deep red. Getting out from the gorge was harder for some than others. 8kms from the end of the road, the gravel suddenly deepened and the good track that had been easy to follow disappeared into a sea of pebbles. The best of us, lurched as the bike skated from side to side and for those with little dirt experience, it was the undoing of what had been a great ride. Alas, Ingo on the hire bike went down (and so did his AUD$2000 deposit) and Angelica’s sterling effort also ended with her and the bike splatted. Thankfully both were just bumped and bruised and the bikes were none the worse – just cosmetically they sported a few scrapes.

We stopped over in Tom Price. There’s just the one motel and filled with miners and construction workers. Once again, Terry’s attempts to order a night cap of a straight whisky were thwarted by the strict drinking rules here. Makers Mark would only be served as a single in a glass full of ice and tonic. Sacrilege! A few minutes before ten o’clock, everything stopped and we had to be out. Saturday night in Tom Price is not the most exciting of experiences! The irony of it all was that outside the bar was a bottle shop, which would sell you a whole bottle of Makers Mark that you could drink neat straight from the bottle – provided you were in your room with your door shut! No drinking in public.

Kakadu National Park

It’s a desperately long trek to get to Kakadu National Park high up in the Northern Territory. I’d love to boast about the amazing road we are riding, but that’s not quite it! There’s no doubt that the vastness of this wilderness, the massive distances of nothing, the endless scrub and tiny crooked trees is nothing like home. It’s fascinating enough, for a while and then it’s a bit like getting through the Atacama Desert! There has not been too much variety when it comes to riding over the past few days. The roadhouses are basic, but have entertained us with the local stories and they get everyone outside with a cold beer, chatting about the day – no mobile phone or internet here. It’s a small escape from the “modern slavery”.

By this stage we are all eating up the spare back tyres that the van is carrying. There is something in the roads here that gobbles up the rubber, even more so it gets hot and if you are less than gentle with the throttle (we’ll keep you anonymous too . . . . ) Very few riders will make Sydney to Perth on the same back tyre.

We know we are near Kakadu when we see our first Crocodile Warning Sign. That and the temperatures hitting 32 degrees and more. Suddenly things feel dense and swampy. The rains that have held on for so long mean that some of the roads remain shut, even this late into the dry season. The road to Ubirr was still under water, but the ride out to Nourlangie remained do-able to walk the escarpment and take in the rock art. We take a sunset cruise and spots crocs lazing through the beautiful waters. In the heat it could have been so tempting to take a swim, but for these beasties.

From here we have pushed west and yesterday arrived in Western Australia. Our first stop is Kununurra, just short of the Gibb Rover Road. With the infamous Pentecost River still above its seasonal norm, and various sections remaining closed, we are having to keep to the tar, but not before a day off to explore the Gibb and El Questro Wilderness Park as much as the waters allow.

No more kangaroo!

I spoke too soon. That very night, one of the riders had a nasty tangle with a kangaroo. We don’t want riders coming in when it’s dark, but this bike had had to go into Adelaide for a quick fix and that meant no option but a final couple of hours at night to catch up with the main group. It was a small roo, killed outright but enough to batter and bruise one of the team and leaving the war wounds visible on the bike. Still, no permanent damage done and a salutary lesson to all.

The stop at Quorn was the night of the Royal Wedding and it felt like the whole town had turned out and crammed itself into the only pub to watch it on the big screen. Our hostess, Nadine, managed to keep the food coming but everything stopped for the wedding vows – even the most cynical of outback bloke, seemed to shut up. The next morning we leave early, to Nadine’s warning “Watch out for the hoppers – it’s still early. They’ll be up on the Pass”. And so our final bit of twisty road (in the whole of Australia!!) was met with a gentle ride to avoid the fate that had befallen one of us the night before.

The temperatures climb as we reach Coober Pedy. We’re in an underground cave hotel, formerly an old opal mine, which keeps things cool. A fascinating tour by the owner shows us a complete labyrinth of tunnels under where we sleep – on tunnelling out the mine to make rooms, he also tumbled on an ancient pocket of opalised sea shells, which he keeps for display to the visitors rather than sell for the cash!

It’s onto the Northern Territory. The Outback for real. And Uluru. I went expecting not to be impressed. Just a lump of rock in the desert, right, and some very long straight roads to get there. Not to mention the rain! How can it rain in the desert?! All the locals say it’s been the wettest season they remember, so it was a chilly and wet days ride to get to the huge monolith. We were to be denied a sunset on our first night, as the rock stood under stony black skies. But the next day was bright, the roads dry, and we took a ride around the rock – the road so unbelievably close – you are just drawn to it, it is mesmerising, it holds your gaze. It felt a privilege to be there. And that evening, the whole team rode out to the sunset. Just beautiful and worth the square tyres to get to see it.

A quick dip into Alice Springs en route north, where Van Man, Brenden, has a different type of tangle with a kangaroo. His is a nicely done fillet on his plate that reeks its revenge during the night and wipes him out for the next 48 hours. (By the time Brenden feels ready to try kangaroo again, some five days later, his body tells him no and that’s another night up – no more kangaroo, eh?!).

Leaving in Rain...

Touch down in Sydney.  Our bikes arrived before us and thanks to the hard work of our agents (handling Customs clearance all over the week-end no less), the bikes are collected within hours of our own arrival.  Pulling off the bubble wrap and wheeling them from their pallets, everyone is grinning and happy.  Procycles BMW on Princes Way (thanks guys!) deal with the service work, whilst we all soak up the Sydney sights. 

The hotel is within spitting distance of the harbour.  In fact the Harbour Bridge greets us every morning as we step out and for those wanting a longer view, a beer at the roof top pool boasts fantastic views.  Enough!  We are supposed to be adventure riders – still you can’t blame us for some R&R when we have 12000kms ahead of us in the next 4 weeks.  We are joined by four new riders on this section, two of them are going onto Section 5 – the Bangkok run back through China and Russia to Europe.  The other two are here for Australia.  A quick dip into the Discover our Earth atmosphere.

Ironically, just as in Buenos Aires, we leave Sydney in torrential rain.  The down pour really kicks in only 15 minutes before we head out.  Its buckets of the stuff, so within the first hour we are soaked to the skin (at least those who dared not to get out the waterproofs).  By the time we got to the Royal National Park and our first view over the ocean, the rain had stopped and the clouds were already breaking.  The rain had given that special damp green leafy scent that only pristine forests emit under a deluge and that riding a bike, you are lucky enough to acutely smell. We trace a coastal route south to the small town of Narooma, set back on an inlet with palm trees and a deep blue lagoon.

Our next two days crossed the mountains, first north to the small town Albury and then back south to the coast and onto Melbourne.  This has to be some of Australia’s finest riding roads.  Perfect twisties and swooping bends through the Snowy Mountains, into the Kosciuszko National Park (Kosciuszko is Australia’s highest peak at a mere 2268m), and along the Great Alpine Way.  The time of year makes it even better.  Its early Autumn here and the trees are all turning a warm red golden hue.  We pass through many small historic villages and past old homesteads and get a glimpse of a charmed and rural existence, as the leaves dance behind us. 

But not too fast!  The riders are accumulating speeding tickets at a fast rate – thanks to the lower limits here and extremely vigilant and intolerant police.  Not that the police are rude, in fact they are particularly pleasant in explaining the rules, wishing you a great journey, hoping that they are not going to spoil it too much with a AUD$400 ticket and remember to take it easy . . . . . some even make the mistake of passing a police car when overtaking a solid line – mentioning no names!  That’s another ticket then.

Everyone has mellowed into Australia’s relaxed and easy going nature (police excepted!).  We arrive in the Barossa Valley for a well earned rest at the time of the Barossa Vintage Festival. All the small villages and wineries celebrate their pioneering days and heritage, with a mass of activities from grape crushing competitions to scarecrow making, locally produce and plenty of wine flow, along with music and a party spirit.  Our day off is on Tanunda Pioneer Town Day and all the locals are dressed from the 1850’s, vintage cars and bikes are about and the whole day is just great fun.

We’ve now started the long haul north.  From the Barossa Valley, the team have explored the Flinders Ranges and their first sample of dirt roads.  The race is on to spot kangaroos.  The count of dead spray painted, ballooning kangaroos roadside is big, but the real thing?  It’s like trying to spot bears in Alaska so far!  The glimpse of a few hind legs is all we’ve got.  Not that we want to be too up close to the things when moving rapidly on a bike. Nooooo!  Anyway, we’re opal mining tomorrow in Coober Pedy and then it’s the 500 mile desert day to Uluru (Ayers Rock).