Day 1 - Canberra to Broken Hill
Having done a bit of a rushed pack job the night before, I was a bit behind the estimate 6:30am departure time - my fuel receipt says 6:46am. Jimmy was loaded the night before so all that I had to do in the morning was make sure I had my wallet etc. then get on the road. It was a chilly -2 when I left and the sun wasn’t quite up yet. I set off up the
Stopped at Balranald for fuel and the take away was inside the servo so a quick toasted ham and cheese sandwich and I was on my way again. The plan had been to stop at Mildura for fuel, but I got to a roundabout which said Broken Hill straight ahead so I turned for Mildura, crossed the Victorian border then at the first roundabout turned around and came back. Stopped at Wentworth for fuel and yet another smoke, while I was smoking two young kids questioned me intensively about the bike and where I was going etc. The younger of the two asked me where I was staying for the night and I told him when it got dark I would put up my tent and that was it - he looks at me and says quietly “what if you see something bad?” - poor kid. The kids had to run away as their rather fierce looking mothers came along so I kitted up and was underway again - not far to Broken Hill now. Stopped at the Coombah Roadhouse to top up the fuel, though I think I probably would have made it through to Broken Hill… they had bio petrol or something?? Not sure what that was about so didn’t fill right up and continued on, arriving at the “welcome to Broken Hill” sign with plenty of daylight to spare - told ya I could do it Gos! :P lol.
Pulled up at the first pub I came across and noted that it was surrounded by black lights - I don’t know if it was some decorative feature peculiar to Broken Hill - but to me black lights = druggies so I decided to try my luck elsewhere. There are a lot of pubs in Broken Hill! I finally saw one bearing a Ulysses symbol so thought that one would do - $35.00 for a single room seemed reasonable to me so I paid my money and found a nice little hidey-hole for Jimmy and settled in for the night.
I figured I had earned a bourbon after the days efforts - so one can of Jimmy and a kid’s fish and chips was called for. I had an early night - finding a pile of trashy mags and heading to bed about 8:30pm for a catch up on the gossip mags (never mind they were from last year).
Day 2 - Broken Hill to Streaky Bay
The time difference caught me out a bit this morning - I woke up at about 6:30, went outside and it was still pitch black and raining! So I stuffed around having showers and breakfast etc and before I knew it morning had arrived and I had meant to be on the road somewhat earlier. Nevermind, I set off, fuelled up and was on the road - heading for Port Augusta. It was quite a nice temperature in Broken Hill but it steadily got colder as the rain let up and the sky cleared - and the wind picked up! I had to stop at Mannahill just to get off the bike, I was copping such a beating from the crosswinds that my neck was hurting pretty bad.
Onto Yunta for fuel - the fuel light came on after only 193km! My first real experience with poor fuel consumption due to highish speeds combined with some headwinds. As I was in paying for my fuel another bike pulled in, I said gidday as you do and he asked if I was a Farrider - why yes, I am! Was Shane on his V-strom so we decided to ride together for the next stretch down to Port Augusta - with an extra fuel top-up at
Alli had a cousin (Jacqui) who lives there so Jacqui arranged to pick Alli up from the pub where we were staying and I was going to have a quiet dinner before heading to bed for an early night. When Jacqui arrived she was greeted by a local “Wacky Jacqui!”. So Alli, Jacqui and I ended up having a few drinks with them - Neil cracked a couple of bottles of champagne and by the time Alli and Jacqui left to go have dinner I was well lubricated (and the kitchen had shut lol). I went inside to go find the ladies and was hailed by a fellow (I had my “bikie chic” jumper on) asking if I was on the border run - indeed I am and the fellow was Skip - also doing a farride! So I got another drink and sat down with Skip to drink and talk shit, as you do :) We took over the jukebox and were having a lot of fun - eventually Alli came back, she went straight to the room expecting me to be tucked up in bed, she knocked and knocked and no answer, she came back down to the bar and found a somewhat intoxicated me with my new mate Skip. We drank more bourbon and played (what I recall to be a very poor, at least on my part!) game of pool before eventually the bar staff advised us they were closing and there was no more bourbon to be had for us that night. Devastating at the time but I was very grateful for that the next morning.
Day 3 - Streaky Bay to Border Village
We headed up to Ceduna for a wee/smoke break before heading onto Penong for fuel where a sign cheerfully advised us it was the last shop for 1000km! We stopped here for bacon and egg rolls and Alli had a bit of a snooze while I wondered around a bit - found this road train with the fangs on the front :) very cool. When Alli woke up I dragged her over to see the road train and we got busted by the offsider (Bart) - we got chatting for a bit and it turned out that they were having a break at Border Village so we said we’d see them there.
From Penong it was back on the road for a bigger stretch - had to keep the speeds down along here as it was a decent stretch between fuel stops - Nundroo had fuel but not the premium that Jimmy requires. We passed the sign marking the eastern edge of the treeless plain - that was spectacular, so wide and open. We fuelled up again at Nullarbor Roadhouse and then it was on to
We pulled up at Border Village and found Davo and we were guided over to where everyone had set up camp - we set up next to Skip, got ourselves sorted and then over to the roadhouse for the evening’s festivities. Met a lot of new people, it was a good night! Had my obligatory photo taken with the pudding, however it was on Alli’s camera so I don’t have a copy of that yet. We found our truckie mate and had a few games of pool and a few bourbons with him before he had to hit the sack as they were heading out at 1am. We got talking to some people and we decided we were going to walk to
We wondered back over to the roadhouse for a bit before finding our way back to our tents and taking a few minutes (about the length of a smoke) to admire the night sky - I have never seen stars like that - it was just amazing - horizon to horizon and so many of them!
Day 4 - Border Village to Poochera
I woke up Sunday morning and was nice and toasty in my sleeping bag listening to the sounds of the early starters getting ready to head out - I heard a “bye Mel” and called out back but I don’t think they heard me (I found out later it was Davo - bye Davo!) Eventually got up and Alli was still in bed but a few of us headed over the road in search of coffee - I went to the counter and was told to just help myself to the coffee provided for the truckies - sweet! A little while later Alli turned up and we farewelled our mates before heading back over and packing up our own camp.
We headed across the border and stopped for the border photos then onto Eucla for some fuel and a chance to visit “somewhere” in WA, then turned around and headed back across the Nullarbor - was much nicer with a tailwind!
We didn’t stop as much but with the pretty late start we were behind schedule again - we had been hoping to make Kimba that night but got to Poochera - it was dark and cold so we decided to call it a night. We stopped at the roadhouse and fuelled up and were advised that there was a pub in the town with accommodation so we set off in search of the pub. Eventually we found it - and it was closed! We were standing out the front deciding what to do next (it looked like we would be pushing onto the next town so I was having a smoke before we left) and a light came on inside the bar - were they opening?? Nope - but we caught the attention of the lady in the bar and she arranged a room for us inside - advised us that we would be best to eat at the bowling club rather than the roadhouse and even rung them to make sure they’d have food on for us - but it turned out they didn’t so after a hot shower each we set off on foot back to the roadhouse. I had a mad craving for steak and mashed potatoes - the lady in the roadhouse made up mash especially for us and let us split a mixed grill between us - made a good meal and $10 each! We finished eating and went to leave - got outside and it was bucketing down! Don’t know where that came from! We stood in the shelter bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have an umbrella (why would we have an umbrella? That’s what plastic pants are for!) when the lady in the roadhouse came out and offered to drive us back to the pub. Love the hospitality in Poochera!
Day 5 - Poochera to Coober Pedy
We woke up and the rain had stopped - Alli insisted that I wasn’t allowed to get up as she didn’t want to be last ready again so she made me coffee and pottered around for a bit while I lazed about in bed. Eventually I got up but I wasn’t allowed to pack my stuff up until after she was ready to go! Eventually we got on the road and scooted off to Kimba for the halfway across
Stopped at Spuds Roadhouse at Pimba for fuel and a bit of a break - they advised me it was always this windy out there! I stopped a few times at various rest areas just to have a bit of a break from the wind, fuel again at Glendambo before the 250km stretch to Coober Pedy. About 90km before Coober Pedy I spotted in the distance another bike - I caught it very quickly and realised it was a postie bike! I gave them a big wave when I went past. Got into Coober Pedy just before the sun went down, rode around and around until finally I found the underground backpackers. Got my bed sorted, had a hot shower and was just sitting outside having a smoke when the postie bike pulled in. Got chatting to the dude - he’d come over from
Day 6 - Coober Pedy to Curtin Springs
I got caught out in the underground backpackers - when I went to bed there was a chick reading outside my “cave” so the light was on and stayed on all night which bugged me a bit. I woke up about 6:30am and went upstairs and it was still pitch black so I decided to go back to bed for ½ an hour and turned off the light. Woke up again and it was 9:00am! Oops, there went my early start. Got going and continued north and stopped at the border for a photo opportunity. Just after I got there a car pulled in and I think they were a bit cranky at my bike being in the way for their photo but I said look if I had a kid you’d have to wait while I took the photo with them in front of it - I think they thought I am a bit crazy lol. Took my photo and moved the bike out of the way and took their photo for them in front of the border sign.
Got chatting to the dirty riders and we all had dinner and drinks together - very social. There was another dude there on a Buell who was doing something similar to me - as he was a dirty smoker too we ended up sitting outside with some of the boys who worked on the station and a couple of other dudes up from Alice Springs and sat there in the “beer and bullshit” corner for hours before finally heading to bed. Day 7 - Curtin Springs to Mt Ebenezer I woke up early enough to wave goodbye to the Buell rider as he left and beat the dirty riders out of Curtin Springs and headed for Yulara. Got to Yulara and found the servo and filled up before going in search of an ATM and coffee. Finally found somewhere, waited about half an hour (felt like) while they made me bad coffee and charged me $4.20 for the privilege. Yulara did not impress me. Headed out to Uluru, paid my $25.00 entry fee (gave a big wave to the Buell rider - he had decided not to pay the entry fee and instead just check out the rock from outside the park).
I had thought that I wouldn’t be out there for very long as it’s a rock, I’d look at it, take a couple of happy snaps and be on my way - nope! I was very impressed by the immensity of it - seeing the pictures is nothing compared to being there in person. I slowly made my way around the rock, stopping here and there for some pictures before pulling up where they climb it - I hadn’t really had any plans of climbing it, and when I saw where the climb was “fark that” was my thought lol. It is huge!!!!!!!!
Day 8 - Mt Ebenezer to Devils Marbles
I woke up feeling surprisingly good at about 7:00am - I headed back to the roadhouse hoping to find a coffee but no luck, they weren’t open yet. So I stuffed around packing up the bike and finally at 8:00am the roadhouse opened - got chatting to another of the roadhouse employees (it was his day off) and a couple of coffees later I finally got on the road. I hated to leave, I really liked it there and Kevin had said “well why not stay another day” and I was very, very tempted but nah, better keep moving (there was a job going there, they were looking for a cook - I said I can’t cook and Norm said that I could learn… damn that was tempting!!).
I got to Erludunda and filled up and headed up to
Got to Devils Marbles and the camping area was full of caravans so we found a little space (hurrah for motorbikes that can fit through small spaces) and set up our tents. I still had some bourbon and Chris had bought some beers and some coke so we had a couple of drinks before he cooked dinner for us both - I ate like a king on this trip but this was probably the best meal I had the whole trip - rice and red wine and beef casserole out of a can - it was great!
Day 9 - Devils Marbles to Camooweal
I think that is the quickest I have ever gotten all the gear back on and on the bike and I was out of there! I pulled into Camooweal and fuelled up. I had been planning on staying at Mt Isa that night (180km away) but had been told that the rodeo was on in Mt Isa that weekend and there was no accommodation of any sort to be had and there didn’t appear to be anything between Camooweal and Mt Isa. I looked at the time and thought it best to stay where I was so paid my $5 to pitch my tent in the caravan park and did some washing instead (of course I forgot about the sun going down so much later out there, I could have easily made it past Mt Isa in daylight! Ah well at least I got my washing done). Everyone had been so friendly along the way that Camooweal was a bit of a shock - I walked into the pub looking for dinner and the few people in there just gave me strange looks - so I walked back out again and went to the roadhouse for dinner instead, before having a pretty early night.
Day 10 - Camooweal to Winton
Then onto Winton. I got fuel in Winton and really wanted to push on to Longreach but the sun was getting pretty low and the road kill out on the road was a bit of a worry so I headed back to the caravan park that was closer to the pubs and set up my tent - and whaddya know, Al’s bike was there. I got my tent and everything set up and then went in search of Al in the pubs - I couldn’t find him but two boys in the North Gregory Hotel (where the signs informed me the first public performance of Waltzing Matilda was) insisted upon buying me bourbon and it was on. I was informed that the Tatts Hotel was the place to eat but one of the boys had been banned from there (what a crowd I had fallen in with!) so we went to the Winton Hotel for some food before heading back to the North Gregory for some pool before the bar closed so we grabbed some takeaways and headed up to Bill’s house (which they assured me wasn’t far - which was alright for Bill who had a lift with someone somehow?? But Matty and I walked carrying all the grog and it was far!) we sat around at Bill’s place drinking some more and listening to some music before I made the (what felt like) 50km walk back to my tent.
Day 11 - Winton
We went to the pub for dinner (the mixed grill is even better than the burger!) and had a few bourbons before heading back to the van park and sitting around a fire talking with a few “apprentice grey nomads” (there were two couples there who had decided to try it out to see if they liked it or not).
Day 12 - Winton
Meanwhile, Al had heard back from BMW - a truck was coming that night to pick up him and the BMW and take them to Townsville - awesome! The truck was due at about 5:30pm and they would head straight back to
So the bike was loaded up and Al, the bike and the truck departed at about 7:00pm. I was very sad to see them go - now I was in Winton all alone! I wondered up the road looking for food, more for something to do than being hungry but was advised that there would be about a 2 hour wait as the pub was so busy (it was packed in there) so I decided to skip dinner, had a quiet bourbon on the verandah before calling it a night.
Day 13 - Winton to Barcaldine
Played the now familiar games of “road kill slalom” and “guess which way the crows will fly” on the way to Longreach where I fuelled up and had a bit of a poke around town (tried for lunch but failed) before stopping to check out the 747 on the side of the road and heading for Barcaldine. The plan had been to stay at Blackall that night but it was getting reasonably late in the afternoon and I had a good feeling about Barcaldine so I decided to check out if there were any caravan parks near the pubs. I found one at the showgrounds but the office was unattended - I was advised to just set up my tent and they’d come get money off me later but I wanted to know how much it cost first. I hung around for a while and nobody turned up so I decided to check out the pub accomomodation. The first was motel accommodation, I passed the second one and the third one had a sign saying “$10 accommodation” so I decided to check that out. Phil and Shona own the pub and Phil showed me the room - he said they don’t have single accommodation as such so it would be $20 for a room with two beds but that suited me fine - sounded better than my airbed anyway! That was the Artesian Hotel and it is the oldest original pub in town, built in the late 1800’s and never burned down or destroyed in any way (amazing!). The Arty @ Barcy was awesome! It was a great night, there were two blokes from Mt Morgan (Loud McLeod and Gunna) travelling through to Camooweal and they had decided that Barcy looked like a good place to stop and had been there in the bar since about 3pm so already had a fair few beers under their belts. I was talking to a dude in the bar (Craig) and it turned out he was the cook in the pub so all four of us had some drinks and played some pool until it was dinner time, had dinner, more pool and more drinking before retiring to the balcony upstairs so that Phil and Shona could call it a night. Sat out there for ages before finally falling into bed at some time, no idea when.
Day 14 - Barcaldine to Mitchell
I headed on to Mitchell and called it a day - I had had enough. The Western Hotel had a single room for $25 - sold - got unloaded, a hot shower and I felt reasonably human again. The bar was dead, I had dinner at the bar with the owners before finding a little book upstairs (some romance thing that I got quite into!) and had an early night.
Day 15 - Mitchell to Gunnedah
I woke up pretty early and felt pretty good so got underway fairly early - and it was cold!! The lady in the servo told me I was lucky I wasn’t there a few days earlier as the diesel had frozen in the tanks and didn’t unfreeze until 9:30am! I headed into Roma for fuel and breakfast and then St George for fuel again - I had planned to go to Goondiwindi then Moree but found a smaller road that took me through Mungindi and would save about 100km. I didn’t exactly take it easy to Mungindi and got there to find only one servo in town with three diesel pumps and one unleaded - no premium! So I just topped up with five litres of regular unleaded, had a quick pie and go-go juice and continued on to Moree then Narribri and Gunnedah. I considered continuing on - there was still a reasonable amount of daylight and the road kill was nearly non-existent by this stage but decided to call it a day. Went down to the bar and got a bourbon and was sitting outside having a smoke when the local crazy found me - I suppose it had to happen sooner or later! After sitting through about three smokes worth of being talked at about how bad the Australian Government is (apparently the Americans caused our drought and we could end it any time we like if we weren’t so shit-scared of the Americans or something) eventually somebody else came out for a smoke and I could make my escape - a quick dinner then up to my room (thankfully I had a TV) so I watched the Olympics for a bit before falling asleep - and being woken up sometime later by my phone ringing - Stevo to say gidday - he told me about Tess’s birthday drinks the following night which I was grateful for - I now HAD to be home on Friday! :D
Day 16 - Gunnedah to
I had a reasonably early start - finally found the fuel stations in Gunnedah and got underway - I stopped in Muswellbrook for some breakfast before heading at a fair pace towards Singleton. I was cruising along and saw in my mirror a silver car approaching me rather rapidly, I thought “wow I’m gonna get overtaken soon” next time I looked I noticed them much closer and the flashing blue and red lights… bugger. Pulled over and the copper was really nice - he had clocked me at 121 in the 100 zone but wrote it down to 15 and under so that it was only $81 as opposed to nearly $300. He said he understood how easy it was on a nice day on good roads but 120 was really a bit quick, try and hold it to near 100 so I did into Singleton. Fuelled up in Singleton and while I was filling up another bike pulled in - he asked if I was heading up or down the Putty and I said down so he suggested we ride together. I was a little hesitant as I had really been enjoying riding on my own but said yes and we set off down the Putty with Mick setting a comfortable pace. We stopped at the Halfway Roadhouse for a coffee before setting off again - I told him of my plan of going to MCAS at Liverpool in a quest for new boots and he recommended a shop in Penrith which he took me too before heading off to go pick up his son from school - I had a look but didn’t really like anything there so continued on to Liverpool. I got to Liverpool right on end-of-school time so traffic was chaotic and I actually had no idea where I was going so I ended up getting the shits with Liverpool and headed back to the Hume Highway to head home.
Of course it had been quite warm in Penrith and I hadn’t tucked my neck warmer into the helmet nor done up my sleeves or zippers properly. So once I was past Campbelltown and the traffic flow got up to speed I was freezing, I was hungry and I had to go to the toilet. I planned to stop at Pheasant’s Nest but got there and thought “naaaaaah I’ll make it to
Now that I have written some 16 pages of my adventure I realise that I have hardly said anything about the actual riding - which of course was the main part of it all! There’s not a lot to say really - the roads were really straight (as was expected of course) and I loved every minute of it - it was so peaceful out there, especially in the northern territory when there was rarely anything else on the road and if there was I was around it in the blink of an eye (mostly road trains and nomads). I loved just being out on the road with no real destination just a direction and nothing but me and the bike and the open spaces. It was magical and I didn’t want to go home. The only hitch that Jimmy had was a somewhat unpredictable fuel light - it started only coming on as I was slowing down to enter the servos - never mind that it should have come on 2 litres ago! Oh and the puncture but that’s not really Jimmy’s fault! I had packed relatively lightly for this trip and the only thing I wished for that I didn’t have was a different pair of shoes (I did buy some thongs at Camooweal but I really wished for my sneakers) and there wasn’t anything that I had brought along that wasn’t used (apart from my tyre repair in a can which was for if I got a flat outside of a town and my “emergency food”, a can of spaghetti). I think I could have gone for months off what I had with me. It was a fantastic trip and I am so glad that I did it - I was having doubts about the immensity of it all after so many people told me I was mad for doing a trip like this on my own. The messages of support from everyone along the way was fantastic as well - thank you! I did 9,398km all up, spent over $1,000 on fuel, I ate like a king (and paid for it but it was worth it!) and spent more on accommodation than I had planned but that was worth it too. The next one is already in planning… standby for the report from next year’s mad adventure!
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