Category Archives: Motorcycle

Day 51 – The tropics

We got on the road in very good time, around 9am. Which was well and good, since we had 560km to go *sigh*.

Heaps of memorabilia

Heaps of memorabilia

I wish I could report anything of the trip, but really, there was very little besides refuelling and brief breaks. That is probably the main reason why two otherwise unremarkable pubs have become somewhat iconic roadside attractions. We had an ice cream at Renner Springs and a couple of cokes at the more prominent Daly Waters Pub. Filled with all sorts of memorabilia left by travellers coming through, it has sort of developed into a go-to place. As I said, in the end, what else would you do?

So we had plenty of time to talk, muse and most of all listen to audio books along the way. The landscape changed rather abruptly at Newcastle Waters. Temperatures go up again, humidity increases and all around trees and shrubs have replaced the arid plains of the centre. A more subtle change is the constant rise in height of the termite mounds, of which some are now taller than we are.

Why?! 30 Minutes without shade ...

Why?! 30 Minutes without shade …

One last annoyance was a red lollypop on a construction site about an hour before our destination. We were the first to be stopped, so for the next 25 minutes we had front row seats to observe how roads are re-sealed. Thank you incompetent stick lady for no info at all and not waving past the only vehicle without AC to come through in 3 hrs …

But the light shines bright at the end of the tunnel. And it came in the form of the Bitter Springs, a ‘thermal spa’ stream in the bush. We arrived just in time for one quick swim before sunset. The perfect way to end a sweaty long day in the saddle. We swam along in the stream for a couple 100m. The water is actually ground water, leaking from an aquifer. Where the water flows, it is perfectly clear and has a lovely 34°C.

Day 49 – Encounters

We ended up staying alone on the bluff campground in Trephina Gorge. At least counting other humans. There were things going on, for sure. The “rain” tree, for example. Half the campground was cordoned off, because of a precariously leaning red gum tree as it turns out. The tree was marked “cracked or termites”. The eerie sound coming from it at night left little doubt which of the two was the case 😉

The ross highway along the eastern MacDonnell ranges

The ross highway along the eastern MacDonnell ranges

We stayed longer, not having much else planned and only 90km out of Alice Springs. Even on our way back, we stopped often and took some “dream roads” photos. So in the end, we made it back to town around lunch time.

First thing on our first stop, we checked our phone for emails and texts. Through our encounter with Georg yesterday, we got handed a mobile number with the comment “Werner and Claudia, they live in Alice now. Met them in Ushuaia, they are real travelers.” Since we count ourselves among this illustrious group, we gave them a text last night.

Nice bikes, nice people

Nice bikes, nice people

Well, it turns out they were not over advertised and after helping us out to find a supermarket instead of a kmart, Claudia had lunch with us in town. All plans of touristy stuff were soon abandoned and when she dropped us off at a campground in town to get around some chores an invitation was extended for tonight. This would give us a chance to meet hard working Werner as well.

In the end, we had a lovely night in town. After more than a month without meeting other motorcycle travelers, it was just what we needed. Swapping expat stories was an added bonus. Thank you, Claudia and Werner, I am sure we will meet again somewhere, some time.

Day 47 – Dingoes ate my baby

Last night was a bit later than usual. First, because my kangaroo skewers took forever to get served, but more importantly because we had a beer and travel talk with Thomas from Berlin. He is the first motorcycle traveller that we met since starting this trip, at least for a longer chat.

Human added for scale (top of the ridge)

Human added for scale (top of the ridge)

That, plus a couple of urgent emails requiring my attention in the morning meant that our plans for the day started with a delay right out of the gate. Not that one item makes for a very long list, but we also wanted to get some good distance in afterwards back to the Stuart Highway and north if possible.

That one item? The King’s Canyon rim walk, a 6 km walk (plus some detours along the way) was marked with a whopping 3.5 hrs. We got there around 10 with the bike fully loaded. That always makes for a bit of an awkward change from biking to hiking mode, but nowhere nearly as hard or annoying as in our early travel days.

Nina was ok with most of the walk, only my brief explorations of the edge off the 50m sheer cliffs was met with little enthusiasm.

This is called Garden of Eden

This is called Garden of Eden

Although we took every detour, had lunch at the Garden of Eden and took way too many photos, we were back at quarter past one. Are we actually getting fitter? Either way, we were changed and back on the road by 2 pm.

I was keen on some bush camping, but from 4 pm onwards, the roadside was all fences, or desert plain without a single tree. So we pushed on a bit longer, on to the Stuart Highway and made camp at the Desert Oak rest area (Overnight camping is allowed here). I even found some good fire wood nearby. Thus, the day ended with a cup of tea next to a campfire on red sand.

Not too bad for a day to end.

Day 43 – highway life

Road is in top condition, we can concentrate on our books ;)

Road is in top condition, we can concentrate on our books 😉

508 km … *phew* – I have heard so many riding tales of bikers having had a +1000km days. I will make a call now and say: never! I have done it in a car for sure, but 2 up, on our bike, +10 hours in the saddle … just no. Plus, alth

ough the days are getting rapidly longer now (spring coming and moving towards the equator) but daylight is still a limiting factor for us. So far we were successful in avoiding Australia’s most deadly animal, the Kangaroo, and I’d like to keep it that way.

So what happened today? Not much, really. First and foremost, we have learned that the reboot of the Perry Rhodan series, called Perry Rhodan Neo, has a much darker tone than the original series at that point.

Another border, last one in Australia

Another border, last one in Australia

… oh, you want to read about the country? We passed into the Northern Territory, the last Australian state on our route. This enormous piece of land is only home to between 180k and 250k (varying sources, no internet to check).

The landscape has changed after Coober Pedy, for the arid desert type to a more typical outback setting. Red sand, green shrubs and bushland left and right of the road. A lot more hills, mesa and cliffs than I would have expected.

The most important change in wildlife for us is seeing these enormous eagles for the first time. Sitting on roadkill till the last second, they reach to about my hip sitting on the bike, so up to 1m tall. Beautiful birds. In other news, flies are still annoying. No one tells you about them before going into the outback (at least not us), but they are everywhere. At least we found out today that they don’t like fire. As soon as we put water on the stove, they left us in peace. A little bit of Shellite is a small price to pay for not being pestered …

A mesa is a flat top mountain ... I have read ...

A mesa is a flat top mountain … I have read …

With a last push, we arrived at Curtin Springs. It is free camping within 100km of the rock, so we did not look twice. It has a nice view of Mt. Conner, a mesa often mistaken for Uluru. We both like it in its own right.

We’ll move to the Ayers Rock Resort ($36 for an unpowered campsite) either tomorrow or the day after to do the sunrise / sunset thing for Uluru and go hiking around Kata Tjuta.

Day 41 – Corrugation

I-i-i-i-iii ha-a-a-a-a-te co-o-o-or-r-r-r-r-ugati … oaaah, sand!

Look at those craters! Corrugation, about ankle-deep. Nina for scale is missing. :)

Look at those craters! Corrugation, about ankle-deep. Nina for scale is missing. 🙂

We did about 280km today, from Lyndhurst to Williams Creek. That leaves only ca. 170 km of gravel, minor excursions not included, of course. The road was tough to do on a motorcycle. About 30-40 km were either deep gravel, deep corrugation or nasty boulders half buried. The absolute priority for me was to get through undamaged. There were still one or two situations that got the adrenalin rushing.

There were stretches of hard packed soil were we could comfortably travel at 80km/h and within 15 m it would turn into something that would make walking speed an issue. At least with our bike. A dirt bike with a day pack and knobblies would probably fly right over. Twice it was touch and go. When we hit loose gravel and the bike just stated rolling out of control. I caught it both times. Riding with that level of concentration for hours is exhausting, though.

The one cloud of the day

The one cloud of the day

And then there were the 1000s of hard hits and constant vibration. The check up in Darwin needs to be thorough, and I will do a minor check in Coober Pedy. For once, I admit that traveling in a tin would have its advantage. All the other tourists waddled out of their AC’ed Utes in jandals and shorts and did not seem to mind the road at all …

 

Nina’s comment: Today, I struggled. I struggled with the gravel which made for a more than bumpy ride. I struggled with the heat and the utter lack of shadow. I also struggled with my mood and Flo’s mood. 280km seem too long now. It is called a desert for a reason. This place is very inhospitable with the sun scorching down at 33 degrees in winter. I don’t think human beings are meant to be here.

Now it was not all pain and suffering. There were some cool things to see along the road and having made it so far is a bragable offence in its own right.

A locomotive of the old Gunn Line in Marree

A locomotive of the old Gunn Line in Marree

First stop was Marree, an old cattle and railroad town. We met a bunch of other bikers who have done our route in reverse on GSs, and their tales about the road were encouraging. The local shop was particularly well stocked as well, so we sailed past the warning sign for the Oodnadatta track well prepared.

Along the way we stopped at “plane henge”, a peculiar sculpture park whose main attraction is a pair of planes bolted upright into the soil. The landscape kept changing constantly but subtly. Stony desert, plant cover, sand dunes and then soon enough the salt plane of dry southern Lake Eyre. White as far as the eye can see.

Lunch at the Oasis in Coward Spring

Lunch at the Oasis in Coward Spring

Probably the nicest stop along the way was Coward Springs, a campground at the heart of a wetland created by a leaking borehole. It had shade, lovely little campsites and a “spa”, filled with the water from said borehole. We were tempted to stay, but it was too early to call it a day and we kept it to a lunch break.

After probably the worst bit of road during the day, we made camp in Williams Creek. It has it all, quirky bar in the hotel, with travel memorabilia from all over the world. We had a Callipo Ice there and reminisced about our childhoods. We also met the first bunch of “serious” travellers like us. A German couple on a tandem push bike and swapped some route planning anecdotes.

Oh, one last thing … a small mishap … I’ll leave it to the photo to tell the story.

Day 40 – into the red

Graaaveeeelll!

Graaaveeeelll!

Today marks the first day of the most adventurous part of our Australia section of the route. We left Wilpena heading north to go via Blinman, Marree, Wilams Creek to Coober Pedy to meet the Stuart Highway. This means we will do a good section of the Oodnadatta track, which is hundereds of kilometers of gravel through the outback.

We got the first taste of gravel on one of the beautiful tracks in the Flinders Range national park. We turned off the black top road towards Blinman to take some pictures at the Bunyeroo valley lookout. We could have gone further through the valley, but I wanted to tag some more lookouts on the Blinman road (and there would be plenty of gravel soon enough), so we turned around.

Another lookout

Another lookout

Stokes Hill lookout gave a nice wide panorama of Ikara from the east. After that, it was another brief push for a good long lunch at Blinman Cafe. The temperatures, around 29°C, called for drastic measures: Ice cream for dessert 🙂 We got some queer look when asked where we were heading and we pointed north. The tarmac ends at Blinman, and most people turn around here.

We took the gravel road east through the Glass Gorge and Parachilna Gorge to meet the the Hawker Leigh Creek road. The gravel was mostly OK, a bit bumpy in the probably 50 stream crossings (all dry but one). Nina still got shaken around a fair bit.

Into the dead flat red nothing ...

Into the dead flat red nothing …

As we came out of the hills the land switched to dead flat. We cruised out the rest of the tarmac on our way north for a camp at Lyndhurst Hotel. Truckies, beer cans and flat nothing. Small downer: A road train with an entire cow herd pulled up just after 6 – thanks for the smell, mate!

All of tomorrow will be gravel – shake it baby!

 

Note: Don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for the next two to three days, as internet and cell phone reception is a bit of a thing of chance.

 

Day 38 – Winter you say?

The night was cool alright, maybe 8° C, but the day felt a lot like Wellington summer. With all the green that is still around, it is really hard for us to fully comprehend that this is winter. Be it as it may, we are enjoying it. A whole day of sunshine and agreeable temperatures. Maybe even a little bit too cold still for hanging around in the shade all day.

View back down, Hawker is just out of sight to the left.

View back down, Hawker is just out of sight to the left.

Right, what were we up to today? Well, for the most part, all these little things that needed doing but we did not get to on a normal travel day. A good bunch also required internet / phone connectivity, so around mid-morning we called it and decided on a rest day (i.e. staying in the Hawker camp ground).

The army surplus haversacks-made-tank-pannier we picked up in Auckland have proven themselves over the last week as excellent temporary (food) storage. Therefore, with an extra buckle and strap Nina has turned them into a permanent solution. I am very pleased with the final result, and the $35 price tag for the lot is a sweet bonus.

I have been busy with more general titbitty stuff: Load new audio books onto the Garmin; order spare parts and minor bits of kit to Darwin (including Nina’s Compañero pants); post the last blog entry; PC maintenance and a bunch of emails.

unknown berry

unknown berry

Last of all, I called my contact for shipping the bike from Darwin to Dili to get the dates and a confirmation that they are still the right place to go through (don’t laugh, it was a fun little daisy chain of “we don’t do that anymore” to get to them in the first place). The news was average: There are two sailings we could aim for – first with a cut-off of the 22nd of September, the other one on 1st of October. The first would mean a mad rush, but unfortunately the second sailing has a 9 day wait from cut-off to departure, probably another 3-4 days until we can start to free our bike in Dili.

For now, we are aiming for the 1st, knowing that these dates are famously sketchy from what we have learned from other travellers. So there might be hope.

After all was done and I went out to shop for another abysmal meal (when the petrol station is also the tourist info and the supermarket, not too much can be expected from me in terms of tastiness).

Sorry, no tele, but they were pretty cool in between the ruins.

Sorry, no tele, but they were pretty cool in between the ruins.

Around 3 pm, we finally had everything done and were ready to at least do a little bit of sight-seeing for the day. We headed south with a light bike to go on a little hike from the abandoned homestead of Kanyaka. After some minor challenges (all due to bad signposting, I swear), we found the ruins of the homestead and went on our way to visit the “death rock”, a distinct boulder marking a water hole. The bolder was used by the local Adnyamathanha people to bar their dead, hence the name. Oh, and we got our emu-spotting ticked off the list 😉

After that, we headed back to Hawker to check out another lookout signposted from town. Unfortunately, once there we found out that the actual lookout was another 20 min walk out from the car park. With the sun setting already, we took the views from the road and headed back to camp for some food and blogging.

Sunset over Hawker

Sunset over Hawker

A small side note at the end: We have been welcomed warmly if a little gruff by the majority of Australians we encounter. But within not even 10 minutes, a lot of these encounters exhibit something that John Oliver once brilliantly worded as: “Australians are comfortably racist”. The mere fact that we were the only ones to cringe when an old chap during a roadside stop peaked his crown jewel of a joke with: “and then the blackfella said” …

 

In other news: Nina is neither amused by the warmth nor by the bazingillon flies …

Day 35 – Hello Adelaide

We had an appointment in Adelaide with a workshop to get something on the bike fixed. I’m not qualified to tell you what it was but some part leaked oil so it needed a polish, new seals and “socks”. There you go. 🙂 That is about as much as I understood.

Flo’s insert: The front fork seals were leaking fork oil, because the rust on the chrome rods was not polished off in Wellington and cut into the new seals in a month.

Adelaide Central Market 1Lake Albert was a bit further away from Adelaide than we thought so it took us about 2 hours to make it to the workshop. On the way my headset played up and it ended with me not being able to hear anything while Flo still heard me talking. We changed the headset at the workshop as well because that was just no fun.

Delivering the bike, we then had about three hours to kill in Adelaide. Luckily, there was a bus stop outside bringing us directly into the city.

We started with the Central Market. Markets are just so awesome and so full of food. 🙂 Flo had spaghetti with clams for lunch and was very happy about his choice.

From the markets, we went through Victoria Square, up King William Avenue and into Rundle Mall. Rundle Mall is pedestrian only and it was full of people, street musicians and too much stuff to buy. In the middle of it, there are two big metal balls. We had to take an inception selfie, right?

Nina approves

Nina approves

The far end of the mall was more our turf: Hipster cafes, little shops and side alleys. I managed to get Flo into Cocolat and had a delicious chocolate-y dessert while Flo had a coffee.

Time to head back to the workshop. Everything was done but it cost so much that I nearly had a heart attack. We simply packed all our gear back onto the bike and left. Flo had written on the forum of Horizon Unlimited previously and we had a bed on offer in Victor Harbor which is about an hour south of Adelaide. So this is where we went. Geoff and Colleen welcomed us very warmly; Flo got lamb rump for dinner and I got apple pie for dessert. 🙂 Having a real bed every now and then is just unbeatable.

 

Day 34 – pushing it (into overtime)

Today was a long day, quite literally. 24.5 hours. But we did not realise this until it was almost over …

That was quite the run for 12 seconds ...

That was quite the run for 12 seconds …

We knew that today would have to be a bit of a push to make it in time to Adelaide. Have I mentioned this before? We have an appointment with Moto Adelaide, or better Rocinante has. Both seals on the front fork are leaking, something that should have been fixed by the workshop in Wellington just before we left for our trip. Unfortunately, they only replaced the old broken seals and fork oil, but not the root cause: Tiny specs of rust on the chrome cutting the seals with every suspension. So this time, new seals, a polish and neoprene protectors. Hopefully that will last me more than 4500km …

Some serious inclines on the way. Dunes as mentioned in the back.

Some serious inclines on the way. Dunes as mentioned in the back.

The day started with a short walk up the massive sand dunes separating the area with the camp ground (Swan Lake) from the sea. You have to believe me or google it, though: we brought our camera, but not one of our 5 SD cards.

Once again I have successfully avoided face planting us on the sandy dirt road back to the highway. I love the K60 scout on the back, can’t wait to have the matching set once the Shinko front one is dead (although that set got us around fine for 9k km in NZ). And it handles great on the road as well, way better than I would expect from such a rough tire.

First stop was Mount Gambier for provisions and the Obligatory 50m sinkhole in the middle of the town. We even managed to find the fuse for the battery charger I needed to replace since we started the trip.

You can see the rain rolling in, we were good :)

You can see the rain rolling in, we were good 🙂

The idea was to push the 85km to Beachport and have lunch there. About 20km before that though, through what turned out to be a stroke of genius we stoped “in” a roadside shelter / picnic spot. During lunch the heavens opened and Australia showed us that it can rain properly after all. Even better, that was the only spell of hard rain for the entire day, and we sat it out under a roof with a nice cuppatea!

We made it to Beachport after all and the sun came out for the first time. For now, it was only over Beachport that the blue sky gave a shy peep show through the clouds.

Straight straight lines ...

Straight straight lines …

After a super brief peek into Robe, the rest of the day was pretty much exclusively filled by riding. Today, for the first time we got a notion of the new sense of distance in Australia. I think for almost an hour straight we did not drop under 100 km/h. In the end, we will have done 420 km today (1111km in AUS in total). Our approach worked out beautifully though: Audio book on via the intercom, drop into the zone and just eat those kms!

About 50 km before our planned camp for the night at Lake Albert, we decided on one last detour for the day. The Prince Highway we were on for most of the day marks the border of the Coorong National Park, a 150 km long strip of marsh and flood lands between the road and the sea. The vistas from the road are somewhat limited, so we decided to take a 13 km loop road that runs mostly parallel to the highway, but give a much better impression of the national park.

What an impression that was! We almost turned around because the surface was again the upper end of what I am comfortable riding on fully loaded. The wetter spots had patches of soapy mud, up to 5cm deep. So glad we did not. There was one slightly hairy wobble, but no fall. But the views … I had goose bumps. I think sublime is a fitting description.

And so we end with the reason the day was particularly long. At some point during the day I have noticed that the clocks on the bike and the GPS were 30 minutes out, although I have set the bike’s one just the other day. We did not think much of it at the time and were good in time to make it to camp before 6 for Nina to skype with her family back home when I noticed something odd. The sun was quite low. Yesterday it set at 18:10, so we should have plenty of light left, but now at 17:30, it was almost gone.

At that moment it stuck me: We had crossed the border to South Australia early this morning and my diligent GPS adjusted the time to local time. Which, at the moment is 30 min before Melbourne time …

Day 31 – Back on the road

It took us quite a while to get going. Flo had to pick up the bike from the workshop with a shiny new Heidenau K60 Scout rear tire.

We also had to repack all our things and pack a parcel with things that we wanted to send back to Germany now, like my second motorcycle jacket that we just can’t seem to fit on the bike. J

We also fitted new mirrors and soft panniers in the front.

So in the end, with all the picking up and packing, we left Melbourne at 2.30pm.

A big shout out needs to go to our lovely AirB&B host Leah who was amazing and gave me a place where I could be sick in a real bed. It was so comfortable staying with her that we shortly debated staying another night as it was quite a late start.

The first and only picture - you have to trust in Nina's words.

The first and only picture – you have to trust in Nina’s words.

And then, we were on the road again. It is so weird: You know you’ve done this two weeks ago and yet, everything feels odd. The gear is so stiff and heavy, the first Australian motorway freaked me out and yeah, sitting on a bike again.

It took us a while to get out of greater Melbourne, but we managed to make a start on the Great Ocean Road. Immediately, the landscape got impressive. Unfortunately, we only have one picture from right at the start of the track and not the wild coast afterwards but the sun was about to set and I really wanted a camp spot before dark. So all those pictures of the coastline will have to be taken tomorrow.