Day 1 - Airlie Beach to Mt Wyatt (Sellheim River)
Loaded up the bike at my apartment at 6:30 to meet the tour group at Club Croc at 7:30am. Met Magnus (tour boss) and Andrew (lead rider and assistant) with the tour bikes unloaded. Gav and I must've been the most keen as we were ready 30 mins before everyone else.
Magnus gave us a rundown on some ride protocol, road safety (cattle grids, bulldust holes, roadtrains, suicidal/kamikaze wildlife, etc) and we were on the road about an hour later. We also were told that the average for non-finishing the tour had improved from 1 in 3, to 1 in 5!! The talk worked as I took it pretty easy for the first day.
The adventure began at our first smoko break after about 50 mins of road riding. A copper had pulled over a Britz camper van and was talking to the driver. A few mins later I got to see the biggest bag of weed that I've seen in real life. The guy was locked in the back of the divvy van for a bit, while they searched the rest of the van. It was like watching an episode of "Customs" or something.
Overall we did 150 kms or so on bitumen before we hit station country. Started to hit some of the cattle grids, dirt, dust and also spotted some cattle. We had a break and lunch in front of the Bowen River. hotel. It's a very old pub which is made from slabs of timber - not weatherboards, but thick slabs of gum.
After more dirt and gravel, we made camp on the banks of the Sellheim River in/near Mt. Wyatt. After setting up the swags and having a quick dip in the river, we sat around the campfire waiting for the camp oven to cook the beef and lamb. It was the first of what was to become a regular event - campfire, beers, talking crap and having a fantastic meal. Magnus can certainly cook and there wasn't a shortage of food. The roasted pumpkins were a definite highlight.
Bikes lined up - mine all sparkly clean
Support vehicle - Izuzu 250 Crew 4WD beast support truck
Day 2 - Mt Wyatt to Aracam
Woke at 5:50am in time for the 6am brekky. We were informed about the "Big Kev" challenge - cooked brekky of bacon and eggs for 16 days. I wussed out on day 1 :) There's a few takers, including Gav (more on that later).
We fired up the bike and not long after dropped into a small valley and had great sight of the sun rising over some fantastic scrub country. I hit my first patch of bulldust and a small moment as the front wheel started to plough through the loose dust. I don't reckon I'm a fan of it - it wasn't too bad in that I could see where it was, but it still surprised me at how quick the bike slowed down. Andrew was our lead rider and was keeping a pretty good pace. It turns out he was also the chief roo scarer as well. I think it was just after lunch (?) that he hit and killed the first roo of the trip. He was fine and stayed on the bike, but the country is now less one medium sized grey kangaroo.
Just after luch, Andrew needed a 'comfort break', so we stopped for 10 mins. As Simon (Sydney, via Manchester, UK) pulled up, Gav noticed his rear wheel looked like it was soaked - but we hadn't passed through any water for hours. Somehow, his sump plug had managed to work its way loose and he'd dropped 90% of his oil on the ground and his bike! Lucky we had stopped and that Gav had noticed it, otherwise who knows what would've happened had the engine siezed at 90 km/h! We had lunch while Magnus tried to find a bolt to fit.
We exited the station/cattle country into some huge natural plains - it was as if there was a line that seperated the scrub from grazing/plains country. Approaching the end of the day, and only about 60 kms from our overnight, Andrew managed to score roo #2! This time he wasn't so lucky as it blindsided him and took out his front wheel at speed. Again, the roo was ultimately the worst off as it was dead, but Andrew was pretty knocked up. The bike peg left a scar in the road about 10-15 metres long and the left side of the bike was trashed. His helmet is now only good as a momento as it was cracked and scratched up pretty bad. Turns out he dislocated his shoulder. At one stage he passed out as he tried to stand up. It was all a bit scary for a while there. Rather than trying to get him going, we waited a bit longer while one rider went to the nearest station to call for an ambulance. Instead of everyone waiting around, the rest of the group decided to head to Aracam as we thought that's where Andrew would be taken to hospital. The bike was left at the station and will picked up on a return trip. On the way to Aracam, Roger (from Albuquergue, New Mexico) ran out of fuel so we drained about a litre out of my tank. Coming into Aracam we were treated to a spectacular sunset.
We made camp in the back of the Aracam hotel, with Magnus meeting us later saying that Andrew had been taken to the hospital at Barcaldine instead.
Andrew's bike, post roo #2
Sunset coming into Aracam
Morning out of Mt. Wyatt
Somewhere in Qld :)
Yeah, I don't really know where this is either!
Day 3 - Aracam to lookout 30 kms from Stonhenge
Turned up to the servo, expecting it to be open at 7:30, but had to wait 'til 8:00 am. By this time, the first ever traffic jam at Aracam was recorded with 7 bikes and 2 cars waiting for the pumps to be turned on. Fron here we had a bit of time to make up as we had effectively lost half a day. We hit the dirt road to Longreach to get new tyres fitted to the hire bikes. It started to heat up pretty good by this time as we waited 2.5 hours for the tyres to be fitted - unfortunately the bike shop was too far from the centre of town for us to wander through. Given my tyre is a bit of an unknown, I tried to get a new 17" tyre as a back up, but no cigar at the two local bike shops, so I picked up a well used emergency spare - which happens to be the same as what I'm running right now. At the time of writing, the condition of my current tyre is not looking too flash - only time will tell.
The roads were pretty open and it was the first time that we hit some red roads. The road 60 kms from Stonehenge was an absolute ripper, the dirt was very grippy and I could just nail it through the corners at a very illegal speed - I had visions of Safari or Dakar running through my mind. It probably didn't look that flash, but I was having a blast.
The pub of the day was Stonehenge which had a very relaxed feel - nothing too great to look at, but the people and characters inside really made it. We made camp at a lookout some 30 kms from Stonehenge which overlooked a cattle station which had been sold for $3 million. Very impressive. Rain started to fall and it looked like we were in for a wet night. The chicken curries kept us warm and were fantastic.
Traffic jam at Aracam
The super tanker pretty much empty - other side of tank had about 1 litre left.
Bikes lined up at some burnt down hotel in the middle of nowhere
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