Category: Bike Trip 2008

I have just made some plans (in order to get the bike serviced etc) and heres what seems to be the go so far.

19th Tennant Creek
20th Mt Isa
21st Mt Isa
22nd Longreach
23rd Longreach
24th Hugenden
25th Townsville
26th Townsville
27th Mackay
28th Rockhampton
29th Bundaburg
30th Noosa (Staying with my brother Marc)

From there I will be heading south but knowing me, I will probably put in some big days and get back early or find something locally to do and take longer. I really don’t know what will happen.

This morning, after trying to find a dentist as I chipped a tooth last night, we ( Libby and I ) went on some quad bikes on a cattle station for some fun. The quad bikes were more successful than the dentist finding as, aparently, if you need emergency dental treatment, you need to wait 4 months for it.

I also spent some time trying to sort out a service for the bike (BTW, the tyre lasted 8400km). Townsville was the place of choice but the Honda dealer that used to service BMW bikes, has shut down and no-one else, including the BMW dealer, has been given the ok to service them yet. So, a quick call to City Coast Motorcycles (Where I purchased my bike) and Martin quickly arranged a service in Mackay for me. When I first went to the bike shop in wollongong I was un-impressed but having got the bike there (and lots of accessories) they are really a good bunch of people.

Anyway, back to the Quad bikes, we spent about 2 hours riding around and looking at the station. It was quite interesting but as they have not had much rain this year, they are down to 3000 head (from the normal 5000) in 4000 square kms. Most of the dams were empty and they are relying on diesel pumping stations for bore water.

Then, we went west of Alice to look at the Standley Chasm and Simpsons Gap. Both were worth visiting.

You need to be here at the correct time of day (about 1pm today) to get the sunlight down the gap.

This is a river bed (with only a little pool of water above the surface) but would be quite impressive when running.

This is a local ‘theme’ park that has many local environments setup. From sandy desert to semi arid areas it seems to cover what you would expect from central australia. It would be easy for this park to be tacky but its not at all. If you’re coming out here, you need to go to this park. The portable MP3 players are great and have track numbers printed on signs around the park so you know what to listen to.

The girls got some stuffed animals (aparently the thousands they already have aren’t enough) and appeared to have a good time. We also attended a birds of prey show which was very interesting.

We did the rim walk at Kings Canyon. Its about 10k from the van park and as I was dressed for walking, and leaving at 8:30am, it was a little cold on the bike (about 4 degrees).

Those who know me, know I’m not a big walker. This however was a fantastic walk. IT took about 3.5 hours and after the initial climb up about 300 steps, it was quite easy and had some really interesting areas to walk through. I’ll attach some photos to this post so you can see what I mean.

After getting back, we had a pretty easy afternoon and then left about 9am to go to erldunda. I was there by about 11am and theres not much to do so I just waited till the van arrived and we then had a place to sit until the hotel room was ready.

That afternoon, we did a drive up to the metiorite craters (I wen’t in the car as I now knew that the bike was not good on dirt). They were interesting to see as they were my first craters.

This morning we left Erldunda for Alice Springs. I was here about 10:30am and immediatly looked for a bike shop for a new tyre. that took me about 15 mins to find and then about 1.5 hours to get the guy to fit it. IT seems like a good tyre but I cannot really tell. Its a soft compound so that means it will wear out sooner but will also provide better grip so its worth it. $364 well spent.

So, over the next few days we will be doing the attractions around Alice Springs and the West/East macdonald ranges.

The bridge across kings canyon at about 1/3 through the walk

A Tree

A view of people looking over the canyon. This was taken about 1/6 through the walk looking at prople about 2/3 through the walk.

One of the small gaps you have to walk/climb through

Theres lots of life up there.

This morning I left Yulara at about 9:30, Quite an uninteresting trip. Its 304k but only about 120k line of sight, right through a salt lake and through culturally sensitive areas.
Theres no mobile service here on any carrier I have for data. I have satellite voice comms but can’t blog via that.
While riding, the tree webs started taunting me again and, after Doug made me feel bad about not having a photo, I decided to stop to get one. Now, you have to remember what the roads are like here, there is no shoulder at all. It goes from semi nice tarmac to red dirt. So, to make things safe, I left the road for about 2.5 to get away from traffic (theres a car about every 2 mins or so). I stayed on the bike, took a photo of a web that I had seen from the road, and then proceeded to try to move. Immediately when I had stopped, the bike sunk into the dirt about 150mm. This was like really soft sand and when trying to get moving again, I sunk the rear wheel down to the swing arm.
Bugger.
It took me about 10 mins to remove both panier, tank bag and top box, walk then to a part of the road about 100m further on that looked more solid (but still just off the road for safety) and start digging out the bike. I had thought about this sort of thing when preparing for this trip but as I’m travelling with some others, all of the recovery stuff (eg a shovel) is in the van so I didn’t have it. I had to use sticks etc, then drag the bike out backwards (its 240kg and annoying to move). The good thing about it was that I managed to keep it upright the whole time and eventually got it back near the road again. Then I could ride up to the paniers, put everything back on and ride off thinking I shouldn’t have been so silly and hoping no dirt was in anything it shouldn’t have been. I tested brakes etc and everything looked fine.
So, its now 1:40 and I’m sitting in the room at Kings Canyon waiting for the others.
Tomorrow, we are going to walk the rim (about 4hrs of hard walking aparently)

a photo of the tree web thingies for Doug.