Sunday – Rockhampton, Queensland
Back home finally

Well, a bit of a bonus, the brekky at the motel was great, a good old fry up, nothing like a full stomach to start the day. I had a few more caches to look for during the ride home, the first one was at the local botanical gardens, but as it looked to have been affected by recent flood waters I did not bother looking, I can do that another day. Crossing the Nogoa River bridge, the last time this was flooded I was out here with the SES(State Emergency Service) and we had to cross the river by train. The water level was up to the red line on the train bridge and the one I am on was under water, this was a few years back now. At the time it was quite interesting crossing raging floodwaters at night to help the townspeople

Heading east there is a small weird place of interest, a cache was placed here to get people to stop and look I have no idea what this place is about, needless to say, a lot of bones and old boots and I doubt I would like to go for a dip!

Not far east of here is the small town of Comet. Once again, I have been through this place many times and only stopped at the pub This time, due to another hidden cache, I had a chance and the time to look a bit further. I spotted my first cane toad here since being back in Oz, these are an ugly critter and have slowly taken over the land.

They have poisonous glands on their back and shoulder and a lot of native species die from them every year from trying to eat them, although some have managed to work out how to eat them. The crow has a trick of flipping them over on their back, then eating them through the belly Humans on the other hand have worked out a different use for them, they dry them in the oven and smoke the result, apparently they get high from this, one of the many things in this life I have not tried yet and am not planning on doing so any time soon Back to some other history, this town is famous for having a DIG tree here. Basically the explorer Leichardt left some notes and stores here and buried them, with the tree engraved with the word DIG and an arrow pointing down.

After that, I stopped at a few more caches before it started to rain. By now I was getting a tad hungry so I stopped at the Westwood pub for lunch, this is a cow cocky’s type of pub, with the old swaggy out the front and they make no bones about which is the men’s dunny

After a nice burger I headed off and as I got near Stanwell power station, I saw the result of a coal train derailment, there had to have been some powerful force to rip them wagons apart! It must have been a while back as they were neatly stacked by the tracks and the line was open and working again.

The spitty rain got heavier the closer I got to the coast, as is normal, and when I stopped for a cache near Neerkol, it became quite heavy. This place has a darkish history, a lot of young pommy orphan kids were brought up here after the war but there have been many reports about abuse by the people running the place, this is not the only place like this in this country though sadly, a dark chapter

A short time after this I arrived at the roundabout to enter Rockhampton and to be met by a bulls arse, what a silly idea Both the south and west entrances to this roundabout sees a bulls arse, but the eastern one, for when you leave Rocky, you get to see the bull head on, hopefully there is no hidden meaning in that

There was much evidence of the recent rain events that has been happening in the Rocky area over the past few months, with the Yeppen Lagoon overfull of water again and probably crocs as well. Past the Tropic of Capricorn tourist centre, (which is not actually on the exact location of the tropic, but close enough for a sheep station eh!). The barrage gates on the river were fully open allowing a brown torrent of fresh water and silt to head down the Fitzroy river and out to sea, but the car parks were open and unflooded, so that was all good

And after a short stop for a beer at the Fitzroy Hotel to say g’day to some old friends, I headed back to my folks place and the official finish of this leg of the trip.

The next leg will not be for a while as I need to save up for beer money, but the basic plan will be to ship, probably by air, the bike and me to the Europe somewhere, then ride it east through to Singapore and ship it from there to Oz, and ride it home. I have no real plans at this stage as to timing, but the next stage will take a lot more planning, because a lot of the eastern part of Europe(not the EU countries) will require me to have visas and carnets. They only have a short life span and cannot be had too far in advance, so there will have to be a more ordered approach to the trip.

I have really enjoyed my time on the road over the past few years and loved meeting the people I did, as well of course the different cultures, even if they created a challenge at times For those who followed along and read my daily ramblings, thanks for being there and for the emails as well. It was great to hear from people I had met, or had yet to meet as well as tips and ideas of where to go and what to see.

My web page will be a bit static from here on in, but I will be experimenting with a few more ideas for the future I will put some numbers up though, once I have collated them, things like fuel used, total distance etc etc

Day – 301 km and 187 miles
Trip – 10,193 km and 6,334 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Saturday – Emerald, Queensland

I was only a day away from home but I had decided to break it up into two days and get back Sunday. The worst job of the day was getting my riding pants and boots back on, after the ride through the locust plague yesterday, from the knees down they were slimy with guts and stuff, eeeewww After grabbing some fuel and food down at the BP I went looking for the first cache for the day, down at the Waltzing Matilda center, which is an Australian cultural center based on the music and poems of the past and in Particular Banjo Patterson.

After sorting that one out, I headed to Longreach, about 2 hours away through mainly flat terrain but quite green for a change and even with full rivers. There are a number of things of interest here, but for me, been there and done that a few times, so I checked out a cache near the hall of fame before heading to Barky, or Barcaldine.

Now, Barky was a surprise as they had changed the main street, or the highway in actual fact and built this huge structure on the left hand side.

This is or was the location of the tree (Tree of Knowledge)under which the Australian Labor Party was born. The original tree was killed by poison by some idiot years ago, the dead tree was removed and a sapling from the original root stock was put in its place, they had a number of these descendants in various places and some were quite well established . That was as far as things went before I left, this young 15ft tree now in place. I knew the original tree was being preserved but now I know what for. They have removed the living tree again and moved it to I have no idea where, maybe back where it was from originally. In its place they have placed the original preserved tree and the actual structure above it is a wooden carved sculpture, of the tree canopy if it was alive. It is hard to describe, but if you can imagine a mold of a tree canopy, then remove the tree and canopy itself, this is the shape the wood bits conform to, an interesting concept. Here is a sequence of photos from the past few years of what used to be here, the what is there now.

After the tree is dead before removal, about 3 years ago

The old tree replaced by the new tree about 1-2 years ago

And how it is today

After a short stop here onwards and as I was in no hurry I actually went and looked along this dirt track which I have seen a few times now either riding or driving past. There is not much there, but a small piece of history anyway

Next stop down the road was at the town of Jericho, I have always been intrigued by the name even though I am not religious and it seems to be related to things that happened long ago in a faraway place.

I could not make any real sense out of it, but it looked OK and was different so I will put it down to my ignorance Next stop heading east was the Drummond Range, there was another cache here somewhere and I eventually found that one as well, a nice place to sit and relax and enjoy the view

If you are wondering what that is in my hand, it is one of the treasures in the cache, a squishy rubber chook that lays eggs All these short stops add up, so the normal time from Winton to Emerald was extended but not long after this I was passing through the cotton fields and booking into a motel. Knowing as I do the hassles of finding accommodation in the mining communities in the coal fields around here, I had booked a room here two nights ago. I have stayed here many times for work and I was surprised to find that the price had not changed much over the past two years even with the new owners, and they included a full on fried breakfast, cool

After a beer or two to quench the thirst I went up to the local I usually drink at and to get a meal. Not much has changed here either, except the price for the special had gone up by 5 bucks and the portion size had dropped, I will probably try something different next time out here, with work or without. A few beers back in the room sorting out some more caches for tomorrow, it was only a short 3 hour run to home, but I was planning on arriving in the middle of the arvo, in time for the raffles down the club, just getting the priorities right you know

Day – 609 km and 378 miles
Trip – 9,892 km and 6,147 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Friday – Winton, Queensland

I got away late this morning, and as I had not bothered to look at a map or route, I had no idea on the distance to Winton, via Boulia. I still figured I could do it though by late afternoon, even when I found out it was over 600km, that meant a constant speed, and I am good at that The reason I was late out was because somehow I had broken another pin off the back of my Garmin GPS and I needed to get that repaired so I could download the tracks off it and to upload cache co-ordinates. It took a while but I got it done before heading south, this road is mostly single lane paved with a dirt shoulder and not many opportunities to pass if I got stuck behind someone, but over the next few hours I only saw about 3 cars all coming towards me and wonders of wonders I managed to get a tail wind for a while

The next few hours were just ride and eventually I got to the turnoff to the Donahue Highway, this is the section of dirt that leads across to Alice Springs, the last part of the Outback Way, I don’t trust that sign about the fuel, I have heard one of the fuel stops is closed, so in actual fact it is about 600km without fuel!

I filled up here in Boulia and grabbed a sanger before heading across a very full river and into the east where I may or may not get to see a Min Min light. The roads had been torn up on this side of the bridge and there was about 20km of dirt, some of it a bit slippery when the water truck was doing the rounds, I am glad it was not raining when I went through here, it looked like it could get a bit boggy! I nearly ran over 3 emus going across a floodway, but they hightailed it through the creek.

The roads were flat and straight again for a long way, before I came upon some nice terrain and a cache hidden somewhere amongst the hills.

Now I did a stupid thing here, I rode up the damm road to the lookout before deciding it would be better with the bike down below, but I committed myself to the hill on the way down before seeing the washouts on the bottom at the corner!!!! I could not back out now as the bike was already on the down slope, which was rocky and loose, just the stuff I hate with a heavy bike!!!

Well, I was nervous as buggery but I had no choice and I am extremely grateful for ABS brakes, I was locking the back constantly trying to line up the front wheel at right angles to the washout and I am happy to say I got through it and did not go over the edge on the way around the corner. I needed a bit of a break after that so I had a hike up to the top of the mesa to find the cache and check out the spectacular views, before checking out the interpretive boards at the rest stop.

Once I had cooled down a bit I headed off once more, during all this time I saw no other vehicles and the next car I saw was about half an hour later coming towards me, not a nice hill to be trapped under the bike on in the heat out that way! I was running pretty hard now and into a head wind again and decided to save time by not stopping for a fuel stop at Middleton, instead I used the canned fuel I had with me. This turned into one of those time saving decisions which end up taking longer in the long run, just like a shortcut is the longest distance between two points! The reason I say this is because I was hoping to get into Winton around 5pm and was pushing to do so, this meant I used more fuel and in the end I ran out again, 2km from town, I could just about smell it, it was that close

Lucky for me a farmer drove into town at that moment, he took my fuel can back to the farm and filled it for me and didn’t want anything for it when I offered, thanks a lot m8 That meant I was not that late after all and dropped in to see Butch and China at Central Motors, great people.

I had been planning on staying at the North Gregory, but they advised the same stupid lady is still running it, so instead I chose the Tatts and I was soon booked in and having a beer in the bar. No Optus service out here, so no chance of checking emails and such.

After a couple of beers and a feed I went up to the Winton pub to have a beer with Butch and also met Kevin the pub owner, it was a good night watching proper footy amongst friends There was also an interesting sign on the wall, well one of a few anyway

I nearly got locked out of my room, while I was heading back later that night, I passed the bar manager and after a short conversation, he mentioned that since the backpacker fires in Childers, the pub has to be locked up, so he leant me the outside door key to get back in, that was lucky

Day – 682 km and 424 miles
Trip – 9,283 km and 5,768 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Thursday – Mt Isa, Queensland

Just a long day today, with a head wind, yuck!

I knew I was in for a headwind today, so I would need to keep an eye on fuel and I actually stocked up the extra can again, it seemed silly carrying it empty! I had had a good night’s sleep for a change though, so I was prepared and after saying bye to Jason I headed to the Three Way junction where a cache had been hidden, this was a memorial to John Flynn, the initiator of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

From here it was only 200km to Barkley’s Homestead the next fuel stop and it was pretty much uneventful country at that, long and flat, but for a change I noticed a lot of surface water and there was a fair amount of green around, courtesy of all the rain I guess

After grabbing tank and tummy at BH I looked around for the cache hidden amongst the old steam machinery and found it after a few attempts, trying not to be spotted by the travelling public.

The next few hours were just hard riding into a head wind, I am sure I have done more than my share of riding into them, surely it is about time I got a break! But, I eventually arrived at the Queensland border where I found another cache before grabbing some fuel, they had a nice sign on the side of the building, a bit of a dig at the NT

It was another 2 hours to Mt Isa where I planned to stay for the night and on the way I spotted some excavations, I had also seen similar work happening a few hundred kilometres back near the Stuart Highway in the NT. I had seen a few signs and it turns out it is a new fibre optic cable between the states, this bulldozer is unreeling the new cable into the pre dug trench, before it gets backfilled, they have a long way to go to meet those coming the other way!

After a few hours I saw the stack at the Isa and found my way to the caravan park I had stayed at a few times before. I grabbed a donga as my tent was still shagged before heading down to the RSL for dinner, but the kitchen was being done up, so I resorted to the Barky pub, still a nice feed though and cold beer. A couple of takeaways sorted out the rest of the night, tomorrow I had decided to make for Winton.

Day – 688 km and 428 miles
Trip –8,601 km and 5,345 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Wednesday – Tennant Creek, Northern Territory

Bit of bad news when I packed up, I snapped one of the poles for the tent, so that was going to be annoying, less than a month old and broke already, bugger! And to top it off, the cheap camp chair I had just bought, also broke a leg!!! I did not leave too early as I was only planning on getting to Tennant Creek and the first cache was up the road a short way, it was a turnoff to the Tanami Track, this is another dirt road that leads from Alice Springs to Halls Creek, but I am not doing that one this time either, but I will do it one day. It is the yellow road on the bottom left of the map and heading up and left. My track as usual is in red.

Not far from here was the Tropic of Capricorn, there were some interesting info boards here, especially the Troppo one, I have experienced the ‘build up’ and it is horrible!

A bit further along was the turnoff to the right, another yellow road, this was going east to Boulia, but it was mostly dirt and from what I have heard bad dirt as well. Even the truckies can’t get along here, I will have to come back to do this one another time, but I will, although I will need a lot of extra fuel and water, maybe stash it on the back of a 4wd or something

Another cache was at Native Gap and as I have ridden past here a few times without stopping, it was excellent to have a reason to, it looks like a great place to campout, but a bit early in the day. The only downer would be the bloody flies!!!!

The next stop was at a supposed spot depicting the geographical centre of Australia, but as it was on a mountain, I did not go and see it. Once again, they have provided information which means I don’t have to write it all out

On I go and as I ride I am seeing a lot of lizards, some running, some no longer in any condition to run, this one is a smaller one although I have seen some a few feet long, they are desert coloured and stick out like dog’s proverbials on the tarmac!

There was another memorial up the road a ways, this one for one of the builders of the telegraph line that I learnt about at Mt Ebeneezer.

I was about 15km short of Wycliffe Well when I ran out of fuel, bloody Opal, I guess it was my own fault too as I had not allowed for the headwind and I was not running that fast either, but the fuel is hard to work out, you use more and get less power and range! I had some trouble flagging people down, I nearly got run over once when the car had no intention of stopping. I guess a scruffy biker waving a lone lady down in the middle of the outback could be seen as a threat! Eventually though, two blokes in a hire car came from the north and took my fuel can back and filled it up for me, thanks guys. Don’t ask me why the spare fuel can was empty, I won’t answer!

I did manage to get to the servo and fuel up, this is at the alien capitol of Oz, I have been here before, so I did not go through the whole procedure again, but did take a few photos. As this place is situated near Pine Gap, a joint military installation, it is no wonder strange things get seen out here A bit like the ET Highway near Area 51 in the states where I was last year.

It started to rain here but not hard so I ignored it for the moment while I had a bite to eat. After this I kept on going north and after about another hour I took a quick detour through the Devils Marbles, I had been here also in the past few years and nothing had changed, no rocks had fallen over that I could see

I was not that far from TC now and I had been thinking of going on to Three Ways and camping, but then I remembered my tent was buggered and I could not be bothered with that, a stuffed chair and a stuffed bed, I felt like a motel for a good night’s sleep for a change. After a bit of verbal crap at one motel who were very unhelpful, I ended up getting a discount room at another, the chap seemed to think someone with such a sunny disposition could do with a break, thanks Jason, that was appreciated, especially as the rainbows were around again, I am sure they are following me

The rain did come bucketing down, but by this time the bar was open so I was only getting wet on the inside After a good dinner and some great conversation with some fellow travellers, I grabbed a few takeaways and had a quiet evening back in the room and hopefully a good night’s sleep.

Day – 524 km and 326 miles
Trip –7,913 km and 4,917 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Tuesday – Alice Springs, Northern Territory

I could not contact Swifty, so I made the decision to stay in the park another night before heading away tomorrow. I went down to the cop shop to find out about the road conditions along the Plenty Highway, this is the last dirt section of the Outback Way that starts at the Stuart Highway, just north of Alice and heads for about 800km until it reached Boulia in west Queensland. Bad news, because of all the rain events over the past few weeks and maybe months, the rivers are up near the NT/QLD border, so it is a no go. Bummer, this means going the boring old route around to get back home and a long detour, probably adds about 1500km to the trip. Oh well, nothing can be done about that, so I went and searched out a few caches around Alice. The first one is up on Anzac Hill with some great views of the city.

After that I chased another cache which was a bit tricky as I had to scramble up some steep rock sided hill, I found out later there is a pathway up here, I had just come from the wrong direction Great views from up here as well and I could see Anzac Hill where I had just been. This was near the Todd River, renown for its annual Henley-on-Todd boat race, which they have to cancel if there is water in it

Next up I chased one over near the northern entrance to the town and here I spotted Masa, he had been here two days and was heading north, not sure where though and I don’t think he knows either, that’s the way to go.

Next stop was going to be the truck museum, but I only got to see the static outside displays because half of the museum was closed due to illness, maybe next time.

Off chasing another cache after this which was in a pretty obvious hidy(well not so hidy) spot. But as I am a newbie, all the better

After grabbing some shopping and some more beer(a relief to pay near normal prices after the daylight robbery at Uluru), I spent a bit more time back at the camp kitchen doing a few more blogs. I still had not heard from Swifty, so I had written him off for a meet this time and started to work out a timescale for getting home. The road from here on in was not new, I had done it quite a few times by now and it was just plain old boring. I was thinking about Tennant Creek for tomorrow night and maybe the Isa after that, or Boulia, no hurry

Day – 56 km and 35 miles
Trip –7,333 km and 4,557 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Monday – Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Movement again today, and we were taking different paths as well. We would ride together to the Stuart Highway, then I would head north to Alice and the Plenty highway while Derek would head south towards the Oodnadatta track. After fuelling up we headed east and the first cache for the day was at Curtin Springs about an hour or so up the road.

This is the place where the mad emu lives, which hates motorbikes, this time although we could see it a ways away, it did not bother us, so we got away without any hassle The last time I was through here on the Rumble to the Rock it went animal, click on the link for some photos, about half way down the page Now, the last plaque mentioned Mt Connor and this is where the next cache was to be found. It is an impressive sight by itself and over the top of the sand dunes is another different view of the salt lake in the area.

It was only another 100km to the Stuart Highway and on the way we stopped for another possible cache at Mt Ebeneezer, but no matter how we tried we could not find it (we found out later that this was no longer listed so no wonder we could not find it and the staff knew nothing about it either).

We got to the parting point around lunchtime and took a staged photo for the record, before we looked around for another seemingly non-existant cache, once again we found later that this one had been ‘deactivated’, so a waste of a walk in the bush! This is where we met a fellow traveler, Sabi from Spain who is doing a tour on a rented beemer, nice to meet you and safe travels

We had some basic servo food, including about a gazillion flies, before going our separate ways. Nice to ride with you Derek, safe travels on your way home and thanks for showing me Geocaching, I think, but it is getting me to slow down and look around a bit I still had 200km to go to get to Alice Springs where I was hoping to catch up with an old acquaintance called Swifty, and I also had a few more caches to look for on the way, which is just as well, because this road is fast and forgettable otherwise with only a few spots of interest along the way The first one was basic and easy while the next at the Finke River had some nice info and lucky for me a nice dunny as well

There was water in the river, but not much, you can tell by the width that it gets flood waters though here during the wet. The next cache up at Stuarts Well was a tricky one, but I did end up finding it, I had been through here before and since that time new info boards had been put up.

I found one more cache at a rest stop before AS, this one was damaged and was waterlogged, it needs better protection I guess! Then it was on to Alice where the kangaroos are enormous and bigger than cars apparently

I went back to the same camp ground where I had stayed before and erected my dodgy tent, one of the poles looks like it is about to snap already, and blew up my dodgy sleeping mat, I am not having much luck with sleeping arrangements lately! I had had no response from Swifty, but because he was working day shift, he may have been out of range. I met another rider here, he had a bike that had a different type of conversion, it looks like a trike, but it is actually a bolt on outrigger and he claims towing a trailer at speed is very stable with this rig

I grabbed a few beers and a feed from the local supermarket and had a quietish night, doing some blogging and catching up on the forums again. I was planning on staying a 2nd night, but I was unsure if it would be here or not, it depended on Swifty who I had still not been able to contact.

Day – 474 km and 295 miles
Trip –7,333 km and 4,557 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Sunday – Uluru, Northern Territory

A quiet day today, Masa was heading off to Alice Springs. See ya later m8

Myself and Dereck spent an hour or so in the morning chasing up a few caches around the resort, they were quite easy to find and I am glad we decided to do it now as it was warming up quite a lot very quickly not to mention the flies!!!!

Lunch down at the pub was next and then I spent the rest of the afternoon in an aircon room away from the heat posting a few days blog, no way of catching up because I had too many photos to go through. At the end of the day I had a few gold priced beers and had a good time meeting with some young poms here on a flying visit in a hire car. We ended back up at the pub for a few later on where the music and dancing was, nice to meet you Tim and Rick

Day – 0 km and 0 miles
Trip –6,859 km and 4,262 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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Saturday – Uluru, Northern Territory

Down again, I hate soft sand! But, made it through to the pavement and civilisation

I did another bit of blogging this morning for one reason only. My brain was confused by the time zones and so I had woken at normal “brain” time but in actual fact it was still darkish. No wonder they don’t open the shop until nine, the sun gets up late out here! Anyway, we finally got under way around 9.30 or so after fueling up with the ever present Opal, a crap fuel and the economy goes way down when using it, but it is illegal to have anything else out here!

Our first cache to find was not that far away and all we had to do was skirt the camel bones and climb another hill, but the find was easy and once again great views.

A bit further down the road was a large lone gum tree and the location of a marker plaque put there by Len Beadell, the road builder.

A short distance from this marker, well relatively speaking, we arrived at the Northern Territory border. Here were a number of the usual welcome signs, as well as some a tad different, but highly relevant to this area of Central Australia.

We arrived a bit further on into very sandy territory and went searching for another cache up in the sand dunes, an easy find When I headed back to the bikes, I spotted a dingo just walking away from them, but nothing seemed to be missing, maybe not enough time for it to sniff out food! That’s the fella near the tree in the grass, easy to spot his ears

On the road again and this section leading into Docker River was some of the worst we had experienced so far. There was lots of sand but we survived that and managed to get into the community just on closing!!! Lucky for us we managed to get fuel, or we could have been stuck here, and I must say this place has absolutely nothing going for it. A disgusting smelly place, nowhere to sit down in any shade and the shade that was there was covered in filth, we had a quick lunch before getting the heck out of there!

Now we had more of those horrendous roads, soft sand and bad corrugations, a very slow exhausting time in the extremely hot afternoon sun!

We came to another cache stop and another interesting place to visit, this is called Lasseter’s cave, a nice place to scramble around the rocks and through the sandy river bed

More sandy roads after this and heading east with the sun behind us, well the inevitable happened, somehow I fell off again!!! I have no idea how I ended up all the way over there facing the wrong way, but I guess hanging on to a wild Vstrom may have something to do with it

Just for the record, I asked Derek to take the photo of me under the bike. My left leg was trapped anyway and I used the right one to hold the bike off it to lessen the pain, it was nothing major. What really annoyed me about this was yet again the Happy Trail pannier ripped free of the bike which caused my leg to be trapped, not happy about that at all! The top box also came free, but that was because I did not have a proper mount, once again thanks to HT!!! Anyway, we bashed the boxes into shape again with our boots and got it all bolted back on before continuing on, we only had another 70km to go to the Olgas, where the pavement starts, I can do that, maybe, even vertically surely

We started to pass some road works, some of the road was very well done but for some reason we would then hit a real bad section, like they missed a bit, so there was a lot of speed up, slow down right now style riding. We eventually saw our first good view of the Olgas and some more wild camels as well. The views would have been nice, but keeping the eyes on the road was pretty important as I did not want to spill it again and finally we arrived at the end of this section of dirt, yehaaaa!!!

We did a tour of the two viewing spots around here, but were not planning on doing any actual walks through the rocks, maybe tomorrow, maybe not. I had seen these before, but in the pre dawn light a few years back, so it was nice to see them with full sunlight on them.

Next stop was Uluru, or as it used to be known, Ayres Rock, this was 50km away but all paved, we took it easy as we had low pressure in the tyres and could not be bothered pumping them up at this moment, it has been a tiring day after all! We went straight to the sunset viewing area, but were not planning on staying until sunset, we needed to get the tents up in the light.

It was about 7pm by my clock’s(I have no idea what the real time was, I was confused) by the time we got into the campground at the resort, there is no free or wild camping allowed out here as it is all Aboriginal land and special rules apply. Once again it looked like I was not going to get a decent night’s sleep, two of the internal bladders in my sleep pad had broken free from the base and this meant it kept trying to throw me off, check out what it looks like when inflated!

After this we decided to go get some dinner down at one of the bars, proper food, cooked food and maybe a beer, although I knew from past experience the cost of beer was more than gold!!! We had camped next to another rider from Japan, his name is Masa and we invited him down with us. We had a couple of beers and a hamburger only, as the other food menu was a bit out of my price range, around $50!! You also have to show your room key or camping receipt before you can buy a beer at the bar, this just proves you are a guest, there is no alcohol allowed outside the resort area, as the sign earlier showed, they have a special rule for this area, because of tourists of course!

We stayed and relaxed for a while, showing Masa in his map book some good places to visit on his 6 months tour. I had decided to stay another day to relax and maybe catch up with some emails, and maybe a blog entry or two. Derek also had decided to stay another day. It was not a real late night and I missed out on getting a few takeaways, apparently you have to buy before 9pm, bummer, oh well shit happens!

Day – 388 km and 241 miles
Trip –6,859 km and 4,262 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

WORLD

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Friday – Still in the Gibson Desert, Western Australia

Well, we survived the howling dingos and whatever else the night brought around and woke to a beautiful sunrise

A quick breakfast before packing up, which was a bit tricky as there were lots of buggy things around hiding under the wet tents, I am not sure which end is which here, but I am sure it does

It was already getting warm as we headed east, the road was not too bad for a change and we managed a pretty good speed to start with, but knowing that would change for sure. Along this road we have seen many dead and abandoned cars, I stopped counting at 100 as I could see it was a common practice out here.

We found out later that what happens is, the local people drive the car until is breaks down, they then strip it for parts if they are useful or just burn the car. They are a blot on the landscape out here and really spoil a pristine view, well except for the road carved through the bush I guess We stopped at a Telstra tower, but there was no service, it was microwave only and then found some yucky road, with the wind blowing a bit, this was a bit tricky, but we eventually made it to the first cache for the day, where we had to clamber up and around some bluffs, but we did find it From up there we could see the caves across the road and excellent panoramic views, great stuff

It was my lead still when we continued on and I was a bit ahead when I came around a corner and spotted a big bull camel in the middle of the road! My first wild camel and he was huge, so I grabbed a quick movie of him and then a few still shots, he was a tad nervous and bolted down the road before swerving off and heading up into the dunes.

Not long after this we came to one of the many interpretive sites along the Outback Way, and it just happened to concern camels, so we stopped for a snack and a read, very interesting, especially the spiders!

A few hours later after another cache find we managed to survive some loose surface and arrived at the Warburton Community, or to be more exact, at the Giles Meteorology Station as it is not allowed to enter the Aboriginal Community itself without different permits, we only had transit ones. Here we parked in the shade of the enclosure surrounding the Gunbarrel Grader, a very tough piece of machinery.

There was also a piece of the Blue Streak rocket and we were met by Mike, the manager of this facility. Derek knows another biker who used to manage this place, so they had been warned we were arriving Mike gave us a great tour of the facility, thanks very much

First stop was the weather office, here was the radar tower and control point for the station and all the data collectors. We were shown some of the data gathered by the weather balloons and also the hydrogen plant next door which splits water to make hydrogen used in the balloons, a bit dangerous, but they have all the safety gear and procedures, plus it is well away from the living quarters. There are actually 4 officers living here for a 6 month stint and they can bring their wives if they want, that is if the wives want to be stuck out in the desert for that length of time!

Out the back were the actual data gathering instruments, inside a fenced off compound, but mainly to stop animals from walking over them. There were a number of barometers, temperature gauges, a glass ball that measures the amount of sunlight there is during the day and a water evaporation pond.

More temp gauges in the ground to measure different depths as well as soil surface temperature, two rainfall gauges and on the fence behind Mike is an isotope gatherer. Apparently when it rains, this water is collected and sent to a lab for testing, the radiation from events in other places in the world can be found using this technique.

Just behind Mike is a colourful little radar dish, this is the old radar mount used to track the weather balloons when launched 3 times a day. This was a manual system and the operators could spend up to 3 hours in here each time, not much room in there either!

After the tour was finished, Mike invited us back for the 3.40pm launch of a weather balloon, so all we had to do now was work out what time it was!!!! There are actually 3 time zones in this place, WA, SA and NT, the weather station works off SA time, which although it is in the center of the country, it is actually half an hour ahead of my home town on the east coast, very weird people South Australians!!! West Australia was the time we were on, but now the local time is actually Northern Territory time, so what to do, very confusing. Well, we had lost about 2 hours coming into SA time and missed lunch, so we bolted down to the roadhouse where we booked a campsite and got the tents set up. They had power here and a great camp kitchen with everything we needed, including fridges and a microwave.

After this and a quick snack we went back up to meet Peter, who was going to show us the launch of a weather balloon. We just arrived in time as he was inflating the balloon in the shed. This area is saturated in water prior to and after the filling to stop the build up of static electricity which could cause another Hindenburg episode. Once inflated, the radar reflector is tied on to the neck. The launch this afternoon is not a full sized balloon, it is only a small one and they are only getting wind speed readings, the full electronic package ones get launched in the mornings and late evenings, but this suited us

After the filling we went back inside where Peter showed us how the radar was calibrated for tracking and he showed us one of the electronic packages used in the larger launches, they measure temperature, humidity as well and transmit the info back down. The balloons themselves can get up as high as 30kms before bursting and that is when tracking stops. All around Australia at the same time, these balloons are launched and the data collected and processed somewhere else. The other thing he showed us was the tracking scope, this is outside and is used once the balloon is launched. It is slaved to the radar and it needs to be pointed at the reflector under the balloon and when the radar has locked on with a steady tone, it is now automatic and will follow it until it is shut down. I took a small movie of the launch, which was straight into the sun, but interesting anyway

There was a small museum with some information about the station and the area, including a painting by Len Beadell, the engineer who built these roads. A bit backwards I know, but I finally took some photos of the info board out the front of the station, better late than never eh

After this we returned to the camp ground past the car graveyard and settled in, this is only a small fraction of the amount of cars seen along this road and it would be nice if they were all here!

It had been mentioned that there may be WiFi internet here at the road house campsite, wonders of wonders there was and it was free and quite a good speed as well We managed to stuff up the times of course and when we went to the roadhouse for dinner, they were just closed, but lucky for us, he had all this cooked food that had to be thrown out, so we had some deep fried free food for dinner The rest of the evening was spent in the camp kitchen, totally screened from flying bugs, mostly grasshoppers out this way. I was doing a blog entry and uploading a stack of photos while I had the chance and also chatting to another couple who were heading west, this is Stephanie and Servaas from Gent in Belgium. Nice to meet you and safe travels, I may see you in Belgium in a while, during the next leg

It was a quiet evening all up, as it is a dry community and we could not leave early in the morning now because the store does not open until 9am and we had forgotten to fill up with fuel this evening, oh well never mind, play it as it comes

Day – 199 km and 124 miles
Trip – 6,471 km and 4,021 miles

Cheers
TravellingStrom

WORLD

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