The Longest Friday

It was high time to head down from the cool weather refuge of the mountains and embrace the heat desert….Australia is after all mostly arid landscapes… I’m think’n to see it,.. you’ve got to suck it up and step into the oven.    I was heading for Alice Springs, via Cobar, Brocken hill and Port Augustus.  My contacts from the Sydney rally extended as far out as Cobar,..where one of Perry’s buddy’s put me up for the night.  It was classic Aussie hospitality with endless barbecued steads and some of the best scalloped potatoes I’d ever laid into to.  My morning routine had me going over the bike, checking for any issues before I stepped off. I traced some residue to a severed oil line leading off my rear shock preload.  Over the last week since the rebuild, I’d managed to not see an oil line making contact with the rear tire…that one’s definitely on me..bugger.  So I was mobile,..but had no shock preload…meaning I was not offroad capable until I got her fixed.  As the shock is a sealed unit,..it had to be mailed off to the nearest shock expert.  In an incredible gesture of kindness, Bill dropped the shock off his very own and beloved GSA and swapped out with me. He was either doing me a huge favor…or desperate to get me out of his house J..  Thanks very much Bill for letting me pull parts of you bike..,..I’m in your debt.

With Bill’s shock installed, I rolled west for Broken hill.  Just outside Broken Hill, is the one horse town of Silverton…..the filming location for Mad Max.  the perfect setting for a lone Aussie Cop (mel Gibson) to single handedly take on the post  apocalyptic world of evil!  Any man with an ounce of motor loving testosterone…loves this movie! …or series I should say…if you haven’t seen the mad max series…stop reading this immediately and go watch all three Mad Max movies!

Silverton,..the filming location,..is a historic mining town,…with about five old buildings…the pub being the one showing any sign of life.  Turning down a dirt street(main street) I knew what I was looking for,…and there it was parked outside the old Silverton bar…The Mad Max interceptor!   Booyah!!

It was a ghost town until about eight oclock when loads of folks emerged from the country side to grab a cold brew in the bar.  Silverton’s lonely bar way out in the middle of the desert was suddenly a happening place.

I was sitting out front on my motorcycle ….inquiring from the locals where I might track down some of the local emus.  Emus, like Ostriches and Qasuaries(sp) are just another bit of Aussie wildlife that baffles my imagination.   While a local old timer gave me directions, a hairly look’n wasp the size of small bird landed on my shoulder.  It wasn’t going to get through my riding armor (BMW does special RD to protect its riders against Aussie nasties), but its close proximity to my exposed ear made me feel a bit vulnerable.  I gave it a quick flick and sent it flying to the dust beside my tire.  I looked over at the local old timer and inquired on the name of the insect. He just shook his head “never seen one of them things around here,..and spit on it,..then crushed it under his boot heel before I could snap a photo of the anomaly. That says to me you could probably live here all your life and still see no end of weird things that might show up perched on shoulder.

As the sun was setting I was off into the desert about 6 miles out of Silverton.

I’d got caught up in the excitement of seeing two emus way off in the desert,..and I’d broken away from the dirt track was riding cross country across the hard desert floor.  I wasn’t even coming close to catching up to the birds as they blasted over the desert terrain like hover crafts.

I pulled off for the night among some sage brush.  It was a georgous campsite,

…but it didn’t take long for the massive swarms of flies to locate my camp. I rushed to set up my tent and the retreated from the buzzing black clouds.  Its enough to drive you crazy as the flies maneuver with extreme skill to enter any location that will mostly likely drive crazy..ie your eyeball…nose,..into your ear.  The primary use of my tent on this entire tour has been bug relief…and I’m going to be picking up head net ASAP.

As soon as the sun dipped below the horizon..the dreaded buzzing noise abated and flies wandered off to rest up and plan their morning assault.   I emerged under an incredible night sky.  It was dead silent,…with only an occasional gust of wind ruffling the fabric of tent.  I fired up the stove,..brewed up some noodles.   I was sitting their sipping on a cup of wine,..giving the noodles an occasional stir,..when a moth wandered in to close to the flame and dropped dead below the stove.  It took about 2 minutes for an army of ants to move in and haul off their new found booty.  Its amazing how much goes on right between your feet out here….needless to say my sandals aren’t getting much use….I like the security of the motocross boots.

I’ve been putting in lot of highway miles.  I’d rather be maximizing my time on the dirt,…but I’ve decided to allocate the majority of my time in Australia to far western province of Oz,.. appropriately titled…Western Australia.   So I’m running fast on the tarmac,..putting in long miles to get to Alice to start a new venture into the Gibson  desert.   The highways are’nt too bad.

Bad being the big superhighways of the US that are only good for making time hauling ass across the country.  These highways are fast,..but only two laned…gently contouring the terrain through a country with very little traffic.  Virtually every vehicle gives me a wave…with the exception of the Bikies.  These are the notorious biker gang types…like the Banditos or Hells Angels of the US but of Australia…the one percenter types…the guys who had trouble making friends back in grade school..ect.   I only saw these guys on the road between Sydney and Port Agusta.  Out on the real roads,..leading up to Alice I didn’t see any bikers.

One thing I didn’t expect from the hot red center was rain…and I got loads of it.  Massive storm clouds reared up in the distance and poured water out in spouts over the desert floor.

The storms have been rolling in during the evenings,…making for some dramatic evening storm displays.

I don’t know why,..but if there was a major storm cloud ahead of me,..the road would inevitably turn right for it.  The first storm was the biggest,..I’ll admit I was little nervous.  I pulled over to decide how to take it.  Lots of lightening,..major crashing thunder,..and I could see the rain in the distance like a wall approaching my position,..it was coming down so hard it was knocking dust and mud back up in to the air in front of it.

An unusually hot blast of air was moving ahead of the storm,..so uncomfortably warm I had to shut my face shield to keep my eyes from tearing.  I ultimately decided I’d rather minimize my time in the storm by pushing through to the other side,..and its always good to have some rubber tires under you if the lightening decides to touch down.

I put on my emergency flashers, switched mp3 player to ACDC and rolled back on the throttle. There was that super exhilarating split second as the front tire burst into the wall of water.  The pelting rain soaked through my riding suite, high winds battered me from different directions and I could smell and taste the red mud as it permeated the air.  It was a rich experience and the drastic change in temperature was huge relief.  Towards the end the storm I pulled over to watch a few Kangaroos drinking water from the pools in along road centerline.

Its easy to pull of on a dirt road,..out of sight and mind from the freeway and bush camp for the night.   After a hot day of riding I welcomed the evening rain in camp.  Rather than getting my clothes all wet, I stripped down to my boots and let the cold soothing drops cool me down.  Fortunately I was back enough into the bush to avoid surprising any locals (other than few kangaroos) as I strutted around camp wearing nothing but motorcross boots.

sorry- no pics here( thats on the “other” website

A few nights ago I woke up to a massive ant infestation in camp.  Not a huge deal,..they were little buggers and they didn’t really sting much when they bit,..but I had a dollar for every bite,..I’d be well on my way to new set of Ohlins.

Every so often I find myself riding through massive tracts of private ranching land…the dreaded barb wire fence lining both sides of the road…preventing me from finding a good campsite.  As I passed into the Northern Territories I found myself in one of those endless fenced cattle stations.  While searching around for a break behind a rest stop I ran into a group of Germans, who’d simply made camp at the rest stop between picnic benches.  It was close to the road, but given only about 2 trucks would pass every few hours,..it was relatively quiet, and it was loads of fun to be camping with these folks.  We sat around swatting at flies and swapping stories.