Australia it is then....!6th November 2008

[RobBD]

Is'nt it just the best part of being on the road - you can change plans at a whim or in your case Andy, an offer that is just to tempting to turn down!
Enjoy Darwin and that means you will probably ride through the Kimberly - just stunning scenery - enjoy

 

[BaldBaBoon]

Well the rain is on a definate mission up here in Darwin...lives up to its tropical zone description.

Storms only last about 2 hours or so, but the heavens really do open and you get a huge deluge that floods everything. Then its back to the steamy and hot standard conditions, as soon as you have a shower or a dip in the pool....you start sweating again straight away.

The road to the East has just opened with a limited travel allowed to light vehicles on one lane only, morning they can travel west, later they can travel east. The road had completely washed out for over two weeks with numerous vehicles marooned on high spots and dragged away by the torrents....Mount Isa was effectively isolated for 2 weeks.

Today the news is that the main route to the West is cut, main bridge has fallen about 2 meters below the river that it normally sits above.....so no travel to Perth that way.

Looks like its Australia Day in Darwin then!....Monday the 26th is when the Aussies celebrate that, and there has been a huge rush for booze and bar-b-q supplies going on.

 

[BaldBaBoon]

Some photos in no particular order

The bike being recovered on the back of a Land train, what with being diverted to help out another driver when his rig got flooded....a nice little 1000km journey on the back.


The veiw from the Land train...Big massive tubular steel Roo/car bars on the front and metal grill windows...these fellas do not stop for anything, even if visibilty drops to nothing, they keep rolling.

Henry the Landtrain Driver

Another biker out in the outback

 

[BaldBaBoon]

Recuperating in the pool on New Years Day....this is a staged photo as my little pommie Skin goes bright red even after only 10 minutes in the Alice Springs Sun....40 degrees heat but the UV is off the scale.

The Todd river flowing in Alice Springs....local news goes that if you see the Todd flowing for 3 seperate times you are classed as a local its supposed to be that rare.....saw it flowing 4 times, the rains been that heavy.

 

[BaldBaBoon]

Back form a little earlier in the trip.

Coober Pedy

A mining town that mines Opal, population is about 4000 but they are not too sure.....almost all of which live underground in rock hewn homes.You will see what appears to be a small shed, which happens to be someones above-ground kitchen with a 12 bedroomed home out of sight below ground.

Good way to live, temperature stays pretty constant and its kinda funky.

Also where Crocodile Harry lived in his later days. Harry is the local legend and seems to actually deserve the legend status. Accepted by almost all that this was the inspiration at the least for Crocodile Dundee.The Locals are trying to get a proper statue of him made up.

Harry was a genuine Baron from Germany who moved to the Northen Territory and made his living by hunting big Crocs and spent a large amount of time living with the aboriginals where he picked up at least 3 of their languages.started Opal mining when Croc hunting was outlawed, where he cut a sizeable home from the rock using just hand tools and explosives.

His home was used for the Mad max films and after his impressive chasing of tina turner ( about 60 odd at this stage ) she gifted him her chainmail bra used in the film...which started a trend with thousands of visitors leaving him underwear in his cave.

found out he was dying from cancer in his mid 70s.....so went and took a huge loan out and had a 3 week party before he died.

You need to see his place or read up on him if you are near here.

 

[BaldBaBoon]

in ref to the above post about Harry...when he was pursuing Tina Turner all over the film set....he was in his late 60s ( Not Tina )

 

[BaldBaBoon]

Found that i have been having conversations with myself for quite a while now.....mostly unheard by others, but apparently I have a discussion out loud every now and then. ( as told by others where im staying )

Not very concerned about this considering the amount of time I spend on my own either riding or during my proffesional life.However when you add the nightly pub sessions and the intense humidity,maybe I will keep an eye on this.....I will have a talk to myself tonight about it.

Lots to do at the moment, been seeing all the tourist bits out here.The Darwin Botanic Gardens were good except I found out the hard way that im s#*t scared of huge spiders, a huge ( and I mean HUGE ) spider was dangling over the foot path in the gardens and I did not notice it until i was almost directly below it......fortunately my old army skills kicked in and I screeched like a little girl and shoulder barged through some school kids and ran for the open areas.

Been out doing some fishing off the local pier ( not that I know the first thing about fishing ) and caught a large shark.......actually it was about 13 inches long, but im sure I can photoshop it to look impressive.

 

[BaldBaBoon]

I sorry to say I may have had an incident that makes us Motorcyclist look a tad bad...maybe even a little yobbish.



Coming back from the local wildlife park, I was enjoying the scenary and for once it was cool and pleasent after a huge downfall of rain.....So I am swooping around the corners on the rounds and quite enjoying splashing through the overflow/creeks that cross the road.

Just came over the brow of a hill and heading into the creek lower down, when I noticed that the approaching Toyota Landcruiser isnt actually approaching....but is parked up smack bang in the middle of the creek.It cannot be drowned thinks I, as the creek looks about one foot deep at most, Just to be sure I gun the engine and sit back in case its a little deep.

Only as I screamed past the Toyota did I notice that it wasnt dead, But had stopped with all its windows down to look at the pretty fish things in the creek.A lovely family of 4 toddlers and mum and dad all enjoying the day....all leaning out with their happy beaming faces, the smiling dad looks up as I shoot past......followed by a 6 feet tall bow wave of muddy water.

In the slow motion that only genuine horror allows, I see from the corner of my eye and mirrors the lovely family and their car being swamped by the tidal wave of shame.


I ran away very fast and didnt stop till i got back to Darwin.

 

[Shep]

Brits abroad eh!

Sound like your having a fantastic time, a real adventure.

Keep safe


Shep

 

[Loiq]

hahahahaha

nice one

look forward to the next installment

 

[BaldBaBoon]

The weather is just taunting me now, the road to the east is open again but the road to the west is under water ( after opening briefly ) Choice is to wait even longer for the road to open...ride all the way back to Port Augusta then Perth ( humungous journey ) or head East to Cairns and go scuba diving for a while.

Everyone needs to do a journey like this, just go and get lost and waste time somewhere warm and with beer access.Been doing a lot of nothing during the days, just floating in the pool and thinking.

With that thinking, I have been finding that I have been going over important moments in the past that happened to me and seeing what went wrong and what went right.

I think that the moment that my job as a soldier went sour has finally been brought to light in my mind....and considering what Im doing with my life right now, it was for the better I left.



The pivotal moment

Coming back off a Squadron run I was told to take charge and supervise everyone stretching off and cooling down...basically a follow the leader approach, I stretch my legs off....the rest of the group follows the exercise.Everone files onto the main square like they always do, and we proceed.

Having done this untold times and bored to the hind teeth of it, the idea of new and exciting exercises hit me like a bolt from the blue......I led and the others followed the new and interesting stretching routine with ( im proud to say ) enthusiasm and gusto.

Two hours later Im being shouted at by a very irate Commanding Officer as to why he received a phone call from the Regimental HQ demanding to know as to why his Squadron was doing synchronised " Porn Star pelvic thrusts " and other suspect moves of a erotic nature on the parade square in front of the entire Garrison.

There is no specific offence in the army rulebook of for performing synchronised pelvic thrusts....but the humourless bar-stewards still gave me every crap job going.

That was the main reason to leave....I cannot work with people who cannot laugh at themselves.


Okie dokie...back to the bike related stuff from now on.

 

[rob mac]

I know what you mean, I had 14 years of it before I got fed up of "painting coal white"!
There's one of the boys(Marc) out in Perth, emmigrated last October, his bike has just arrived from the UK. We met up in Thailand at Christmas and hired a couple of Kawasaki Dirt Trackers and road up through the north. He's up for a ride along/beers/accomodation when you're in the Perth area +61404375192 is his number. (RobBD - I know he'd appreciate a call if there's any ride outs going on)

 

[RobBD]

No shortage of rain up there Andy- the West sounds drier than the East at the moment but keep us posted.
Rob - just gave Marc a call -he probably thinks I'm some axe murderer -some random dude calling him from a website but he's a brave boy and is coming around- might be able to give him some work. As for the ride..... not sure that his Harley will follow the GS thru the scrub though but you never know.....

Andy you'll have a whole mob of bikes(well two anyway) follow you into Perth.... just like the movie star

 

[rob mac]

Cheers Rob, spoke to him today, that's great news thanks. (Just talk him into a GS will you?)

 

[smilee mark]

Are you likely to be goin through Sydney , We can generally allways fit somebody else in.. For the short stay, I live at MAnly a popular tourist destination.

 

[BaldBaBoon]

Aye, the plan is still to get to Perth....with all this impressive flooding the Gibb River is a no-go and the bridge 200km west of Katherine was last seen above the surface 3 weeks ago it think.I think I need to look at alternative means, Got a mate who works the Road Trains here.If I second crew him/co-driver he might give me a lift.

It may be classed as wimping it....but if anyone wants to do a non-stop 6000km ride on a DR650 which has a seat as wide as one butt cheek....be my guest

I will be going through Sydney and the Gold Coast...for one reason I may have got a great deal on some Scuba courses, from untrained to advanced/rescue diver for a very cheap cost.....let you know about that.

 

[RobBD]

Ride the Kimberly if you can Andy then the road train option would be good from Broome south cause there's one road and not a lot for a thousand kms south of Broome till you get to the Pilbara region then there is options of different roads.
Whatever way you do it will be fun though - enjoy.

 

[BaldBaBoon]

The poor bloody Aussies are taking a hammering weatherwise out here.

Last month 1/3 of Queensland was under water and it was classed as a national disaster....now we have a record breaking heat wave....47.9 degrees in Geelong yesterday, lots of people collapsing in the heat.

My mate who I travelled up to Darwin from Alice Springs with, got a phone call this morning that 4 of his cousins are dead and another 10 from his family are missing in the out of control bushfires all around Melbourne....what the heck can you say to the fella when that happens?

Setting off for Cairns in the morning to try and outrun the Cyclones expected over the next few days......let you know when I get there, Keep safe.

 

[slojon]

Water seems to follow where ever you ride. Do us all a favour, skip Qld and ride to Vic please.

 

[RobBD]

Very sorry to hear about your mates family Andy - that is horrific. The fires in Victoria are nasty - send rain that way for sure.
You will have a blast in tropical QLD - especially once you have the dive ticket.
Good luck and ride safe