Outback trip - Oct-Nov 2016

Thu Nov 3 22:41:45 CST 2016 - Of Salt Lakes and Trains

Have left the outback. I think the first few hundred km of outback is the most interesting. The salt lakes are awesome. And it has that wide-open thing going on where there's not a tree to be seen, just arid / salty environment. Today between pimba and port augusta I overtook a freight train, which then caught up with me when I was taking salt lake photos. I'd forgotten how long those outback freight trains are.


Also stopped at lochiel to take a photo of nessie. I saw her on the way up but didn't stop. Luckily, today, the lake near lochiel was a dark purple colour. Very cool.



I also managed to take an interesting panoramic shot. A truck came along at just the right time to "ruin" the shot. But the effect was interesting.


Here's the shot I was trying to take:


I made a terrible mistake today. I rode through Adelaide. At peak hour, no less. I didn't even think of peak hour. Stupid. I instantly regretted it. That usually happens when I go to Adelaide.

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Tue Nov 1 23:02:56 CST 2016 - Of better outback sunsets

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Tue Nov 1 21:11:12 CST 2016 - Of Advanced Persistent Threats

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Sun Oct 30 22:03:27 CST 2016 - Of Ludicrous Speed

OK, well, not ludicrous speed. But fast. Today I went out to the open speed zone just north of Alice Springs

This was good fun. I got the bike up to 224kph according to the GPS. The speedo read 240. This is approaching top speed for my bike - it was at the point where wind resistance made a big difference - I huddled down behind the windscreen and tucked my legs in and got an extra 10kph, bringing me up to 240. At these speeds, the hot wind of a 35+ degree day feels cold, and your helmet is being pressed into your face pretty hard. Also, every single bump in the road feels huge, Overtaking cars which are doing 100+kph feels like they're standing still. and the white lines in the middle of the road go by real fast.


While doing this, I screamed over the tropic of capricorn at over 200kph. On the way back, I stopped there and took a photo.


Super Fun. After doing this kind of speed, hitting the 110 speed limit feels like a snails pace.

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Sun Oct 30 20:40:52 CST 2016 - Of Alice Springs and the flying doctors

Yesterday I rode from Yulara to Alice Springs. It was excruciating. In addition to running on only 2 hours sleep (it was a hot night, and I was disturbed by a couple of guys who arrived at the campground late and then left early), it was 40 degrees - hot enough that even Alice Springs locals remark that it's hot. I took an air temp reading at one point while riding and it read 44 degrees (hotter over the bitumen). And to add to the fun the water I had with me wasn't awesome.

I stopped briefly at the Mount Connor lookout (which I skipped on the way there) and took a photo, and I stopped in Erldunda for fuel. The first half of the ride (Yulara to Erldunda) wasn't too bad, but by the time I got to Alice Springs I was really not feeling good. Still, I made it, and booked into an Air Condtioned room.

I also stopped at the memorial for Australia's only Cannonball Run, which didn't end well. At the spot where the monument is now there was a checkpoint, and a japanese dentist slammed into it at about 200kph, killing himself, his navigator, and 2 race crew. He had thought the checkpoint was earlier and had slowed down for it, then sped up to make up time. Then when the actual checkpoint came up he didn't spot it until late and tried to turn into it at ludicrous speed. Tragedy ensued.


Today I checked out the Royal Flying Doctors Service tourist facility. They have a museum with a bunch of old RFDS stuff and a 20-minute video about the history of the flying doctors. It was good, but the museum seemed rather small - I went through it in about 15 minutes. But there was some cool stuff, including John Flynn's original letter to the prime minister which started it all. I also liked the pedal-powered radio and the full-size model of one of their current planes (you can climb into it. I couldn't fit with my backpack on - it's not a large space!)



They also had a cool display showing the locations of all their planes in realtime

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Fri Oct 28 00:19:53 CST 2016 - Of the Olgas

By the time I got out to the Olgas I was pretty hot and tired. I didn't explore much. But I took some photos.

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Thu Oct 27 23:22:48 CST 2016 - Of Rock

Today I rode around the rock, stopping a bunch of times, taking many photos.




I stopped a bunch of times at different places.


I walked down to the waterhole (which was a long way in bike leathers!)

Then I headed for the olgas, and saw a bunch more of those pink flowers

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Thu Oct 27 00:43:16 CST 2016 - Of fucking rock mate

Having chosen an anthem for this little jaunt, I was ready to proceed to Yulara, and a big fucking rock.



Got to Yulara around 1:30 and booked into the campground there. Set up camp. It was ridiculously hot so I just hung out in the tent for a while. Then not too long before sunset, I went for a ride.



I didn't end up in either of the viewing areas. Instead I found myself down at the waterhole and almost completely alone.


And I took pictures.

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Wed Oct 26 23:50:42 CST 2016 - Of more of the outback

Yesterday was more outback, crossing the border into NT, and stopping at erldunda. almost 500km.
About 40km out of Coober Pedy you come to the dingo fence. I read someone making the claim that it was the longest man-made structure in the world. I looked more deeply and it's not as clear cut - it depends on how you define "structure". There was no sign, just a cattle grid and a fence. I stopped and took a photo.


Riding along in the outback doesn't make me think of flowers. But there were quite a few. The most common one is this pink one, which blankets the ground in places.


Somewhere along the way I got a little sunburn. I put on sunscreen in the morning but then never thought of it again. The sliver of skin between my jacket and my glove got burnt. I have similar marks on both wrists


As I was stopped at the dog fence, another bike went by. I didn't see him till he was already gone. But I caught up with him in Marla. He was on his way home (Darwin) from the grand prix in phillip island. He rode from Port Augusta to Erldunda that day. I caught up with him again in Erldunda.

Coming up on the NT border, I came across 2 cruiser bikes (triumphs) from vic. They were a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary by riding to king's canyon, then ayers rock. We also caught up at erldunda, them arriving not long after me.

I set up camp at erldunda and cooked up some bacon I had left over from coober pedy on the bbq.

I woke up early and often to a cacophany of birds in my ears. I was up many times between 5 and 6. But I managed to sleep till 8. At which point I discovered this:


After spending about 20 minutes trying to clean it up with wet paper towels, a woman who had walked past arrived with a bucket and cleaning brushes. She helped me clean my tent and we were done in about 5 minutes. Many thank-yous were said.

Then I saw what her husband was driving:

You just know that's a good person.

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Mon Oct 24 20:23:37 CST 2016 - Of Outback Sunsets

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Mon Oct 24 17:59:55 CST 2016 - Of Coober Pedy, continued.

After looking at the old timer's mine I wanted to see Crocodile Harry's underground nest. This was used as a filming location for Mad Max 3 (Jebediah the pilot's house). I was disappointed to find that it's down 4km of fairly corrugated and crappy unsealed road. I didn't want to put the bike through nearly 10km of that. Which is a pity because I wanted to see that. And based on what the lady at the old timer's mine said it might not be around much longer - Crocodile Harry died in 2006 and since then the council has been in control of it. Apparently it's never locked and it's been vandalised quite badly. The council has done nothing to maintain it.

The next thing I wanted to see was something I only found out about last night - the spaceship from the movie Pitch Black is here! I knew pitch black was filmed out here but it never occurred to me to wonder is there was anything left. The remnants of the spaceship are sitting in the main street of the town, across from the supermarket. This was seriously cool.


That's about all I got up to. I rode around a bit and had a look but it seems like 9 out of 10 places here are trying to sell you opals. Since I wasn't in the market for opals it didn't really appeal to me.

This place is weird. It's supposed to be the opal capital of the world, and I would think that would mean wealth. But this doesn't strike me as a place with a lot of wealth. Quite the opposite in fact. There's a lot of old, rusty junk lying around. I saw an "art" exhibit which was basically just a pile of old, broken computer monitors and fax machines. There is a truck up on stilts out the front of the town.

It's a mining town, and it shows. There are mounds of loose dirt all over the place. And every hill is either half carved away or man-made. It reminds me of Broken Hill in a way - both towns seem to me to take a certain joy in the destruction of the natural landscape. I guess that's capitalism for you - doing something about the eyesore mounds of tailings would cost a few hundred bucks, and they've probably only made a few hundred thousand from the mine, so they're short on cash and just can't afford a bit of landscaping. I find myself wondering what an eco-mentalist would think of the place. I'm guessing horror.


Oh. I did one other thing. I went up to the big winch, which has nice panoramic views of the town. Unfortunately the camera app with the panorama thing didn't want to play nice and crashed 5 times, so this is the only panorama I got:

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Mon Oct 24 17:16:17 CST 2016 - Of Coober Pedy

Today was my relaxation / touristy day in coober pedy. I woke up nice and early, got up and made myself toast and coffee, and then immediately went back to sleep. Sleeping for another 3 hours I woke up at the much less disgusting time of 11am. I hung around the motel and then I went off to see the Coober Pedy sights.

First stop was an underground church, which was only about 100m from the motel. Frankly I found it underwhelming, having just spent the night in an underground motel room. I actually think the motel is more impressive. And the jeebus stuff doesn't do anything for me. Due to this I skipped the rest of the churches (I'm sure I'll be told that I saw the crappy one and that the others are all amazing).


Next stop is a place called the old timer's mine. It's an old mine which is now a museum type thing with a self-guided tour through the old mine. It was pretty Interesting. You have to wear a hard hat. This is good advice - I bumped my head about 15 times and was thankful for the hard hat.

There's also a museum there with a very ecclectic collection of stuff. Some of it is related to mining, some is just historical stuff. Some is I-don't-know-what. Examples of things I saw there include an old dentists' chair, the original projector from the Coober Pedy drive in (the projector was decommissioned in the 80s. the last movie it played was Crocodile Dundee. There was still film in it!), and a polaroid instamatic camera and a bunch of old tobacco tins. There was also an interesting exhibit which had been done by Telecom (not Telstra) at some point. I think it was probably from the 90s. It included a map of the telecom network and descriptions of the different types of equipment in use. I was particularly interested to see that significant parts of the more remote areas are serviced by microwave transmitters. I wonder how it contrasts with today. My hunch is that it's still largely accurate, Telstra are notorious for not upgrading infrastructure. It's what happens when you sell something like that off.


The museum area also had a couple of really awesome carvings which were carved right into the wall. These were seriously cool. I particularly liked the miner.



To be continued. There are more pictures.

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Sun Oct 23 20:37:57 CST 2016 - Of The Outback

A couple of fairly big riding days. 500km+ yesterday, 350km+ today. Yesterday I rode from Tanunda to Pimba, camping there for the night. Today I rode to Coober Pedy.

Both days were good riding. Good weather. There was some light rain as I was leaving Tanunda but it was clear by the time I had done 10km. I decided to take the freeway, which meant riding back down to Gawler, rather than ride through the barossa valley, mainly to avoid slow (and probably drunk) tourists. Stopped in Dublin for fuel and then did a dry-run to test the bike's range. I knew the stretch of road between Glendambo and Coober Pedy was the longest stretch with no fuel. So I wanted to make sure I could do it without carrying fuel reserves. I had been keeping an eye on how much fuel I was using and I was confident, but the ride to Port Augusta - 240km - used only slightly more than half a tank. I think I could probably get 400km from a tank if push came to shove (and if I rode sedately).

After refueling at Port Augusta I was ready to finally hit the outback. I remembered a "welcome to the outback" sign from my 2002 Woomera trip, but it's not there anymore (or i somehow missed it). But you know when you hit the outbackck - the change in scenery is dramatic. One minute there's scrub, then it's like Mars. Only with more green. I think this time of year is an excellent time to see it because there's lots of green after the winter rains. The weather in the outback has been brilliant so far - totally clear, but not ridiculously hot.

Not far before Pimba/Woomera - 10-20km, There's Island Lagoon. A huge salt lake which was a highlight of my 2002 trip. So I stopped there and took a few photos.


Continuing on, I stopped at pimba and set up my camp (free camping at roadhouses is a common thing in the remote areas of Australia, I did the same in Charters Towers a few years back). The ground was rock solid and really difficult to drive a tent peg into. In the end I only drove my pegs in about half way, which wasn't a problem because the weather was fine. Then I had an amazing feed at the Pimba roadhouse. And a beer.

I slept much better at pimba. I woke up in the middle of the night to take care of necessities and got to see some beautiful clear sky. It wasn't full magnificence because the moon was out, but it was still pretty great.
I slept fairly late and it was nearly midday before I set off today. Which was OK because it was comparitively less distance.

About 35km from Pimba, the same salt lake (Island Lagoon) crosses the freeway. So I stopped and took a huge panorama.


then another 5km further on, there's Lake Hart, which was beautiful. This is a place which I had pegged as a potential camp site. It still could be on the way back.


Stopping at Glendambo for fuel, I came to the longest stretch of road I'll see with no fuel - 253km by my measure. I did it all in one hit, non stop, and in less time than you'd expect. This may be the longest nonstop bike ride I've ever done (Broken Hill to Mildura might be further).

The plan was always to stay in Coober Pedy for at least a couple of days, and I wanted to stay underground, so I'm in a room in the Underground Motel for 2 nights. The lady here is super helpful and the rooms are affordable and nice.




Tomorrow: Coober Pedy! Opal Tourist Traps! Underground churches!

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Fri Oct 21 21:50:16 CST 2016 - Murray Bridge

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Fri Oct 21 21:17:33 CST 2016 - More Pics

More pictures:

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Fri Oct 21 20:35:18 CST 2016 - Of Reliving one's youth and the barossa valley

Wednesday was a good day. After attaching the roo whistles to the bike, I rode from Dimboola to Keith, stopping at pink lake and then briefly to take a photo in front of the hospital where I was born (Bordertown). Had lunch at the roadhouse in Keith. Then I went to look at he house I grew up in. I went and knocked on the neighbor's door and said hello. She called up her daughter (my age. was good friends with her as a kid, haven't seen her in 25+ years) and they took me around the old house (which is theirs now) and then drove me around town. I hung out with them for nearly 3 hours. It was a great trip down memory lane.

From keith I rode to Murray bridge, where I arrived just as everything was closing. Sadly I was too preoccupied taking photos and going to see the bunyip I remember from childhood that I didn't notice. Until I went to buy food somewhere. No 24h roadhouses here, too close to adelaide and no longer on the route. So I ended up eating half of a really awful kebab. Then I set up my camp.

The night in Murray Bridge got down to 3 or 4 degrees and I was pretty cold. didn't get much sleep. And I wasn't particularly motivated in the morning. Also I knew there was rain forecast for that night and the next day (today). So I decided to relax in a cabin in the barossa valley for 2 nights - let the rain pass. There's a week of dry weather forecast now. So I had "breakfast" at about 2pm and headed to Tanunda. That was a nice ride, less than 100km. Some nice hilly roads, but nothing too challeging, and some very nice countryside.

Today I did the thing that you have to do in the barossa valley - wine tasting. Which was fun. And I had a locally-brewed beer at the brewery. I was feeling all the alcohol by the time I got back.

Tomorrow the plan is to get to at least Port Augusta. Perhaps Significantly further. Maybe camp by a salt lake.

Wed Oct 19 22:28:41 CST 2016 - Pink Lake Panorama

Good, Busy day. In case I don't get around to posting the rest, there's this:

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Tue Oct 18 23:18:12 EST 2016 - Of roo whistles and freezing my ass off

It was a dark and stormy night. OK, so it wasn't stormy, but it had rained that day. And "Night" makes "Dark" a bit redundant in most populated places on the planet. But "It was night" just doesn't have the same "Pop".

It was a cold night. I was holed up in a motel in dimboola after getting pretty wet. I decided not to bring my weatherproof, windproof leather jacket, opting instead to go with the not-waterproof summer jacket, thinking of epic desert heat and remembering riding in queensland heat in the leathers. And it was raining all the way to ballarat. I have a raincoat, but it didn't seem to be raining that heavily most of the time. I stopped near myrniong to put on jumpers (which I had considered not taking! glad i did!) and winter gloves. It was 6 degrees where I stopped. It felt like 3. one hand was almost numb from cold. But I opted not to put on the raincoat. I regret it. My clothes got wet and then I had wind blowing through wet clothes for about 200kms. Most of the bike had dried off about an hour past ballarat. but there was still a wet patch on my clothes. It was chilly.

But I soldiered on and made it to horsham. Stopped and ate (coffee and a mixed grill. Nice), then figured I'd push on. I was hoping my clothes would dry out while I ate. They didn't. So when I got to Dimboola I decided to pull into a nice, heated motel room. I'm glad I did - it's freezing out there! I'd planned on maybe camping at pink lake but I'm not really prepared for super-cold. I only have the 2 (wet) jumpers. I can always camp in the desert, where it's dry. Plus it'll save me time in the morning, not having to pack up my camp. I can just put everything on the bike and head off.

Here's the bike, loaded with gear:

Even this loaded, there are a bunch of things I would have liked to bring but couldn't. Binoculars. Tripod. Leather Jacket. Food.

I had to stop in Ballarat to get roo whistles for my bike. I think they might work. I have them on both bikes now. I put some on the 750 on the way up to queensland in 2012, and never had anything jump out in front of me. Yes, this is rather specious reasoning. I also brought my tiger rock, it's in my backpack. No tigers will jump out in front of me either.

While I was getting roo whistles I also got an awesome, very small, USB rechargeable lamp. it'll be great for lighting up the tent at night, and it's the perfect size.

Tomorrow: Pink Lake and South Australia!

Fri Oct 14 17:04:56 EST 2016 - Of Super Hexagon

I just - finally - beat the hardest level of Super Hexagon! I've had it for about 2 years now and have only just beaten it. Nintendo-hard. It's a seriously awesome game, totally worth the $0.47 or whatever it costs these days. Be warned thogh, you will swear. And scream. And maybe smash your computer/phone.

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Thu Oct 13 20:50:37 EST 2016 - Of More Preparation

Insanely packing, trying to remember all the things I've forgotten. Tomorrow I might try to get a new backpack and some decent astronomy binoculars. I still need to get roo whistles for the bike. And I'm still waiting on getting the bike back from the mechanic.

At least the whole computing situation is sorted.

NOTE TO SELF: Remember to pack spare pandora battery!

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Sat Oct 8 17:09:00 AEDT 2016 - Of Preparation

In preparation for my trip, today I've been working on what the web 2.0 people would call a microblogging platform. I call it about a hundred lines of bash. It allows me to record journal entries on my openpandora from anywhere, then sync them up and have them show up here when I have access to one of the internets.
As you may have noticed, it also includes a fancy map which shows you where I was last time I checked in.

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