I've just returned from my 30 day trip around the western half of Australia with three mates. Here's a brief report on the trip, and I'll post some photos later once the pictures taken by myself and my mates have been sorted and compiled. Four completed the trip. There were two Harley's, one Suzuki Boulevard and my Honda ST1300.
First Leg - Adelaide to Perth
We were quite excited as we left Adelaide for this much anticipated adventure, and we headed up the inland road through Clare and Melrose to our first night at Port Augusta. We stayed with a mate and had a fairly intense parth on our first night. The trip across the Nullarbor took us three days to Balladonia and it was a much more interesting trip than was expected. The country is constantly changing and the clifftop scenery is stunning. There were a couple of QLD Goldwing riders that were on the same route as us, and we continued to cross paths all the way to Perth. At Balladonia fuel was the most expensive that we purchased on the whole trip at $2.17 per litre. It was nice to hit the coast again at Esperance, where we had a day off. In the afternoon the RAAF aerobatci team were praticing for a display in Perth the following weekend, so we had free front row seats. The following day they were practicing at Albany, so we saw the whole show again. On the run from Albany to Margaret River we struck our only wet day for the whole trip. Despite the heavy rain, we al loved the twisting ride through the forests of SW WA. It was our usual pattern to secure unpowered camping at a caravan park, chesk out the camp kitchen and then head for the supermarked to but food for that evening and the next day. Busselton to Perth is now a freeway, and we rolled inot Perth in peak hour traffic, heading for the home of a relative near Hillarys Boat Harbour in the northern suburbs. We were pretty happy to get off the busy suburban roads. We spent two night with these generous folk, and spent our day off drying tents, and repairing some CB equipment that suffered from ingress of water in the heavy rain a couple of days before.
Second Leg - Perth to Broome
This leg was new territory for all of us. Te new coast road to Cervantes is a treat, with the Pinnacles a must see. We rode the bikes along the sand track that winds through the sandstone structures, and at this point had the only “drop” of the trip when Fish dropped his Harley when the front washed out in a soft patch on a corner. At Geraldton I visited the memorial to the “HMAS Sydney”, which was sunk by the German raider “Kormoran” during WWII. It was important for me to visit this sensitive and fitting memorial to the 645 sailors who perished in the encounter, as one of the dead was my wife's relative. In Carnarvon there is a little museum which houses one of the lifeboats from the “Kormoran”. Shark Bay and the seaside town of Denham are gems. The famous Monkey Mia is nearby, but I must say that the wild dolphin experience is a significant let down. Over one hundred people line up on the beach while rangers talk about the dolphins for 30 minutes or so. Eventually half a dozen people are selected, and each gives a dolphin a single fish, and it's all over.
While I understand the reasons, it's hardly the experience that people were expecting. The scenery about Shark Bay is amazing, and the stromatolites at Hamelin Bay are fascinating. They are coral like structures built by bacteria, and are one of the most primitive life forms, thought to have been extinct for millions of years. The ride through hundres of kilometers of Pilbara mining regions underlined how extenisve the iron ore mining in the NW really is. The amount of development is overwealming. Housing costs are prohibitive, with a home that sell in Adelaide for $500K selling for $3-4 million. There are whole towns of temp transportable buildings that cost the poor bastards that have to rent them $260 per night. We had to visit the memorial to “Red Dog” at Dampier as all of us are dog people and loved the movie. Broome was a bit of an oasis after some long stretches, and on the approach to Broome we all had a near miss. On oncoming driver in a 4WD fell asleep at the wheel and drifted across the road right in front of us, and finished up on the roadside to our left, still doing about 100 km/h as he cleaned up the white posts beside us. It could have been very bad. At Broome we wandered the shops and local marked and enjoyed another day off the bikes. We all appreciated the “leave pass” granted by our wives back home and each of us bought a piece of pearl jewelery for the dearly beloved back home (That went down really well!!)
Third Leg - Broome to Darwin
This leg was through the stuning Kimberly region and I just have to return here with the cook and the 4WD and spent some weeks exploring the Gibb River Road and other “must see” destinations in the area. There was an abundance of cattle on the roadsides, but they ignored the cars and just stood still, unlike the kangaroos, which would go mental at the approach of a vehicle. On this leg we spotted just about every kind of wildlife. Eagles, brumbies, cattle, roos, dingos, and a MASSIVE wild cat. The big Boulevard rolled into Katherine with canvas showing on the big rear tyre. Rather than fit another bike tyre, “Jock” went to the darkside and fitted a car tyre. Running it at just 26psi gave enough flexibility in the side walls to make it handle reasonable well, and $125 instead of $600 was a fair incentive to give it a try. The run to Darwin was uneventfull and we stayed with my niece for a couple of days. After the bikes got an oil change, and the Harleys had new tyres fitted, we played tourist and visted the Oil Tunnels, Museum and East Point Military Museum. A meal on the wharf where I caught up with some other friends and relatives finished a great day. The next day we headed south.
Fourth Leg - Darwin to Adelaide
As soon as we left Darwin it felt like we were heading home and the adventure was rapidly moving towards it's conclusion. Daly Waters Hotel is an iconic stopover. We had a great meal, entertained by a great bushman who sang, recited bush poetry and told yarns. The Stuart highway this time of year is alive with grey nomads heading north. In one day we counted 197 caravans heading north. Once we were south of Tennant Creek, the weather turned cold and dry with overnight temperature in the single digits and days under 20 degrees. We spent just one night at Alice Springs. The town was filling quickly for the Finke Desert Race just a few days after our departure. The ride to Yulara was spectacular, with the reds and yellows of the landscape contrasting against the deep blue sky. We had another day off at Yulara and explored Uluru and Kata Juta. The morning that we departed it was just 2 degrees at 7.30 and the 250km ride back to the the highway was the coldest that I have ever undertaken. Even heated grips failed to cut through the cold. I only had mid-season gloves and the backs of my hands were very cold. The poor bastards with no grip heaters really suffered. Coober Pedy is an interesting town to visit, with it's extensive network of underground homes and shops, as well as the opal mining. Our final night was spent back in Port Augusta with the same mate that we stayed with just 30 days before and we celebrated our last night with a gread feed and few drinks at a local pub. We arrived back home around lunch time the following day and a great adventure ended far too soon.
Wrap Up
30 days, 12, 500 km, about 600 litres of fuel, and I came home on budget having spent just $2,400. Nine nights were spent in hard accomodation and the rest were spent in our little 1-2 man tents. We had one wet day, three day over 30 degrees and most days in the 20's. In short, the weather was perfect. The ST performed faultlessly, and will get a well deserved service in a week or so. I fitted a new set of Michelin Pilot Road 3's before I left home, and ran them at 42psi. I believe that they have another 5,000 left on them, which is very pleasing. We consistently sat on an actual speed 110km/h (GPS), which was about 118km/h on the speedo. All bikes had CB radios fitted, and this gave us the ability to communicate with each other and with other travellers on Ch18, which we used for the whole trip.
Stay tuned for some photos.
