Redundancy Ride

[farawayman]

Saturday 15 August

Got up early packed up and when and looked at a hole in the ground. Had the place to myself for a while.

Got back to the bike and got worried with the oil stain on my diff not a lot of oil just enough for the dust to stick. It was coming from the breather so I decided to blame the corrugations yesterday, but keep an eye on it.

A very nice cutting I had to ride through, life’s tough.

Camped the night at Sandfire Roadhouse $5.00 a camp site $25.00 extra if I wanted power. 5 bucks was worth it for the shower.

 

[farawayman]

Sunday 16 August

Broome.
I was warned to get in early if I wanted accommodation. Thought I might shout myself a cheep room and update this but the cheapest room going was $150 so I was camping again.

 

[farawayman]

Monday 17 August

Broome was very nice but busy and I needed to keep moving.

Prison tree

A nice little runabout on the wharf at Derby

Then off onto that 660km dirt shortcut to Kununurra

More to come . . .

 

[farawayman]

Tuesday 18 August

Woke up this morning in the carpark of Lenard Gorge. The backpackers in their 2wd van were still asleep. Boiled the billy and started to pack up. I cant have been far behind the backpackers when I came in, the last creek crossing was deeper then expected and they had dragged a lot of water out onto the road. The cylinders went under on the GS.
I had set up camp and was relaxing well after dark and was wondering about the empty van when they got back after getting lost. A Sydney girl was heading home the long way after spending some time in Perth, and a Scottish Toyota mechanic she had picked up somewhere. She was worried about that creek crossing on the way out, and he had absolutely no idea, for a mechanic. They shared their cool drinks from the esky as we chatted into the night but obversely not early risers.

A 4wd van rolled into camp just as I was going to head off down the gorge. I waited, and a couple got out and asked if they could join me. Just let me grab my camera he said, I already had mine over my shoulder. A few seconds latter they was ready, carbon fibre tripod and 39 mega pixel Hasselblad casually thrown over his shoulder. This guy’s well out of my league. We enjoyed a couple of hours together chatting the fine arts of photography as we walked and enjoyed the views. Thanks Peter.

Peter usually travels with his motorhome towing a light plane. He picks up a pilot wherever he goes. Have a look at his website http://www.peterbellingham.com/index.asp
And buy your pictures there you wont be disappointed.
Peter and your lovely wife, thanks, I enjoyed our time together

More to come . . .

 

[farawayman]

Tuesday continued.

Finished packing my stuff checked the bike over, a little more oil from the diff breather . . .
The girl from the backpacker van came over and asked if I would follow them out to the main Gibb River road so I ate their dust and idled out in 1st and 2nd gear. She worried about the creek crossing and made it ok. I took a deferent route that wasn’t so deep.
Waved them goodbye at the intersection and rased some dust of my own.
I started to worry that I hadn’t left any time in case I had problems. I kept hearing about the killer corrugations and the sand and bulldust. A simple problem could hold me up for days out here and I needed to be in Darwin in a few days time or the bum bickies will hit the fan.
I had better enjoy this as a ride and not a sightseeing trip, looking at every gorge, waterfall and exploring every side road.
If your planning on coming out this way, you don’t see the Kimberly’s, you experience them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mt Bernett Roadhouse, I desperately wanted to get some reliable information on road conditions ahead including the Pentecost river crossing. The best I could get from the locals was “you’ll be right mate”, People traveling through all seemed to advise “don’t do it”, sand, river crossings and corrugations.
I had met a pushbike rider in Broome and he advised against using the Gibb. When the going gets tough we can get off and walk, your not going to push that thing he said.
A farther and son team where here when I pulled up, they started showing me their bruises when I asked about the conditions, they where going to take a day or two off before continuing. A Dutch girl pulled in and said she had come off 3 times in the last 30 km. She had been working on a station just up the road.

I had still had time to go back and go around on the highway.

More to come . . .

 

[Rosie]

Wow. Excellent writeup and your photos are STUNNING. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[farawayman]

Tuesday afternoon


The corrugations got worse the sand patches longer, nothing too bad but you had to watch out for it.
Up the road I see a sign for this. I just had to stop.

A beautiful place 5km off the road, they nearly talked me into taking a tent site.

An hour up the road was this guy

Time to find a campsite

More to come . . .

 

[alxx]

Great ride.

Can't see your pictures get bandwidth exceeded pic.

 

[Honda Honey]

me too.. dammit, ive been admiring the photos prior to this error.. is it us? or is it you?

 

[glitch]

It's one of the photobucket restrictions which apply to free accounts.
Pics should be back in a day or two ( 1. of next month) for the next bandwidth allocation.

Guess, Dave's got this posted in a few forums and the guys on ADV are going bananas (as I did/do) over this yarn...too many requests, and things fall over (temporarily at least)