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June 15, am:
Hello everybody and welcome from Australia! People here speak English but drive on the left and use the metric system, and the Australian dollar is currently about 60 cents US, so don't be too confused if we throw numbers at you and they seem off. We'll probably us Australian dollars and metric measurements here.
It's amazing how fast kilometers pass when you're used to driving miles, though. And it's amazing how fast that feeling passes and you get used to kilometers dropping off every 30 seconds or so... I'm not looking forward to the first road trip I take back home, when each mile will probably seem to drag on into forever.
Oh, and driving on the left doesn't come easy when you've never done it before! You think you're used to it, then a big truck comes around a corner on what instinctively is the wrong side, and alarms start ringing in your brain...
We've been very lucky with the weather so far, and had beautiful blue skies yesterday and today (the sun just came up; we were awake before dawn, and got treated to a stunning display of the southern-hemisphere night sky. As last night, except the moon was up and nearly full and so we couldn't see the stars as well. But I ramble.). It's pretty flat where we've been, so we've had gorgeous, distant sunrises and sunsets. But, it's winter here, meaning a) it's extremely cold (slightly below freezing at night, and only slightly above during the day from the saddle of a speeding motorbike!), and b) it's only light from about 7 to 5 each day -- and when sunset comes, it gets dark fast. This cuts into riding time and will put a squeeze on some of the longer days.
So on to the ride itself: we picked up the bikes as Garner's opened yesterday around 9, but by the time we got them fitted and packed and left Melbourne it was closer to 11. Ann and Lyn headed straight for Port Augusta, while the rest of us came to Narrandera where Karl used to live and work (we'll meet up in Port Augusta on Friday). The first few miles getting out of Melbourne were hectic with lots of traffic and narrow lanes further encroached on by trolley tracks running up the middle, but soon we were on the open road and cruising. Passed through Seymour, had some really good meat pies for lunch at a bakery in Nagambie, then continued north through Shepparton, crossed from Victoria into New South Wales in the mid-afternoon, and reached Narrandera right at sunset. (Don't want to ride after dark because of kangaroos!) Total for the day: 447 km.
The kind folks at Narrandera Fisheries gave us a place to pitch tents and park bikes, as well as morning coffee, showers, and a computer to let you all know how we're doing -- how's that for hospitality?! Karl helped build this place in the 70's so we're about to take a look around at their setup here, then we're off to Mildura, 546 km to the west.
Oh, and look at today's photos organized or not.
June 15, pm:
Today we rode another 460 km to Mildura.
Curious what animals we've seen? Well, so far we've heard laughing kookaburra (which Dave actually saw), several huge emu (including one 8-footer, Dave and Kim swear!), and lots of roadkill kangaroo -- 2 of which were largely intact, the rest either flattened or splattered 50 yards down the road, and unfortunately no live ones yet. Sorry, but it's true.
Speaking of roadkill, the Australians seem to have a morbid fascination with driving injuries and fatalities. I should stress that this is in the interest of preventing such accidents, but it seems morbid nonetheless -- you be the judge. Here are some example road signs I've seen to encourage use of rest stops: "Break the drive, stay alive." "Rest, revive, survive." "Fatigue can be fatal." And around Melbourne, a gory full-size billboard complete with pictures, reading "Belt up, or suffer the pain."
The highways (so far -- Karl mentioned that compared to where we're going, this has still been populated areas!) are really nice though. Decent pavement, very little traffic, no litter. Of course most of the traffic that there is, is huge trucks, and a good chunk of the road is under construction. Same as home I guess. But we've been making good time and the scenery is constantly changing -- I mean really changing. Today alone, we drove through an area that reminded me of southern Oregon or northern California, an area that was completely flat with only small bushes for vegetation, green pastures dotted with occasional trees that looked somewhat like how I imagine the African savannah, scrub fields with thousands of sheep, and rich orange orchards and vineyards. High density of interesting scenery, definitely.
We're now camped in a lovely tourist park right on the Murray River, which separates New South Wales from Victoria. We're still on the NSW side, but tomorrow return to Victoria to meet up with the rest of the gang. Our campsite is great; for A$5 apiece, we got tent sites right on the river (not taken because most people there have RV's and need hookups which are farther back), restrooms and showers. And it's a few degrees warmer here than it was last night. Not a bad deal at all. Although, we had a bit of a walk around Mildura and the town seems completely dead for 7 on a Thursday night -- oh well, we need to sleep anyway, so we can get up early and start riding -- have nearly 700 km to cover in 10 hours of daylight. (Doesn't sound so bad, 70 km/h, until you realize that that includes stops and when motorcycling you need a lot of stops for gas and stretching.)
Until later... (we took some pictures today but don't have the equipment to transfer them now, so they'll have to wait too).
June 17
OK, news, but it'll be brief. Met up with Lyn and Ann, hence we have computer and can update the website again. Ann is now riding pillion due to a dislocated left thumb (she's fine otherwise, and is enjoying the ride as a passenger -- in fact, she's in great spirits; we ran into an extremely gregarious Australian motorcyclist in the campground last night who regaled us with lots of tales, one involving a kangaroo that jumped ONTO! his bike as he was travelling across the desert, and Ann replied without missing a beat, "well they'd better not try that with us riding 2 up, there'd be no room!").
Speaking of the gregarious Australian, he's a member of a riding club here called Ulysses; you have to be at least 40 to be a member, 50 to be a senior member, and they have custom-printed license plate frames that state their motto -- "to grow old disgracefully."
We're now in Cooper Pedy, opal capital of Australia. Today was a fast ride across flat desert, with salt flats and some huge lakes. Pretty if you like deserts. Tomorrow we head to Uluru and Ayers Rock.
I'll keep this brief because it took us 2 hours to get the computer up and running and (most of) the bugs shaken out; trust us, you don't want to know the whole story. Also, to our chagrin we found out that Karl's digital camera (which had all the interesting pictures so far) is NOT compatible with Lyn's, even though they're both Kodaks, inasmuchas both of our plans for using Lyn's equipment to transfer the pictures have failed. Stupid Kodak. So we still can't post any pictures, but we do have two cameras now that we CAN connect to the computer, so we'll start using them now and have pictures for you soon, for real, we promise!
Good night all, and more soon.
June 18
Hiya folks, lots of stories to tell since the last real update. Here it is Monday morning but I'll try to give the highlights since last Thursday.
Thursday night we were camped by the river in Mildura, and after returning from dinner and the internet cafe, as we were headed to bed, Kim found a bunch of animals running around the campground. She called us out to take a look at them and figure out what they were; Matt guessed wombats and Karl said noombats but then a New Zealander who was walking by said they were possums (opposums in the US, but just plain possums in Australia). Bushy-tailed possums that is, as opposed to ring-tailed possums that also live around here. Whatever they were, they were much cuter than American opossums, and we got some good pictures of them (they'd come right up to you hoping for food) with the camera that won't connect to the computer.
Funny language story: the New Zealander, talking about the possums, said that they were cute to see here in Australia but back in NZ they are pests. This came out sounding (to me) like he'd said "pissed", and I was wondering if he meant they were drunk or angry (depending on whether you take the British or American intrepretation of pissed). Kim figured out what he actually meant though, then she asked if there was any problem with the possums being rabid*, and he started going on at length about what a rabbit problem Australia has.
Note: Belinda from Swan Hill, Australia kindly wrote to remind me and everyone that actually, Australia (and New Zealand?) is rabies-free.
The next morning, Friday, we woke up before dawn and started riding. Had a really nice sunrise as we left Mildura. Rode all day; in the mid-morning we crossed from Victoria into South Australia (with a huge Dunlop tire-arch over the highway at the border). Scenery still constantly changing. In the afternoon we passed by Alligator Gorge park and decided to stop since we were ahead of schedule -- along the 12 km of dirt road into the park, we saw our first 4 live kangaroo.
After leaving the park it was a short hour's ride to Port Augusta through the first hills and windy roads we'd seen, making for fun riding. Made it to Port Augusta, set up camp in the caravan park, bought sausages and potatoes ("bangers and mash") at the supermarket, set up a barbecue, and met up with Lyn and Ann. (The supermarket was a Foodland -- normal enough name for a supermarket -- but their slogan, appearing on their sign and all the pricetags, was "The mighty south Aussies"!)
Saturday morning we left again at dawn, headed north toward Alice Springs and Tennant Creek (places we won't reach till the end of this week). The riding here is mostly featureless desert -- wide open, red dirt, covered fairly heavily by small brush and bushes. Occasional trees and lakes or salt flats. Lots and lots of dead kangaroos on the roadside. A good chunk of the traffic we pass is road trains -- semi trucks with 3 or more trailers. We counted 62 tires on one of these, and Karl paced it off at 200 feet long.
Our destination this night is Coober Pedy, an opal mining town in the middle of the outback. For the last 50 kilometers before we reached the town, there were warning signs along the highway: "don't walk backwards" because you might fall into a mineshaft, was a common warning. As we reached the town the desert was dotted with dirt piles next to holes and mining machinery.
Sunday we climbed back on the bikes for our longest day yet, about 750 km to Uluru (Ayer's Rock). We were worried about gas because our maps showed a 320-km stretch with no gas stations, but this turned out to be unfounded. The landscape didn't change much as we continued north along the highway toward Alice Springs, although the vegegation changed noticeably as we crossed from South Australia into the Northern Territory. Soon after this we left that highway and turned off to the west, and soon started a gradual but continuous climb and the colors started getting even prettier -- redder dirt, greener bushes and trees.
We reached Yulara (where the Ayers Rock Resort is the only place to stay), checked into the campground (the hotel rooms started at $350 a night -- this is tourist country!), and made a quick run to Uluru (the rock itself) barely in time to catch the sunset. We stay put tomorrow, so there'll be plenty more time to see it.
Look at today's pictures organized or not.
June 19 am
Got up at 6 am so that we can catch the 7 am sunrise at the rock itself -- the park (it's both aboriginal land, and a national park) opens at 6:30. We leave camp in time to enter the park right at 6:30, ride through the predawn to the viewing area near the rock, and spend a cold hour taking pictures next to busloads of tourists doing the same thing. Returned to camp to eat a big breakfast, do laundry, and upload this.
Look at today's pictures organized or not.
June 21
Hi from Alice Springs! Quick note to everybody who's been writing to us, thanks, and it's great to hear from you! Even if we don't respond, we are getting the messages (if you send them to Matt) or will read them when we get home, and it's nice knowing that you're reading this and following our progress!
Good news is, Alice is big enough to have a camera store that had what we needed to connect Karl's camera and Lyn's computer, so there are a bunch more pictures up now. Not too much riding in the last few days but lots of interesting pictures, so go look at them!
In fact, look at the pictures page from top to bottom again, because we've added a lot of stuff in the middle as well as at the bottom.
Since the last update, some of us watched the sun set over Uluru while the others went to visit the Katja Tuta (the Olgas). Originally we'd planned to stay put on Monday night, but the Ayers Rock people messed up the cabin reservation (misunderstanding, we thought we'd booked it for two nights but they only put down one, but it wouldn't have mattered because the second night had been rented out months before) and there was no room at all except in the campground, so we had to retreat to Curtin Springs so Lyn and Ann would have a place to stay. That meant those who wanted to watch the sunset had to ride the last bit in the dark, which meant we had to be on edge watching out for kangaroos and livestock on the road (luckily didn't meet any), but the ride otherwise was very pleasant -- nice temperature, and a beautiful sky -- stars ahead to the east, and a sunset fading out behind to the west, all at the same time!
Then we ate and slept at Curtin Springs, and got up the next morning to ride only about 350 km to Alice (since we'd done the first 100 the night before). That left us Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday to explore Alice and take Kim's bike into the shop (it runs fine once it gets going, but has trouble with the first start each day -- hopefully fixed now).
Not a lot more to say... this part of the trip will be heavier on pictures than on writing. Probably more interesting that way anyway.
June 22 (Thursday)
Later Wednesday night there was live music -- a guitarist and an Aboriginal didgeridoo master -- at Heavitree Gap, the campground where we were staying. They played for hours and even let us (try to) play the didgeridoos ourselves.
Thursday, the 22, we rode from Alice Springs to Tennant Creek. Kim's bike started with much less trouble, thanks to the fine folks at Race Motorcycles in Alice -- if you're reading this, Kim wants you to know of her gratitude. We headed north up the highway and the first stop was at Barkly's Roadhouse, a pub/roadhouse we'd been told to go to. Turns out the guy who runs the place is quite a character; the walls were plastered with dirty posters and jokes, and the bartender regaled us with a few tracks from a CD he had that contains nothing but live, real flatulence.
Also at this pub, we ran into a German couple also on BMW bikes -- a Funduro like Matt's, although newer, and a matching R1100GS with a massive 41.5 liter gas tank that drooped down toward the rider's knees. Both of them were BMW employees and were 2 months into a year-long trip around Australia, venturing significantly farther off roads than we are.
The other main attraction we passed this day was the Devil's Marbles, a monument consisting of lots of huge, round, impossibly balanced boulders that look like they'll roll down and crush you at any moment. We took some pictures of these, then continued on to Tennant Creek for an early stop -- we were all tired after hanging out with the band at Heavitree Gap the previous night.
June 23 (Friday)
Friday we rode from Tennant Creek to Mount Isa, a journey which at a little over 700 km was one of our longer days. The morning was fairly uneventful as we crossed eastward across the remainder of the Northern Territory into Queensland. We were still traversing fairly flat desert, but the scenery changed several times compared to the north-south highway we'd been on for days: from the sandy desert dotted with bushes, to open fields, to open fields dotted with termite mounds, to thinly treed fields, to thinly tree fields dotted with termite mounds, to burned-out thinly treed fields where the termite mounds stood out in stark contrast to the defoliated trees and charred ground, to trees scattered nearly thick enough to be considered a forest -- each of these landscapes capable of stretching far enough to reach the horizon.
Also, north of Alice the highway had been nearly clear of roadkill -- a welcome change, albeit temporary. As soon as we turned east onto the Barkly Highway, the highway was dotted with more dead animals than we'd seen the entire trip -- mostly kangaroos and cattle, with the occasional fox or opossum. And maybe because they don't clean it as often up here (when Karl said they clean it every night down in Victoria, I don't think any of us really believed him -- until we saw how thick it gets when they don't!) or maybe because of the heat, we're not sure, but man oh man did it stink. Ann joked that she could smell a dead roo for 10 km before we passed it; I sure hope she's exaggerating, because they weren't spaced nearly 10 km apart (even if you ignore all but the stinkiest), and 7 hours is a long time to hold your breath (which is the technique we all adopted when we saw a roadkill coming). In fact, you could often see them coming quite a ways away by the cloud of birds huddled over the carcass -- sometimes a problem, since not all the birds were willing to leave the kill just for a couple motorcycles, and some of these birds are big enough to be a dangerous obstacle. All in all, we saw some very stinky meat today.
Then, as soon as we crossed the border into Queensland, the roads turned way worse. There are two possible explanations we were offered for this: a) NT only has two roads, so they can afford to keep them in good shape, or b) NT is a territory and gets federal money for roads, while Queensland is a state and has to pay its own way. Either way, the pavement quality instantly deteriorated, and if that wasn't bad enough, soon the road started alternating in 10-km stretches between (narrow) 2-lane stretches (that's 1 lane each direction) and 1-lane stretches with wide dirt shoulders, but only the middle bit paved. Karl warned us whatever we do to not go onto the shoulder, because it can be soft and you'll sink, or have huge ruts that'll knock your bike down, and there can be quite a ledge to get back onto the pavement. So this left us moving over to the very edge when passing oncoming traffic; luckily we didn't meet any road trains on these stretches.
But to make things worse, we soon started passing convoy after convoy of what must have been half the Australian army (maybe the Northern Territory is trying to secede and they're putting down a rebellion?) It was like a video game with level after level of increasing difficulty... roads. Roads with worse pavement. Narrower roads with worse pavement. Single-lane roads. Single-lane roads with army jeeps going the other direction. Single-lane roads with army TANKS (except with 8 wheels instead of treads) going the other direction; these were wide enough to take up most of the road, so they courteously would move over and drive halfway on the shoulder to leave us room -- great except this would kick up so much dust that it would block our vision entirely for about 30 feet, and we'd barely make it through the cloud before the next one came. Then the road started going over small rises, dipping up and down, so we couldn't see more than a few hundred feet ahead. Then we passed the convoy that must have gotten behind somehow and was trying to make up time, because they were separated from the previous group by twice the usual distance, and were going twice as fast, weaving all over the road as they tried to control this 8-wheeled tank that probably wasn't designed for those speeds. Thankfully, that was the worst it got, although we kept passing army vehicles all the way to Mt. Isa.
Finally we reached some rolling hills and had 50 km or so of interesting riding before reaching Mt Isa and the Copper City caravan park, where we met another pair of motorcyclists doing a mostly off-road trip around Cape York -- they said at one point, they'd had to carry their bikes (with the help of 4 more men) across a fast-flowing, possibly crocodile-infested stream 1.2 meters deep. We're not doing any of that, at least not planned though!
June 24 (Saturday)
Saturday, we rode from Mt Isa to Hughenden, a little more than halfway to Townsville (on the coast, our next real destination). Also today, we crossed the 5000 kilometer mark for the trip (early in the morning; we're a little over 5400 now).
We continued passing army vehicles the whole day, and then in the afternoon, after stopping to look at some emu out in a field, Matt's bike had a little mishap -- parked on the kickstand, after about 5 minutes the ground underneath it suddenly gave way and it fell over in the parking lot. Luckily it didn't land on anyone or knock down any of the other bikes, but it did manage to break the right mirror and the clutch lever. Lyn and Dave managed to stick it somewhat back together (with the aid of duct tape and some screws found around the parking lot), but since we're not sure how long the repair will hold, Matt drove the rest of the day without using the clutch except to start from a standstill. Hopefully, we should be able to buy a new clutch lever in Townsville.
On the last stretch into Hughenden, the landscape was so flat everyone was getting bored and a little stir crazy (except Matt, who had clutchless driving to keep him amused) -- Dave went so far as to try to teach himself Italian from the markings on his Aprilia bike, and came up with the following translations: R/Min is 'Roos per Minute (when it reaches 72, where the red line is, you're in trouble), and KM is Kangaroo Meter (counting how many we've passed, living or not).
Tomorrow we should hit the east coast!
Friday June 30:
Quick recap of highlights since last Saturday -- we've split off into two groups, one which has the computer and one which knows how to post stuff here, so to update this we have to find an internet cafe or something -- since we're moving most of the time that things are open, this is a little difficult and that's why we haven't posted anything recently.
But for the last week:
Sunday: Townsville. Reached the coast, had a nice seafood dinner and some time on a warm beach, and saw the central pedestrial mall area of town which was completely empty of people (shops all closed) but full of very small, fast-flying, LOUD parrots that were lining the rooftops as well as one tree in the middle of the plaza that was thick with them.
Monday: Waited until 8:30 to go anywhere so we could hit the Townsville BMW dealer to fix Matt's clutch. Turned out they didn't have the part, but they pointed us in the direction of the Honda dealer which carries Aprilia (who make Dave's bike, identical to Matt's). So we went to Rising Sun Honda, which as it turns out had just started carrying Aprilia and didn't stock parts for them yet, but they very helpfully dug through their parts bins and catalogs until they found a KTM lever that fit perfectly. The bike's happier now that Matt can shift with the clutch again. Then we headed down the coast towards Mackay, passing through fields of sugar cane and mangoes, but got sidetracked by the lure of the beach (which Kim is definitely NOT immune to!) and stopped at Whitsunday/Airlie Beach for the night. We feasted on a bag of fresh boiled prawns (A$18 for the kilo) for dinner, then went to sleep as the first rain of the trip started to fall. And lucky us, we didn't have to ride in it!
Tuesday: Kim found us an all-day boat cruise with an outfit called Ocean Rafting, including a tour of some of the Whitsunday islands, beach time, and snorkeling around the coral reefs (Whitsunday is the closest mainland point to the Great Barrier Reef, although we didn't go out there because it was too windy that day). With the help of our guides John and Roger we had a great time, soaked up some sun and saw some very colorful fish and huge beds of coral -- lots of different types! But best of all, Dave got to swim with a huge manta ray (he said each of its wings was bigger than he was) for about 10 minutes and even touch it before it glided off into the depths, and the memory of this is already one of the highlights of the trip for him.
Wednesday: A long day's ride from Whitsunday through Mackay and then inland towards our next destination, Carnarvon National Park. After a little over 600 km we stopped at Springshure. More cane fields, and lots of conflicting reports on the quality of the road into Carnarvon (Karl was asking everyone possible, since the last time he was there 25 years ago it was horrible and the motorcycles wouldn't have all been able to make it).
Thursday: A short ride in the morning brought us to the entrance to the park, where Karl stopped a caravan about to turn back onto the highway to ask about the road one last time. "You're not much of a motorcyclist if you can't make it in" was the reply, so we had to do it! But as it turned out, the ruts in the dirt section weren't nearly as bad as they could have been, and probably the worst thing about the road was the herd of cows that debated charging us as we passed. We reached the park about noon, and right off saw a bunch of grazing kangaroo (probably due to their contact with humans, the kangaroo in the park didn't seem to be as nocturnal as they should). We lucked into a campsite as we didn't have reservations (and they were booked full the previous night and the next night!), so we made camp and then spent the rest of daylight exploring Carnarvon Gorge, a lush jungle ravine that's all the more amazing because the land surrounding it is dry desert. We also saw the so-called Art Gallery (a continuous wall of Aboriginal paintings and engravings, although its dates aren't really known) and the Amphitheatre, a round and fully-enclosed pit several hundred feet deep (you climb up into it from below through a slit in the rock) which had incredible echoes.
Friday: Left the park, again negotiating the dirt road and barely making it past the cattle who guard the entrance road -- Dave and Matt had a good time again leting their bikes play in their natural element (and making up for all the times the people on the bigger bikes with better windshields were more comfortable on the highway). About 400 km to the south brought us to Miles, where we had lunch and found a public library with internet access to type this update... then we'll head south towards Goondiwindi, probably stopping at Moonie for the day, depending on daylight.
July 4
Just a quick update to let you know that we all made it safely to Sydney and are re-acclimating to cities and civilization. Although everyone seems to miss their machines and keeps patting their pockets wondering where the keys are! Lyn and Ann made fast time and got here Saturday evening, while everyone else was dealing with Kim's bike (more below) and arrived Sydney on Monday afternoon. Now we're trying to soak up as many sights of Sydney as possible in one day, as everyone is flying back to Seattle tomorrow morning, except for Matt who is staying another couple days to complete the trip (still by motorcycle) back to Melbourne.
And good news -- after 8500 km with no fairing on the F650 (and did we mention that it's cold in the southern parts of Australia?), Lyn talked Garner's into letting Matt keep the R1100RT for the last leg of the trip. So Garner's sent a man with a van to pick up the K bike and the two 650's, and Matt will be travelling in style on the R1100RT on the way back to Melbourne.
And why didn't the man with the van pick up Kim's RS? That's another sad story. After the visit to the shop in Alice Springs, the RS had been starting much better in the mornings, but starting in Whitsunday it was up to its old tricks and needed about 1/2 hour of attention each morning just to get it started. Ok, we can deal with that. But on Saturday as we were about 60 km from Coonabarabran, the transmission snapped and both 5th and 3rd gears were unusable. Ok, we'll continue in 4th gear at 90 km/h (bike could go faster in 4th, but the faster we went, the more ominous vibrations came out of the transmission) since we're only 600 km from Sydney as this point, we thought. Made it one more day at this speed, then, passing Orange at about 2 in the afternoon on Sunday, oops, there goes 4th gear. Well, we're not going to make it 260 km through the mountains with Kim in 2nd gear, so we arranged for Garner's to pick up the bike in Orange. Then we loaded Kim on Karl's K and all her stuff got spread between the K and the 650's and finally we rolled into Sydney on Monday looking like the Beverly Hillbillies (Dave's bike was piled so high with luggage he couldhn't see over it in his mirrors)!
Now we're in Sydney shopping and sightseeing -- at some point I'll try to describe the last part of the ride better and add the last pictures, but right now we're headed out in the city again.
July 6
Matt alone here -- everyone else should be back in Seattle; for the curious, Dave did get home ok and on time (I'll explain later if you don't know what I'm talking about). Yesterday I rode to Cowra, about a third of the way from Sydney back toward Melbourne, then today I got up to find it raining and rode a ew hours through the rain until it cleared up around Wagga Wagga -- then I got on he main freeway and cruised along until 4 pm when I found myself in Benalla. There's a great hostel/backpacker-style accomdations place here called Trekker's Rest that just opened this week -- I'm their 3rd customer. Very friendly and nice place -- if you're ever near Benalla (about 2 hours from Melbourne), come check it out! They even have their own web site.