Crocs & Roos Tour 2009

Dear Friends

This Friday Isabel, Fabi and I will fly to Perh to visit the crocs and roos of the australian outback for the coming four months.
First highlight will be the Anne Beadell Highway, a long forgotten track of 1'400km through Western and Southern Australia. In between: One sigle gas station.
Following are the roughly 1'000 dunes of the french line through the Simpson Desert and the tropic forests of Queensland and the Northern Territory.
We will drop a few lines and upload some pictures every now and then:

http://www.enduristan.com/en/we-ride/crocs-roos-2009.html

Visit us on our webpage, we'll appreciate it!

Cheers
David

Hi David

Looks like you have done some serious planning for this one!

Great website, too

You are from switzerland?....i recently returned to oz after living there for 10 years.....

It seems like you will have the good luck to visit lake eyre when it has water in it

"subscribed"

owen

Have fun and take lots of pics there is a lot more water out there this year supposedly lake Eyre is filling for the first time in 10 or 20 years. Are u guys coming to Sydney or the east coast?

Good morning everybody

Thanks a lot for this information! We did not know about Lake Eyre so far, what a piece of good luck!

Unfortunatelly, we will not go to Sydney - although four months are a long time, we cannot do everything. I think Cairns will be the most south point on the east cost, we will reach.

Cheers David

PS Owen: Yes we are Swiss, how did you like it in this small country filled with people and mountains?

Make sure you post your ride updates here!

Good luck

OK, I will do my best to do so!

Cheers David

Dear Friends

We are now on our way since nearly two months and I am obviously far behind my promise on giving you an update every now and then. But here we go. Please excuse, that I will only give a summary here and link the full stories in addition.

After our arrival in Perth everything seemed to be all right: The bikes were ready for us at the freight company and registration was easy as always in Australia. But then my KTM refused it's service. As the bike was properly overhauled before the trip, we did not expect this. Anyway, after an emergency operation on the open carburetor by the local KTM dealer, we were finally on our way after a week.



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

We left Perth to the east as we wanted to visit wave rock:



The day after we finally found, what we are in Australia for: Dirtroads! The Holland Track seemed to be just a little track bringing us to Coolgardie, but soon turned out to be quite a bit of a challenge.



After two days we arrived in Kalgoorlie, were you can find one of the world largest open cut mines. This was of course worth a visit. We soon found out, that there is much bigger machinery existing than our KTMs:



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

Soon after we had to give up our plat to travel along the Anne Beadell Highway, as we could not find anybody to help us with a fuel dump between the Ilkurlka Roadhouse and Coober Pedy. These 800km seemed do lead through quite sandy terrain, and this would mean, that it would just be a few kilometers out of our range.

We easily found an alternative through the Gunbarrel and Gary Highways, leading over 600km without any supplies to Kunawariji Aboriginal Community along the Canning Stock Route. The Gary Highway turned out to be the most beautiful road I ever traveled along on my KTM: Remote, overgrown, through neverending spinifex and dense mulga scrub. High termite mounds in the middle of the road prooved, that at least no car has come along the Gary Highway for a long time (We don't have any clue, how long it takes for a termite mound to grow).




Kunawariji Aboriginal Community is alittle bit of a mess, but we were warmly welcomed. Len Beadell, the constructor of most of the roads in this area (well, apart from the Canning Stock Route pretty much every road out there) called this place once the most remote place in Australia - and this describes the situation pretty accurate in my opinion... The fuel is pumped out of an old phone booth, which used to be the most remote emergency phone placed at the Canning Stock Route, until somebody stole the phone - probably as a souvenier.



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

From Kunawariji we followed the Gary Junction Road (Yes, you guess it: This road was also built by Len Beadell) in the direction of Alice Springs.



We passed the Kiwirrkurra Aboriginal Community, in our eyes the friendliest and tidiest Community we have ever seen in Australia. Don't miss the opportunity to stop there, if you happen to come through! You can also see Len Beadell's burnt-out supply truck here. Soon after we passet the border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory.



From there it was not far to the West Mac Donnell Ranges, where various deep and cool gorges give us a rest after the days full of flies and blazing heat in the Gibson Desert.



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

In Alice Springs we spend a few days to visit a few museums. The best is probably the Desert Park, were you get a close look on all the animals, you normaly only see darting under a bush in the desert.



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

We leave Alice Springs through the Finke River National Park. We completely underestimate this track, but are soon to find out, that it really leads through deep sand and gravel - most of the part in the dry creek bed. Isabel and I came twice through Alice Springs, but both times we have not done this track, so we are glad we got a third chance now.



Further to the south we follow the abandoned tracks of the Old Ghan Railway. This railway ceased service in the 80's and today some sort of dirtroad to Finke is located on the old embankment. Sometimes they even left the old wooden sleepers, which do a very good job as corrugations! The old station buildings are still existing, we take the opportunity to spend the night at the Rodinga Siding.



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

We finally arrive in Coober Pedy, where we learn everything about being underground: 80% of the Coober Pedy population is still living underground in as-called dugouts. We check in at an underground caravan park, to experience this feeling at least alittle bit. In Coober Pedy it's all about mining and the opal fever is still in the air.




> This story in detail with more pics >>>

Now in Coober Pedy, the Anne Beadell Highway comes into our mind again. The first part of the Anne Beadell has been made for the test explosions of two British atom bombs at Emu, some 300km out of Coober Pedy. Fabi and I found, that a return trip to Emu would easily be within our range, so we set out, equipped with a permit from the Department of Defence and some 90 liters of petrol.

Along the way wo invested a few hours for digging out again Tallaringa Well, the only source of water between Mabel Creek Station and the Ilkurlka Roadhouse. Had we known, that we would have to dig down more than two meters, we probably wouldnt even have started. Shortly after sunset we stroke water at a deph of a little more than 3 meters, after having dug out a live snake a the bones of at least six dingos.



The trip from Tallaringa Well to Emu would have been a pleasure under normal conditions: The track led over dozens of sand dunes and we got along quite fast. But Central Australia showed itself from the very seldom rainy side and when we arrived there, we were dripping wet down to the bones (no, I do not have a raincoat - it does not rain in Australia, does it?).



When the two atom bombs were exploded in 1953, there was not much left after to be vesited now: The 100 feet high tower are completely destroyed, the only proof of their existence are the four base plates around the concrete obelisk. Following the instructions on the sign, we did not stay very long...



> This story in detail with more pics >>>

That's it for the moment! We are in Cairns now and we hope that we can finish the next two newsletters in the coming few days. I hope you enjoyed the little reports so far.

Cheers
David

David if you and your crew are coming to Sydney, I can provide you with a workshop and free camping.

Cheers

Steve

Lovely place etc etc

But for riding sports bikes???

Best. Roads. Ever.

Susten, Grimsel, Oberalp, Simplon. etc etc

I could ride around there every day for the rest of my life....

I will be touring the top-end from next week; Gulf country, Simpson desert and this area.

I'll check this ride report for your progress.

And when in Darwin, contact me for FREE 5-star accomodation

owen

Hi Owen

Thanks for the invitation! We would be happy to visit you in Darwin! Our next target is Cape York, providing the creeks are low enough. Then we plan to travel along the Gulf Savannah Road to Kakadu National Park and then to Darwin.

Wish you a good ride anyway and hope the Simpson is open again, when you are in the area. We could not do the French Line as planned, as the Simpson was closed because of floods on the Birdsville side. We got this information in Oodnadatta and decided to circumference Lake Eyre in the South then. When we came to Birdsville, the Frenchline was still closed behind Big Red.

Cheers
David

Hi there, news again from our trip.

First thing we found out after leaving Coober Pedy, was that the Frenchline through the Simpson Desert was closed due to flooding on the Birdsville side. This was rather disappointing, as we were looking forward for the Frenchline all the time. So we decided to ride arround Lake Eyre in the south. Although we heard everywhere, that Lake Eyre would be full, it was not full yet, but still filling up.



So we kept following the tracks of the Old Ghan down to Maree, where there was an interchange between narrow and normal gauge in the early days. This interchange was probably also the reason, why the old narrow gauge engines came to a rest in Maree, when the Old Ghan was closed down.



We now headed for the Birdsville Track, to bring us up north into Queensland. The signs of the latest downpour were very obvious in the form of muddy parts and even some water on the road.

Here a good advice for all of you: If you want to cross some water next to your girlfriend, make sure you never fall behind!

Great photos, but kindly post them in a larger format so we can appreciate them even more. Thanks!

In Birdsville we found that Fabi's rear sprocket didn't look very healthy any more. Strange behavior of a steel sprocket...



The local mechanic offered to have a new sprocket flown in with the next mail flight in five days, which was a bit long to wait for us. So we rung the KTM dealer in Mt Isa, who told us, that he is no KTM dealer any more. OK, so we decided to try to make it to Cairns, a lot more than a thousand kilometers.

Between Birdsville and Boulia, the recent heavy rains showed themselves by turning the normaly dry country into green grass as far as the eye could see.



After we visited the Walkabout Creek Hotel in Mc Kinley (for sure you all remember Crocodile Dundee) we headed for the Kennedy Developmental Road to cross the Great Dividing Range. This was a very good decision, as we stumbled over a very imprssive gorge and came through Mt Garnet right on the weekend they had their annually rodeo.



Now all we could do was hoping, that Fabi's sprocket would manage to bring him to Cairns over the last few hundred kilometers.

> This story in detail with more pics >>>

Hi Steve

Thank you very much for this invitation! Sydney is unfortunately not on our route though.

Cheers
David

Thanx for the simpson desert update; real-time information can be hard to find...

I'm so jealous; you look like you are having a great time


Anyway, check for a PM message, which will have my contact details....when you are closer to darwin...until then; viel spass

Awesome photo's and report!