Adelaide to the Red Centre/Mt Isa/Broken Hill

Sounds good might have to organise to meet up with them somewhere, however as for my trip I may be cancelling 2/3 of the trip depending how I am feeling with my riding skills and how my body is holding up from all the crashes

Hopefully I will make the whole trip but if not it gives me a good 2 weeks to just ride casually up to uluru :)

Safe travels, Andrew!

Mike

I don't live far from the Oodnadatta track mate, it is a decent road and i can get along it at 100k + in my 4x4. Dependant on work requirements (which i never know about until the week before) i may be able to come out and ride with you for a couple of days from Coward springs. Another option for camping along there other than Coward Springs is the campground at William Creek hotel. You can get beer and sit around a fire. Coward springs also gets pretty full in grey nomad season.
Dont forget your warm gear, it is bloody freezing up here at the moment.

Thanks for the insight let me know how the conditions of the road are going, I dont mind freezing cold but I dont want wet or windy conditions or extremly dry but I'm not picky am I

I will have my Spot messenger on me so you can track my progress and if I've setup camp at Coward springs feel free to pop by! :) however if I can get some mobile reception I will give you a call anyway.

Also any chance you could put your hand up for a emergency/mechanical contact when in that area :eek1 since its my first time on such a trip and my mate will be on a almost dead KLR

Yeah mate no worries about help when in this part of the world. i've subscribed to this thread now and will give you contact details etc when the time gets closer to your departure date.

Thanks hopefully I can find some other inmates further along the track as well :)

hello, a couple of mates and myself are heading up to the innamincka via the flinders and arkaroola tomorrow so i can let you know about the road conditions.

it sounds like a great trip you have planned.

Rich

At this stage this trip may be put on hold due to what I regard as expensive and timely repairs to my bike however hopefully it will be resolve and put back on track but sure aint having a good run of luck at the moment...

Wow, Andrew, I sure hate to learn this! I was really hoping this was the first post of your trip. Keep us advised of your progress!

Mike

Hi, I am not a big poster, but on sand the steering damper made the bike rideable. For me anyway. I need to take mine off, and sent it for a service. I do not post alot, but this thing works. I have no connections with this lot.
http://www.rallemoto.com/contents/en-us/d23.html
Cheers

Alright update the bike is back on the road for now, I am taking it easy and testing each part as we go but the only issues at the moment is the suspension feels a bit soft and the exhaust appears to be a bit bent but all good :)

However the trip has been shortened to only Uluru due to the short prep time and such

Glad you're somewhat "up and running," Andrew. Thanks for keeping us posted on your progress. Have a great time on your trip and send photos when you can.

Mike

Alright so everything looks like its good to go, just a few last things to do then im off

Below are the links to the spot pages

http://www.findmespot.com/spotadventures/index.php/view_adventure?tripid=311308
http://spotme.semaja2.net

Will be leaving in 2 days time :)

Good news, Andrew! I'm glad you got things sorted out. I'll be leaving the same day for a trip across the United States and should be gone about a month. I look forward to reading about your journey. Have fun and be careful out there.

Mike

Ok ok I feel like a school kid procrastinating on homework... but heres my first attempt at a ride report

We had a delayed start as my friend who was joining me was unwell and we delayed the trip by a day, so on the Sunday we left at 8am in the morning, a KLR650 and a BMW R1200GSA off for their first journey into the nomads land! After a day of tarmaq we finally reached Hawker and took the long way into the flinders to enjoy the first of many dirt roads to come.



Half way into the flinders I had the get changed in the middle of a look out as the quilt liner in my pants/jacket was now boiling me since it appears off road riding gets you quite worked out Arriving at Acraman camp site we set up camp and enjoyed our first "dehydrated" meals, which well cant say I will be buying that flavour again



Our next day was to consist of circling around flinders and then camping at Farina, we woke up to negative degree weather and the lovely flinders prevented the sun from heating the camp site up until about 9am... once we packed up we left heading to Parachilna for a amazing bacon and egg roll, we went through the Brachilna Gorge to reach Parachilna and had a amazing blast crossing some of our deepest water so far although it was probably just a few puddles to some

On the loop through the flinders I did however stall it in the middle of a water crossing, came around the corner saw the entire road covered in water and saw a car had gone around the side of it in a bit shallower water so thought I would follow through.... unfortunately since the idiots didn't move out of my way I couldn't power out of the water and BAM looking like a idiot in the middle of water

Arriving at Lyndhurst we saw the start of the dirt... nothing to be seen that way for miles! bit nervous to start doing 80kmph on the first but we quickly picked up pace to 100kmph, according to all reports from the people we met so far the Oonadatta had just been graded and was in perfect shape

We arrived at Farina for our second night, the temperature started to get colder and colder and there was no wood to be seen for miles, luckily some kind campers across from us donated a log to get us warm :) they pulled a chain saw out though and I thought I was done for... then i found out it was a electric battery powered chainsaw! it took 2 batteries to cut a small log!!



Once again we woke up to -2.5 degrees with ice on everything! However for now I will post the rest of the adventure later :)

Ok back to it!

Now I realise I forgot to mention in my previous post my very close call with a Emu, now it wasnt my first encounter with wild life and sure wont be my last... but what really makes this "special" is how close the emu was to my head and how lucky I am to still be alive... so stay tuned because I caught it all on camera!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbI6pEwQSc&feature=plcp


So where was I... oh yes we had just left Farina, it was onto Maree from here, the start of the Oonadatta Track... what we had been riding so far for



We reached Marree and after refuelling on water and good ol'91 we were met with about 8 other BMW GS/A riders all geared up. Spoke to them for a bit and turns out they had left from Sydney and were blazing towards Alice where their ride would officially start from, got some valuable intel from them and found out why my damn GS mud flap would keep braking! Also met a couple on F800/650GS bikes, unfortunately they were having some battery issues and had to turn around to replace a battery before it got too bad and they were out of range.




After refuelling and catching up with what felt like everyone, we were off again heading towards Lake Eyre South, we took the pace slow but were amazed at how quick we gained confidence and started picking up speeds of 100Kmph and sitting down on the beast! Arriving at Lake Eyre we were greeted with a amazing view, and shortly after greeted with the 8 BMW riders from Marree... but I dont think this was the last we would see of them




Continuing onto William Creek we were once again greeted by our lovely 8 BMW riders, but with their blazing pace this would be the last we see of them, so we said our farewells and off they went, we were then greeted with our next nomad visitors riding on their Suzikis and other more light weight bikes but we didnt speak too much to them.



William Creek really was a interesting town as there wasn't anything in any direction for hundreds of kilometres, which made the Farmers Union Ice Coffee and Ice Creams ever so much the treat :) after a discussion we decided we would continue on and not attempt the path to Lake Eyre North, making our camp site tonight Agebuckina Water Hole

The ride from William Creek to Agebuckina WH however was the nastiest of them all, the track started to get sandy and began to have really bad ruts.... so what does one do to keep them self focused and entertained... TALK TO THEM SELFS so I came up with the saying "Stabilise and Stay Alive!" sure did keep me focused

Coming into the Agebuckina WH I was really feeling drained and tempted to dig into my pain killer stash of Oxy once I got to camp, however arriving at the WH there was a 4WD track sign and I instantly shuttered knowing what it meant but I was so tired I just wanted to setup camp and sleep! As we went down the track it suddenly turned into sand and out of stupidity I sat down and slowed down almost instantly losing control and crashing... luckily all I got was a blood nose as the visor was open and the windscreen came flying in, but those last few hundred metres of sand just killed me as we slowly moved the bike down the track, arriving at camp we spoke little and I just sat there not knowing what to do as it was really setting in... plus those plans of taking some pain killers were out the window since I could have more serious injuries and that would just cover them... however making some hot mash potato with the Jet Boil sure did feel amazing!

I got a phone call from my Dad on the Sat Phone and seems I had accidentally presses the help button not the check in button all the way back at Lake Eyre! seems everyone had been trying to get in contact with me too! After that it was time for some well deserved sleep!

Little did we know at this stage but we had just completed near 350KM of off road riding, a new record for us and no wonder we were so dead tired!

-------------------------

The next morning we woke and packed up ready for another day on the Oonadatta, today was traveling to Oonadatta then to Marla.

I was really dreading the idea of going back through the sand to get out, but we slowly edged the bike through and got it back on the main track with out dropping her again :)

We arrived at Oonadatta and well we were still dead tired from the day before, however we caught up with the Suzikis again but this would be the last as they would be departing for a different track. One of the locals came up and spoke to me and discussed a few random matters but seemed really nice, me and my friend also started to realise that every town so far has had random dogs just running around every where!



Continuing on to Marla we stopped mid way to enjoy the majestic middle of no where! which was a nice well deserved break and was really soulful to be so isolated from the world :)



Finally arriving at Marla you could hear us scream out of our helmets for the sight of Tarmaq!!!!! It was sure a sight for sore eyes and felt amazing! Arriving at only mid day we were still too tired and decided to take a room at the hotel and enjoy some nice air conditioned beds with foxtel and showers







Completing to Oonadatta Track we had decided that at this stage we had completed a major milestone and because it was our first major trip we wouldn't push it any more and just enjoy the tarmac from here on in

Leaving Marla we head off to the Northern Territory border in a big push to reach Uluru for our next camp site, as much as I was loving the idea of the tarmac the day before… with in 100KM of the tarmac I was wishing I was on dirt again

Whilst I was going to legal speed limit my fellow rider opened up to god knows what speed and I had no idea what his rush was... turned out his speedo cable broke and he thought I was going slow

Passing the border we were greeted with the lovely big ol' sign for 130kmph a perfect and legal chance to just open up the bike! unfortuantely it lasted only 50 or so kilometers before the turn off to Uluru which is 100+km of 90kmph

Entering in to Uluru you have in your mind a image of a massive big rock sticking out of the ground you can see from miles away… so we pulled over at the first site of what we thought was Uluru… turned out to be some mountain and sure made us look like idiots but seems everyone does this



Finally approaching the real Uluru we let our a hurray over the helmets and found our camp site, enjoying a nice sun set over Uluru :)



PS. I realise now I really should take more pics of things other then bikes

Part 3 - Uluru, Wommera and home coming soon!

Settling into our camp site at Uluru, we relaxed once again and enjoyed some well deserved ice cream

We woke up early at 5am, I packed up my camp site and we left to go see the sunrise on Uluru... now let me tell you waking up that early is not easy! Unfortunately the silly designers of the national park somehow turned a 2km direct path into a 30 minute zig zag around the rock and we missed the sunset by a few minutes, that being said was still a sight to be seen :)






Since it was still early and we had our gear with us we went back to the camp grounds, David moved his tent as the site needed maintenance (lucky I already packed my tent up) then got changed into something a bit more suited to walking and climbing the rock and left our gear at the office (no pesky thefts for us!)

David however didn't bring any shoes that would suit the climb so we went to the supermarket and bought what you would probably call "Grandpa" shoes :huh

Once again we made the 30 minute journey into the park, and it was amazing getting about 500m out of the rock on the road and seeing how big the damn thing was! We arrived at the entrance for the rock and was greeted with another BMW R1200GSA who was traveling a farmer from NSW with his wife so had a good chat with him and a few international visitors we met along the way.

Its surprising how steep the damn rock gets when you try to climb the thing! I climbed up about half way of the first section and decided its too damn hot and I can at least say "ive climbed Uluru"... never said anything about to the top its also very surprising that the only safety you have on the rock is a single chain rail to hold onto and its not even there always! the rock has had something like 12+ deaths since it opened and numerous casualties because of the climb







So back down I went and spoke to some more international visitors, I find it very interesting talking to other travellers as it seems everyone is so friendly and has their own tales to tell :) Whilst waiting for David to return from the climb, I went for a quick walk around the base where it was a bit more shady

Heading back to the camp site we found our good old neighbours from Adelaide... SA Motorcycles, who would of thought out in the middle of no where! We had our hellos and they had a quick look at Davids bike to confirm the broken speedo cable and fixed up the rest of the bike with gaffer tape Since I didnt get to climb Uluru all the way to the top… I took the helicopter from the camp grounds for $120 and enjoy a nice helicopter ride





Due to some personal health issues the ride was now becoming unenjoyable for some parts, so after some discussion it was decided that the trip would be shortened and it would be a direct route home from here on, maybe next year we can enjoy the red centre and alice :)

So the next morning we packed up camp, enjoyed some nice bacon and egg at the town centre and off it was for Marla, since we missed it on the way in we stopped at the border to get some pics, enjoying the lame concept of being in 2 states at once




Arriving at Marla much to Davids argument we got the hotel room again, and enjoyed the foxtel and comfy bed

Next morning it was off to Woomera... over 600KM of highway to tackle! due to my health issue making me pull over almost every 50km this was going to be one big day! we stopped off at all the towns along the way as usual, but the stretch was going to be hard even for my BMW (600KM max) let alone David's KLR (300KM max), luckily there was a town called Glendambo just 252KM out of Coober Pedy, turned out David ONLY just made it! he had to turn the fuel reserve on about 25km out

Finally arriving at Woomera it was late so we got a camp site and setup camp, the camp was only 10m from the bar!





I met a bicycle rider who set up camp nearby and started talking, it was amazing to hear how he was riding up to Uluru on a bicycle! It really surprised me how they can carry so much and camp on the side of the road and be so vulnerable as well as be all alone, but he seemed to be having a awesome time :)

The next morning we explored Woomera and I must say we were both disappointed by the town, it really wasn't that much to see but what really got to me was how surreal the town felt… it was like being on a tv set or something, everything was perfect and it was dead silent! We also met some riders on V-storms heading up with a 4WD but they were on a tight schedule so no off road for them







After leaving Woomera it was off to Mount Remarkable, arriving in Port Augusta I enjoyed my first Mc Donald's meal in over a week and suddenly the cravings were filled and I was full of energy also first time in over a week I seen a speed camera

Once we arrived at Mount Remarkable I had decided I would head straight home and not stay the night, so I set Davids campsite up and left some gear behind as he was going to camp along the peninsula the next few days

And there we have it arriving home at 9pm :)

Not sure how to embed youtube...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJXAtsXVcfw&feature=youtu.be

See you all next trip

Well done mate, sorry to hear you got crook. Still, it leaves some unfinished business! Enjoyed your pics, I had covered much of that in my own trip a month before you.

Looked like a great trip.

Don't buy that overpriced freeze dried crap for your dinners, if your in the Himalayas for a month maybe but otherwise buy the Sunrise packs which are only $4 each.