Warning : this report will contain bad spelling, grama, punctuation and poor use of the english language etc. G’Day all, here is a bit of a ride report about Digga’s and my ride through some of our central Australian desert area’s. Not much of a story teller, so please bear with me. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o> Basically it all started about 8 or so weeks back when I wanted to go for a ride and check out a few mods I had done to my bike. So, a few of us went for a bit of a day ride to have a poke around and a bit of fun. While we were out enjoying the sun, tracks, roads and the creeks etc, we pulled up for a rest and a chin wag, clowning around, poking fun (as you do) telling stories and general chit chat etc. During the course of this general chit chat which included such topics as, have you ever seen a giraffe giving berth and the movie Bad Boy Bubby, Digga mentioned something about a 4 day ride west. After a few laughs, it was sort of blown off and we got on with what we went out there to do, ride. At the end of the day we finished our ride, said our goodbye’s, and all headed off our separate ways back home. <o></o> A few day’s later, the seed had started growing, maybe this idea of Digga’s is not that bad. We are self employed and trying to get away from work is fairly difficult, so time away is pretty hard to organize. This was the original train of thought, 2 weekend day’s, and a day either side could be doable. The time frame was another thing as Digga was getting married in a few weeks time and has a fair bit to organize with that and we both have families and family commitments to consider. During the week, a few phone calls were made back and forth and the subject kept rearing its head. This has gone from a seed to a small plant by this time. A few conversations with our wives with no objections a rough date planned and now the small plant had become a tree. <o></o> I still had an unprepared bike for any longer than a weekender staying at a pub type thing and Rick (Digga) still had his hands full, plus bike prep to do. So we were going about our business taking care of what needed doing, Digga got married and time was slipping by pretty quickly. Another couple of phone calls back and forth, now the idea of 4 day’s had grown to, what about we leave on the Friday as planned, but go for the week and be back the following Saturday (my seed). I think a couple of hrs had passed at this stage and my phone rings, yeah, I have run it passed Michelle and its good to go, so on the phone to my wife and we had the thumbs up for a week long ride. How cool is that, now we just had to keep on top of work and have it organized and we were laughing. A couple more weeks roll by and time is getting shorter to have the bikes and work sorted, but we are getting there. More phone calls, Hi, its just me doing my daily check in, you nearly ready, yeah mate getting there, work is hectic, bike not finished yadda yadda yadda. <o></o> Any way, the time had finally arrived, I got away from work early and I still had to load my bike with gear. So I did some running around on the way home and got stuck in. Ricks ready and rearing to go, better pull my finger out. Rick picked me up at about 5.00am I the morning and we loaded the bikes into the Ute for the 17hr drive to our starting point, Birdsville. We decided to Ute the bikes out due to our limited time frame, this way we could both take turns driving and it saved wearing out tyres etc on the transport section to the Simpson Dessert. Plus we had air con and tunes to listen to along the way. <o></o> Better add some pics, starting to get bored typing. <o></o> The dessert sleds My Husky 610 loaded and ready to go <o></o> Ricks Bike Honda XR650R also loaded and ready
more pics, less words mate. It's a shame that you weren't riding the 950 instead of that shit box thumper.
no worries Tony, will try and keep the words to a minimum. We drove all day only stopping for fuel, food and a leak. The good thing was we were travelling the same way as the sun, from the east to the west so had some extra daylight on our side which made Roo, Emu, Pig, Goat and Sheep spotting easier. We rolled into Windorah late in the afternoon, its the last town for fuel before Birdsville which was still about 385klm’s or so away. The fella that runs this place is pretty amazing as he is blind, and when we rolled in for some fuel he was fixing a puncture in a car tyre and did all the till & card work himself, new where everything was and pointed you in the direction when asked questions like, where are your toilets, do you have any drinks. Yep, pointed where we needed to go , bought some drinks back paid for them and he give us the right change. Its amazing how people etc can adapt. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o> Here are the bikes doing it tough in the back or the Ute at Windorah. <o></o> A view of the small town of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Windorah</st1lace></st1:City> <o></o> Not far to go now. This is were we swapped drivers and i had a ciggie and tiolet break. So far pretty uneventful, roads were in pretty good condition and we had not killed any wild life. So Digga jumps in the drivers seat for the home run to Birdsville. At this stage its about 8.30 at night and we had about another 1.5hrs ahead of us. 10 minutes down the road, boom, a roo jumped straight into the drivers side door, no major damage to the car and we roll on, then a duck jumps up in front of us and shits itself over the front of the car just before its backside hits the windscreen and bounces over the roof. Digga and i are just looking at each other in amazement, then some other smaller type birds fly up into the grill of the car. After all the carnage we roll into Birdsville about 10 o'clock at night and head straight to the pub which is still in full swing. We meet some locals had some schooners and went and found somewhere to rest for the night. The next morning we awoke to the sun coming up in the carpark of the Birdsville race track. Sunrise in Birdsville
So after a good nights sleep, we headed off into town for some breaky at the bakery and find a place to unload the bikes and leave the car. Top breaky buy the way. Here is a pic of the Diamantina river on the way to town. Plenty of bird life at the moment and it actually smelt quiet salty. Not to many oceans around these parts. Finally the bikes were on the ground fueled up and ready to go under there own steam. We were finally here and making our way into the Simpson Desert. Pretty sure Digga had a great big smile under that helmet. The day started out nicely and was starting to warm up. After weaving our way through a few dunes and tracks we made our way out to the western side of Big Red and onto the start of the QAA line. This takes us through to Ayre Creek and beyond. By this time we were trying to get settled on the bikes, finding our sand legs, stopped and checked that none of the gear was moving around on the bikes and giggling like school girls. This is were we had come from. Rick doing some site seeing from the top of one of the many dunes to come. We had pulled up here to check that we were going to be headed in the right direction for the Ayre creek bypass, have a chat about how things were going, rechecked the gear on the bikes etc. There were plenty of whoop sections and so far so good, the gear was still there and tight. By this stage the day was starting to warm up quiet a bit, but we did get some cloud coverage which was nice. The sign points you in the direction of travel to take you through the rocky crossing of Ayre creek. If you go straight past the sign, the crossing is approx 50mtrs or so away, but looked to be reasonbly deep and very sandy with a pretty step exit on the other side. The main crossing behind the sign.
So , so far so good, we jumped back on the bikes and headed off to follow the detour around the deep part of the creek crossing. I think from memory the bypass adds something like 80klm's to the journey. This was all good as we had enough fuel to cross the dessert and get to Mt Dare which is the next fuel stop from Birdsville. It is approx 600klm's from one fuel stop to the next which is why we had the fuel bladders tide onto the bikes. We had 11ltrs in each bladder, 2 per bike plus 25ltr fuel tanks. We were both carring water on the bikes as well as in our camel packs. We keep following the tracks and come across some more detour signs, then we crest a dune with a 90 degree turn with the track at the bottom heading North and another going straight ahead West. At the corner of this turn is another sign saying side track and pointing to the northern track. We stopped and had a chat regarding the direction we should follow. We new we needed to be heading West, but the sign pointing North had us doubting which way to go. At this point i would like to say that we had paper maps and a gps and not much was adding up with either and the sign made it that little more confusing. One thing we did not want to do was ride around getting lost out here. We thought we may have missed a turn off else so decided to back track and have look. We ended up back at Ayre creek and never passed any turn off's or tracks anywhere, so back out with the map and check the gps. After some head scratching we were away agian, this time we road down along the creek bed for a while until it went nowhere, then back over the next set of dunes to where the gps was telling us there was a track. We road around in the shrubbery and grass tufts for a while but could not find any tracks anywhere, enen though the gps was saying we were actually on it. More confusion, the day was getting hotter and we were getting nowhere. In the end we made a dission to head back to the side track sign and head west. We headed back along the track up and down dunes across whoops and finally got back to where we were a few hrs ago. rick had pulled up on the corner and i needed to ad some water to my Camel pack, by this stage i had drunk 3lts already. So i jumped off my bike and was a little shocked to see a fuel bladder missing. At first i thought it had fallen off and i was going to have to go find it, but i did not have to look far. It had fallen down and landed on my rear wheel and got wedge between the tyre and swing arm. Happy f#cking day's . The rear tyre had torn a couple of holes in the bladder so now we were down on fuel. I was pretty annoyed i can tell you, and i am sure Rick was to. Now what to do, plenty of scenario's were run through and we thought it better to go back to Birdsville rather than risk going on further and create more issues by running out of petrol. The day was getting on and we had some ground to cover to make it back before dark. We road back to ayre creek again and sat under a tree for a while. By this time i was well frustrated and even trying to get the bike to stand up on the rocks was a chore. After we had cooled down for a while it was back on the bikes and we covered the distance back pretty smartly and rolled into Birdsville before sundown. We pulled into the pub, had a few beers and had basically resigned to heading home the next day. We had a feed, run through the day and decided to sleep on the decision and see what the next day offered. Another night sleeping in the carpark of the race track, back to the bakery for something to eat in the morning(ground hog day). Rick had a 10ltr plastic gerry can back at the ute and was pretty confident that he could tie it onto his bike and get it to stay there. So a bit of a test run and a chat with Adrian (piecrust on this site) who's dad owns the the bakery to spur us on it was off to the service station to fill it up, rehydrate with some fluids (today was shaping up to be pretty warm), top up our water supply and off we go again. This time we followed directions from Adrian and made Ayre creek fairly quickly. Instead of going right and following the detour to th Northern crossing(rocky crossing) we went left to the southern crossing. Rick said i'll go and have a poke around and see how far it is and what its like. I could faintly here his bike in the distance, then it started getting louder and i thought he was riding back up the side of the creek. I was stunned to see him on the other side, and with some directions yelled out across the creek i was on the bike and on the other side. On the other side of the creek we had used enough fuel from both bikes to dump the gerry can into them. Now that was empty, the concerns for overlaoded subframes were gone and we could get on with the ride. The banks of Ayre Creek Finally on the right track heading in the right direction The colours in the desert are quiet amazing, from the orange sands to the mixed shades of green shrubs and tree's.
good report. It's good to see an XR650 loaded up. One of the reasons I sold mine was it's lack of load carrying ability but that one is doing it easy. Possibly I jumped the gun.......................
dunno how doug is feeling this week,but man, i got the post ride blues. struggling to make it past the computer without whackin on the slide show. couldn't sleep the other night till i took me swag out the back yard under the stars.
Yeah , i know how you feel mate, i keep going out to my bike and looking through my jacket for ear plugs.
Its quiet different here to living on the coast, as the day wears on the sun stay's high for much longer than it seems to at home and the heat stay's right along with it unlike home were the afternoons start to cool down getting ready for the evening. With all the mucking around we did in the morning we did not end up leaving Birdsville untill around 11.00am. Right in the hottest part of the day and today was supposed to be one of the warmest day's. We were hoping to make Poeppels cnr which is the intersection of 2 states being Queensland & South Austalia and 1 territory, being the Northern Territory. Did i mention it was hot. Here is Rick taking it all in We found a nice tree to get some shelter from the sun and have a few lollies and a drink. These worked a treat and after 10 or 15 minutes you felt revitalised and ready to go again. With running up and down dunes all day, putting up with being slapped across the arms and shoulders by whipping trees(this was the nickname we gave the trees and shrubs overhanging the tracks) it was really nice to come across this massive clay pan. It was a site to see and appeared out of nowhere. On the other side of the clay pan was a sign to Mt Dare and Poeppels Cnr. We were nearly at our camp for night. For about 30 minutes or so you skirt along the edge of the clay pan, heading south running parallel with the sand dunes and you eventually arrive here at Poeppels corner, and we were pretty happy. This post has 3 sides, each side is engraved with the state or territory name on it. And this plaque ontop of a round column lets you know were you are. Its probably one of the only times you can easily be in 3 places at once. There is even a nice little baord walk to get you there. And a bit of reading about the history as well. After a few snap shots of the surrounds, we had a look for a place to camp for the night. It was pretty easy as we had the place to ourselves when we arrived. We found a nice little area behind some small trees to give some shade until the sun went down and got out of the riding gear and relaxed for a little while enjoying the surroundings and talking about the day's riding. Not long after a few 4 x 4's that we had passed earlier in the day pulled up and took some photo's and moved on to find an area of there own to set up camp. We sat around talking for a while having one of the best tasting cups of tea i think i have had and thinking about having a feed. It took a little while to actually feel like eating. We had been working reasonably hard on the bikes with the heat during the day, and it took a while to actually cool off. Digga heats up some noodles and i eat a tin of baked beans. I didn't worry about heating them up as they were reasonably warm already. Sunset at the corner, doesn't get much better than this. Clear sky's and fantastic scenery.
Great Photo's Doug .... cant understand tho why a peron would want to scratch there name into that plague ,, i remember many many yrs ago there used to be a book ontop of Ayres Rock to sign, i doupt its still there , but it would be good if there was some sort thing to leave your " i waz ere " mark . a designated sign or something .. but of course the fools would ruin it im sure You get a words smith talent there tho Popy Dawg... you should wright a rap about it
Im like yea cool more pic's ..... im studying them in detail ....... then bammmmmm :eek1 WTF ..HA it lil digga , at first light . wow and then we scroll on thinking i cant be blown away to much more and Fuck me Bammmmm again ,,, the popy dawg and his pec's ,, your ripped ol man What a R/R , how can it get better