I packed up the camp with the sticky dust and headed to Perth. Western Australia is the biggest state in Oz and has the longest straight (145kms) and just simply big distances. It was a day of riding until the next stop or a roadhouse, stopping and getting fuel for me and Ziggy, then heading off again.



At one roadhouse I met up with another biker. He was a German guy travelling east on a 650 Tenere. He was packed up with some odd soft bags and had 50/50 tyres on the bike that had obviously seen some dirt. He is here for 12 mths and has already finished 3 months.

No Photos!!

As the ride continued, the wind picked up from the north and was quite gusty at times. Particularly in the farming areas where there were no trees to stop the wind seemed to be the worst. The large road trains coming in the opposite direction started to pose a problem. I had learnt the properties of the wind surrounding these trucks when there is no other wind. The combination now of a wind from my right and trucks passing me on the right caused a whole new turbulence. Each truck felt like it grabbed me and shook me from side to side as it passed, and at times two or three trucks would pass and each would repeat their violent buffering.

I'm glad I wasn't on a lighter bike!

I pushed on that day until I was near Kalgoorlie and stopped at a small town outside of Norseman and camped. It was right next to the road and the large road trains came rumbling past but surprisingly I still slept well. At least the sunset was great!

Packed up camp and had a toast and coffee breakfast and headed to Perth. It was still nearly 600kms so this was to be another big day. Once again long roads and the wind had picked up so more of the same battering from the trucks.

It's always a bit challenging coming into the traffic of a city after thousands of country kilometres, and even more difficult at peak hour, which it was. I stop-started my way through slow heavy traffic until I reached a friend's house in the northern suburbs and was there welcomed with a refreshing shower and delicious Indian food which Dee has a reputation for cooking.



The following morning I battled the traffic again to get to Perth and the BMW dealer who I had booked the bike with a couple of days earlier. They fitted the Heidenau K60 tyres and changed the engine oil.


Ziggy had now reached 25,000kms (17,000 when I bought her).

The new tyres were magic! So smooth around the corners it felt like I was doing ballet, they were so manoeuvrable. I went for a long ride around Perth and suburbs to enjoy the combination of new tyres and no luggage for a short time.

That night I went out for dinner with my hosts and their fishing club. It was a great night and ended with a few people coming back to Dee's to play pool and have some drinks. Very enjoyable social night.

Again no photos!!

Left about 9.30am after a long cooked breakfast with my wonderful hosts. They are real people people and love having visitors and I felt very spoilt and well looked after.

Before long I was back on the open road and the Indian Ocean Highway had been suggested to me to travel north on instead of the Brand Highway. It was a beautiful ride with miles of massive sand dunes, mostly vegetated with a huge variety of plants.

Along the way I stopped at the Pinnacles, a large number of granite fingers pointing up out of the sand.




I rode on to a small town called Northampton, just north of Geraldton, with a small caravan park in it and set up camp again. My tent was still a bit damp from my last stop and did not take long to dry out in the weather that was getting warmer as I headed north.

Attached Thumbnails

 

**Apologies for lack of photos!!** Funny story though!

Usual morning routine before hitting the road again. After seeing the sights along the coast I pulled in to a town called Kalbarri and picked up some supplies, particularly some extra water. I'm carrying about 5 litres. As soon as I left the coast and headed inland it became very hot. The temperature hit 41.5C.

The heat caught me a bit unaware and I decide it was a good time to put on my cooling vest - an evaporative cooling material that you put on wet.


Of course I had not pre-planned so the vest was dry and I didn't want to use my drinking water supplies to wet it.

I pushed on until I came across a 24 hour camping area with a river and water. I stopped and walked to the edge of the water and my boots started to sink into the black mud. I saw kangaroo tracks so I figured the water was drinkable and should be fine to soak the vest.

As I lay the vest on the water surface, the material started to soak up the water. The water was shallow and just under the surface was more of the black mud. It took me a minute to realise that it was putrid, decomposing mud and I had just soaked this awful smell into my vest.

It was unwearable. It was unbearable! I looked around and there was simply no other water at this place so I strapped the vest to the bike to dry out and figured I would be riding hot until I could wash out my vest. Fortunately about 80kms on, there was a structure with two large water tanks at a parking area. It was the first I had seen like it but it was a great idea. Two large rooves angled in to catch the rainwater and fill the tanks.

I stopped and pulled out my collapsible bucket for the first time and washed the vest. It needed two lots of detergent and five rinses to get the majority of the smell out, but it worked and I rode off with my wet vest on and a noticeable decrease in riding temperature, as the mercury hovered around 40C.

I pushed on through more long and try hot straight roads and decided that due to time constraints I would bypass the Shark Bay area that leads to Monkey Mia where you can feed and swim with dolphins. I eventually stopped at Carnarvon, booked into the nearest caravan park and slept like a baby.

The vest story made me laugh!sounds like something id do.

Thanks Noel...only wish I'd thought of taking photos..especially of my frustrated face!!

Not only is it seven months since I updated this trip report, but I've also been a nomad with wings clipped. Bogged down in working though will allow me to complete Broome to Brisbane this coming December - across the top , and has also set me up and allowed me to plan for a trip around the globe...yep, Nomad Round the World - coming to a blogspot near you in 2014!

Now I'm getting ahead of myself and first I have to prove I can finish a trip report! Here goes...



10 Dec 12 - Carnarvon was a nice town and because I went into the first van park I had seen, I paid a premium and missed seeing the several other cheaper van parks on the other side of the town. However, newly refreshed, I headed north again and took the turnoff to Coral Bay.

It was a place recommended by a number of people so I decided to take the 150km detour to have a look. I rode through some very deserty dry country, flat with few trees and with the temperature approaching 40C again.


Coral Bay was a very welcome place with a beautiful bay and stunning coloured ocean, with many moored yachts resting on the placid water.


I drove to the end of the road where a carpark was situated, parked up and went for a welcomed swim in the water.


I bought some lunch at one of the many cafes and contemplated my next move.
I thought about staying the day and night here until I looked at the maps and realised that I was still 1800kms from Derby - the distance from Brisbane to Cairns - and I needed to be there on Friday. After my refreshing stop I decided to push on and see if I could get some more miles behind me.

I filled up my water and headed out of town towards some of the most barren and hot areas of my trip. As I drove away from the coast, the temperature rose and rose quickly up to 40 degrees and beyond. I stopped when it reached 44 degrees to take this photo of my computer readout,


and then it climbed to a stifling 45 degree, before reducing again to 43C for the next few hours.

The landscape had become more sparse and void of trees and the colour of the sand and dirt became a bright yet deep red. Sand dunes started rising out of the flatness covered in stumpy spinifex tusks and as I passed through them at the ends, the red was dazzling.

The road kept going and the heat kept heating and finally I rejoined the Highway to head north. After another couple of hours riding and another couple of stops to drink water I stopped at a roadhouse and pitched the tent on the only patch of grass for $10 No photo

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11 Dec 2012
I rose early at dawn, packed up camp, had breakfast and headed off. I had been told about this leg of the journey where the highway veered inland to travel east and followed the contour of the coastline in that direction towards Kurratha and Port Hedland. True to the stories it was hot, straight with little to see. There was not a lot of vegetation and the land was very flat, the roads very straight and to survive this ride I had to stop regularly and drink water and stretch my legs.



My bike jacket was now permanently stowed in the bottom of the waterproof bag and I rode in the body armour and cooling vest. Along the way there were a couple of fires in the distance and I wondered whether I was going to cross paths with them.


I arrive just outside of Kurratha and decided to have a look at the town of Dampier on the nearby peninsula. I took the heavy vehicle road and straight away I could se this was a major mining town, with a suburb of identical roofs and their attached air-conditioning units. I came to a T-intersection and there was a four lane highway confronting me…brand new with high sure lights and loaded with trucks and traffic. No photo again!

I turned left and headed towards Dampier. The roadworks were not only fresh but in progress, and I crawled through a couple of kilometres of 40 and 60 km/h speed limit areas. The relentless sun soaking into this new city of bitumen and concrete made for an unpleasant and very hot ride. Next trip report will have more photos!

Finally I went through a pass between some hills and an older suburban looking landscape opened up and the winding road lead to the bay. First impression was the beautiful colour of the water and all the boats in the sheltered man-made harbour. However as my eyes took in the whole scene there appeared some large transport ships for ore and a huge loading jetty. This was indeed a mining town.

It's hard to feel like a tourist here as the mining world has a harsh feel in tough country and aesthetics for the eye not a consideration. It is a jungle of concreted, machinery and harsh heat that picked me up and flung me north along the highway as quickly as I could to get away from this earth consuming monster.

I didn't bother stopping at Kurratha for more of the same and decided to push on to Port Hedland for the night, not expecting a much more pleasant place there.

Barely three kilometres from the junction that connected the North West Coastal Highway to the Great Northern Highway that forged it's way through the mining centre of WA, I was stopped by a bushfire crossing the road.


I was one of the first few vehicles there and I stopped near a truck who was getting reports from the radio. The road was going to be closed for at least a few hours.

I had seen a hotel about 50kms earlier and I thought it would be a good time to turn back and pitch the tent after about half an hour of being parked in the sun. I turned around and rode about 200 metres before I saw another BMW motorcycle stopped in the traffic.


I met Lyndsay then and he told me that the hotel I had seen had been closed for about a year. I stayed and met a few other people and waited to see if the road would clear. Lyndsay was from Broome and was riding an R1200 ST - a more road oriented touring version of the R1200 Boxer engine. He was returning home after three and a half months - 20,000kms - touring in NSW and Victoria.

We chatted with a group of people until about 4pm and I decided to go back to a campsite a few kilometres back by a river, and set up camp. Lyndsay agreed and we headed back, fortunate to have our camping gear. All the other motorists had to make a decision to either turn back or wait it out. Most went back.
..Ok it's not the right location but it is the hammock I used!


I was a pleasant night in the hammock interrupted at about 10pm by a procession of cars heading past, indicating that the road was now open and people who had been waiting at the other side were free to head to Kurratha.

12/12/12
There had been a lot of talk about this day being the end of the world, end of the Mayan calendar and general doomsday. Seemed like a good day to ride my bike in a remote part of the country!

Lyndsay and I rode together for part of the journey after getting fuel in Port Hedland. He was on his home stretch and was keen to get home and he has a different style of riding to me - fast. He preferred to sit on 140-160km/h whereas I am more of a plodder in comparison, happy with 110-120 as a maximum, and stopping to explore places.

Lyndsay took off into the distance and we arranged to meet in Broome where I was invited to stay the night. I 'plodded' along and made a turn off to 80 mile beach. It was a dirt road made muddy from a recent downpour and took me the 30 or so kilometres to this iconic long stretch of beach.

I went for a bit of a walk to stretch my legs and have a look at the beach which indeed looked to be about 80 miles long, stretching away into the distance in both directions.

I stopped at the next roadhouse, still a good 200kms from Broome, and had a hearty lunch before tackling the final leg. I arrived in Broome at about 4pm - some four and a bit hours after Lyndsay, and he and his wife Tina were wonderful hosts, cooking up a nice tray of roast veggies for dinner.

I slept well in the guest bed, then decided to pamper myself for the next night and stayed at a resort on Cable Beach - king size bed, swimming pool and breakfast included. I had found a very good deal on the internet and paid hundreds less than their standard price for the room.

I spent the day exploring parts of Broome and had the best home-made iced coffee I have had at the ice-cream shop.

So this was almost the end of my journey except for another 220kms to Derby where I will be working for the next six months. It has been a great journey of 9000kms and my trusty BMW I call Ziggy has purred through the journey without as much as a hiccup. There are lots of areas I skirted past and this trip could easily be done over months, rather than just a few weeks.

My intention was to try out the bike which is new to me, try out all of my camping gear, and see if long distance motorcycling was the thing I really wanted to do, or just a dream that seems a lot more romantic than the day to day heat, flies and sore bum can attest to.

The result is a resounding thumbs up. My gear/packing needs a bit of tweaking but for the most part I used all I had taken and all the gear performed perfectly. Ziggy is certainly a heavy bike and to be honest I did not have time to take her off-road, but the few times I did I felt the adrenaline of a 300kg bike swaying in mud and sand beneath me. I still have some reservations about taking her off-road and I know I need a lot more experience, but I plan to tackle the Gibb River Road after the wet season, and if I can handle that I will feel that I am finally ready to tackle the world on my trusty steed.

It has been an awesome ride but did not last long enough for my liking. I think a two year trip around the world is just what I need…stay tuned!

Having spent the last 10mths living in Derby at the gateway of the Gibb River Road - an iconic remote destination with big country, big storms and big boabs, and stunning gorges - I've assembled a few photos of my time here