Ha ha, for once I consider myself lucky!

The last night on Kangaroo island camping out, I set up next to an Australian family that consisted of Dad, Mum and their young son and daughter.

What a lovely familiy, immediately came over and offered a cold and a sandwich and we sat down talking. Errol ( forgotten name ) had decided that now was the time for him to take a full year off with his family and travel Australia with his wife and youngsters living inside his off-road spec camper van....pretty much a year long tour including the central desert.

Errol said it was far more important for his kids to learn about their home and experience it firsthand and survive in it than being sat at school and learning nothing but forced fed education.....what a great bloke, the ideal Dad in my mind....those kids absolutely loved him.

Susie was his wife and she was 100% of the same mind, a nurse by vocation....she said that most people are just completely disconnected with the land they live in and try to force the land to fit with them...rather than learning to adpat to the land.

Intelligent lady and in my opinion, very much correct.

Adelaide

Met up with Sylvia again at the Hostel she was staying at and booked myself in there for 3 days as well. The name of the hostel escapes me, but it was in the centre of the city and was painted in a rather fetching purple inside.....good place to stay and the helpful fellas in the nearby NCP multi-story carpark said I could leave my bike in the carspot right outside their office for $10 for the week..absolute bargain.

Went out for a few meals and had a good laugh with Sylvia and sadly enough this is where we parted ways, she was heading towards Alice Springs the same as me....but she was taking the overland/off road bus and would take only 10 days to get there...I was going by off-route trails and would take at least 2 weeks by my chosen route.

Said our goodbyes and good lucks.

BIKe Prep

Serviced the bike, checked over the bike and fitted another set of knobblie tyres to it...a Kenda off road selection I believe.

Bought 2 containers for storing water and this gave me a capacity of 15 litres including my camel back and bottle....plus I carried a life straw that was a compact water filtration device about the size of a fat cigar.

Purchased a 10 litre petrol container to go with the existing 5 litre.

Purchased 2 Hoochies...these are Australian army shelters that have a 100 and 1 uses and can provide emergency shleter and shade....great bit of kit.

Bought another set of up to date and very detailed maps for the next section of the trip, especially essential as I was riding alone and off-season/off road..

Bought a very compact and sturdy notebook called a Eee Pc that while some would consider was an unneeded luxury, I would class as essential due to the amount of photos I was taking....and already losing some due to dropping a camera into a pool.

Big meal of Steak ( rare ) and chips and ready for the start.

Hi BaldBaBoon, just letting you know I'm following your thread.


When going off road in the outback (desert areas) don't forget to check in with the local authorities or police station before you leave to let them know of your plans and when you expect to be in the next town. Then check in when you get to the next town to let them know you've arrived ok. Don't need someone to start a search and rescue effort when you're just out drinking a few s.

It is something that every responsible adult travelling alone should do, simply because if you breakdown and you're alone more than a couple of days (that's what 15L of water should get you b4 running dry) in the desert and you are in serious danger of dying of dehydration.

Safe riding.

__________________
TurboCharger + Francois (our BMW R1200gs) '07
www.riding2up.net, blog.riding2up.net

As TurboCharger stated,carrying enough water is a main concern for the route ahead....especially as I was driving off-season when what little traffic there was would be even less.

At Port Augusta I chose my route that I would be heading to Alice Springs on, this was going to be going through the Flinders Ranges National Park on gravel roads to start with.Going through farmland starting at Quorn to up to a little place called Hawker...a good discipline to get into here is to top up with fuel at every single chance and get some water down your throat at every single stop.You really cannot rely on there being fuel at the next stop....so dont plan for it.Made some good time on this route, could get a bit of speed up and just mellow out a little, the plan was to get to Hawker and then follow the Blinman trail to Blinman.

Got delayed on the trail for 2 hours when I came up to a mini-bus that was pulled over on the side of the road, facing back the way I had just been. I never did catch their names, but there was 3 couples in the bus and I am pretty much positive that they were Korean.


The hood was up, so it was obvious they needed assistance and after much mime and some broken English I found out that the vehicle was completely dead would not start.....long story short, it was the vehicles main fuse that was blown and once I replaced it( with spare in holder ) the bus started immediately.

The bad part of the story was they had been sat there for nearly 6 hours with only a 2 litre bottle of pepsi between them. Normally I would never give away my own supplies unless I could put a safe bet on replenishing them, in this case though they were really starting to suffer so I topped up their 2 litre pepsi bottle with water and made them all have a good swig from my own spare supply before pushing on. This decided on the nights destination which would be Wilpena Pound Resort as I was losing light fast and having my water supply eaten into.

This is the amount of water I was carrying in the desert.

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This was one of those adventure like resorts very much like a safari lodge, you could base yourself there and go off and do the 4x4 trips around the national park or an aeroplane trip, I decided to just stay an extra day and managed to get a backpackers room at dirt cheap price ( being the only one there ) and do the traditional thing of exploring on an unladen bike.

Lots of little dirt tracks that when followed ended in various aboriginal sites or caves, dry waterfalls....unless you made the effort and looked for them, you would just pass them by.Spent the fall day exploring and back in time for a few well earned Guiness and steak and chips....food of the Gods.

you may have to bear with for a moment....I am just trying to load some photos up on a link.

If it works....this is the min amount of water I carried in the Red centre of the trip......those containers are 5 litres apiece and stored one in each pannier, 3 litre camelback and another out of shot for the front of the bike.....a a life straw filter ( light blue tube )

https://picasaweb.google.com/1086875...49911800308050

Havn a blast reading thread.....

BaldBaBoon, I just found your ride report here and have enjoyed reading it. I am sure you are the fellow I met early in the morning at the Overlander Guest House



provided by Claudia and Heinz. I was just about finished with my 3.5 month tour of Oz and Tassie. I had returned the DR650 (btw: I brought a Corbin seat with me from the US ) that I had been riding as they wanted it for another customer since it had the 32 liter tank and I only had a couple more weeks up thru the Snowy's and Sydney to go. Not "quite" as adventuresome as you but still enjoyed every minute of it especially, the Savannah Way, Gibb River Road and the Gunbarrel/Great Central to Ayers Rock. You can see my adventure here! www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/rickmcd

Rick McDermed

Hello Rick.

Yep that was me, we only had time for a little chat unfortunately before I was off. If I remember rightly, you gave me your details on a Harley Davidson card.....this turned to mush after getting hit by the first freezing storm though.

Been reading through your trip, sounds like you had a great time as well.....I will be keeping an eye on your site, as your Norwegian trip is what I want to do this August.

Keep safe.

The initial plan was to stay in Darwin for a couple of weeks at most then head south again and take the Gibb River Trail or the main road to Perth.This gave me time to explore the area and do some investigation into actually emmigrating out to Australia.

I like Darwin, I do not like cities as a rule...but I do like Darwin.

Maybe because its just so damn hot and humid and the people just cannot put up with all the bother that corrupts other cities or some other reason I really enjoyed the place, good bars and good clubs and all the other stuff that the big towns provide.The next week I went into full on tourist mode and thoroughly enjoyed the various sites like the old WWII fort/museum and other hidden delights.

My current trade is a mobile crane operator and the job has taken me to Canada,Bosnia,Kosovo,Macedonia,Kuwait,Iraq etc and most of Europe.....in fact after so many years working overseas, I struggle to think of England as ' home ' anymore...and always try to get work abroad.

So for the next week I was popping into various heavy lifting companies and enquiring about pay,licence and the possibility of being sponsered to emmigrate....I got quite a few favourable reponses and seriously started to make some plans.

P.S

If anyone wants a crane op...give me a call.

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The First backpackers me and Dan stayed in was a damn busy place and consisted of all night parties and general noise and ruckas....I declined to get involved with this as there was a fair bit of drugs involved. I do not do drugs, never had or will....its one of those rules that I live buy, and I just cannot associate with people who are in my eyes ' druggies '.....I make no allowance for soft or hard drugs.

The next place suited me and Dan fine, as he was working in Darwin he needed somewhere that didnt turn into a free for all after dark, and it was on the edge of town which worked good for me to go off and explore for a few days.

The time stretched into 3 weeks after going out on a multiple double/triple night stays in Kakadu National Park and Litchfield.

However, due to the massive flooding, vast swathes of the park were closed off and quite simply could not be travelled, made it a hell of an adventure trying to find places safe enough to camp to be away from salt water crocodiles that were infesting the area.

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Are Mahoosive...that means several times bigger than huge.

The ban on croc hunting came into being in the late 70's and since then and now the crocodile population has exploded. They are incredibly aggressive and will have ago at anything and grow to very considerable size...biggest in the world. They are a genuine concern when out rough camping and great care needs to be put into action to protect from any surprise meetings....common sense in big dollops helps here.

Due to the flooding they have also managed to spread hundreds of miles further out than there normal environments....take care.

Or use my survival plan....always go camping with someone weaker/fatter/slower than yourself.....remember..you do not need to outrun or swim the crocs, you only need to outrun or swim your friends.

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We start in Frankfurt on Jun 24th or 25th. Not that much before your plans. Maybe you could start a little earlier.

I'll be looking forward to the rest of your entries!
Rick

I would love to Rick, but work will let me take five weeks over August time....but too busy before and after that.