Across Australia 2010
A motorcycle trip through the Australian outback

For a number of years I had this idea of wanting to do a motorbike ride in the outback of Australia. In particular I wanted to go through the Simpson Desert. There was no particular reason other than it had the same name as me. The problem was how to do such a ride. Backup would be needed to carry extra gear, food and fuel considering the distances and the nature of the land. After much searching around I found an outfit that ran trips through the Simpson desert. Not only did they do that, but the trip was right across Australia. "I can do that" I thought, so after a bit of research on the company, I signed up and made the nec- essary travel bookings.

Basically the ride was 5500kms of riding through the outback of Oz. The trip was 95% off road starting from Fremantle on the Indian Ocean to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays in Northern Queensland on the Pacific Ocean. For the trip ~ rode a Yamaha TTR 250 and as it turned out that was a good choice. Nearly all the other bikes were BMW Dakar or X challenge 650 models - big machines to heave around in the sand. Two riders brought their own machines. There were 10 of us (6 Ausies and 4 kiwis) with a guide who rode with us and the adventure operator who drove the support truck.

Doing this trip seemed a good idea at the time until reality set in at the briefing on the first morning. Magnus the trip operator said "on this trip the average has been that 1 in 3 ends up in hospital with injuries. This trip is NOT a tour, it is an adventure. However since I have been advising clients this, the average has improved to 1 in 5."...... The main issue from my point of view was that although I had ridden bikes for 45 years, I had never really done any off road riding which was stressed had to be a prerequisite. OK this could turn out to be a big mistake but it was too late to pull out. Looking around at the others made me think I had the least off road experience. Besides I was sure I was the oldest on the trip although Dudley, a fellow kiwi, wasn't far behind. One of the 10 was a rider who was rejoining the trip after ending up in hospital the year before from this same trip. Magnus however said that doing this trip will "give you bragging rights for life". In the end all of us made it through to the east coast with no more than a few bruises and minor scrapes. I was one of the few trips to be relatively injury free. The worst record on this trip for falling off was 29 times. I hit the dirt a lot less than that (five times actually). Definitely not your average motorcycle tour.

The trip went West to East starting at Fremantle in Perth to Wiluna, The Sandy Desert, Gibson Desert, the Gunbarrel Highway including the abandoned section after Carnegie Station, Ayers Rock then via Mt Dare and Dalhousie Springs with 3 days in the Simpson Desert via the French Line and the WAA line to Birdsville then Longreach to Airlie Beach in Northern Queensland. It included several tracks not normally open to the public through various Aboriginal lands. 16 days of dust, mud, sand with road conditions from the sandy tracks not maintained, station roads to graded sand and gravel roads and even the odd bit of tarseal road. Camping was the accommodation each night, wherever we finished up for the day. All the gear, camping equipment food, bike spares and petrol was carried on the backup truck.

The first few days were in Western Australia getting out of Perth and heading up to the Northern Territory border in the Sandy Desert. Three days of dirt roads found us at Carnegie Station, the eastern most station in Western Australia before we hit the unmaintained section of the Gunbarrel Highway in the Gibson Desert. It certainly is not a highway. The surface was heavily corrugated and the best technique was to get up to speed and fly from the top of each bump to the next. Herds of camels and the occasional cattle beast were the major obstructions to be avoided. There were a few unintentional excursions off the track into the bush on what was to become known euphemistically as "botanical" surveys. If you hit the ground it, became a "geological survey". The weather was hot and the road dusty. It paid to keep at least a kilometer clear from other riders to avoid the dust. Meeting the huge road trains and the resulting dust storm from them is certainly an experience.

By the 6th day we had reached Ayres Rock where we were hit by some serious thunderstorms. Yes it does rain the deserts, yes it is hot in the desert and it is very cold in the desert.

It rained for the next two days flooding many roads that turned into, shall we say, "challenges", in negotiating very muddy and flooded roads. We did manage to get through but it was a very wet and muddy exercise. We did come across an aboriginal family stuck for 3 days in the mud on one road. We were able to give them some food and take a message to the next town for help. The muddy roads finally gave way to the Simpson Desert sand. We had passed through Mt Dare Station onto the "Road of Stones", swum in the Dalhousie hot Springs and entered South Australia. This is now very remote country and on average one to two vehicles a day was passed. It is hundreds of kilometers to the nearest settlement. The hardest thing for a kiwi to understand is how flat the land is and how extensive it is. No wonder they call it the "big sky". From the springs we followed the "French Line" through the Simpson Desert.

Three days of sand and sand dunes. Fortunately the rain had compacted the sand a little bit but it still was tricky riding with most of it being done by riding up on the foot pegs. Whereas we were able to cover 2-400 kms or so a day on the "highways" such as the Gunbarrel, here in the desert our best was 150kms average. 1,208 dunes to cross and yes some silly person has counted them.

The dunes lie north south and we were travel- ling west east. Towards the Birdsville end of the Simpson we encountered the flooded flat spaces between the dunes that necessitated major diversions to avoid. The lakes had filled up with the mass of water that has been heading down through the states into Lake Eyre for the last few months. Lake Eyre now has water in it for the first time in 30 years or so. We tried crossing a few lake beds on the more direct track only to encounter deep mud. Day 13 saw us on top of "Big Red", supposedly the highest dune in the Simpson. It was then out of the Simpson Desert and onto Birdsville via the QAA line from Poeppel Corner. Poeppel Corner is where the 3 states of Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory meet. A number of these outback track, lines and roads were put in during the oil exploration days in the 1960s, the nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and rocket testing at Woomera. Hence the particular and qwerky names of them. From here it was "normal" outback roads to the finish at the Whitsundays on day 16.

The motorbikes sort of survived the trip. One X Challenge motor blew up, 2 Dakars had electrical problems, a couple of fuel pumps needed replacing and one rear shock blew out and the other Yamaha blew a clutch. Number plates were rattled off the bikes by the corrugations and several mirrors fell by the wayside as well. However quick repairs kept them going. The worst day for punctures was 5 in one day and 3 of those were mine. Even the backup truck suffered punctures. I don't know what the ozzies have in the outback that hates tyres but on this day it destroyed three tyres of the truck, so much that as all the spares had been used up, it had to be uploaded onto a rescue truck.

We finally made it to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays just on dusk on the 16th day. A ceremonial dipping of the boots in the Pacific Ocean signaled the end of the trip.

All in all a very enjoyable adventure. It turned out that we had the ideal conditions despite the rain. Going from east to west is an easier direction to attack the sand dunes.

And would I do it again - yes. Check out the company website at www.outbackadventuretreks.com.au