Arse About Face: October 2007

Leaving Alice Springs with my lovely new tyres, I was faced with the problem of what to do with my old ones which wern't quite completely worn out (and that I was to be charged silly-money to get rid of). It goes against the grain to throw things away that are still perfectly usable, so, to that end I created a 'tyre cache'.

Gosling one, wielding an extra set of tyres

Any fellow motorcycle travellers or people near Alice Springs, this one is for you. There is a Bridgestone Trailwing TW41 21" front tyre, 65% worn and a Dunlop D605 4.60-17" rear tyre, 80% worn buried at these coordinates: S23deg 49' 21.8" E133deg 28' 25.7", opposite the turn-off for 'Glen Helen' at the base of a large tree. Hopefully someone will be able to use them for something, they just wern't quite up to getting me all the way back to Perth. Which was certainly proven by the state of my new D605 on arrival in Western Australia.

The tyres are buried at the base of this tree

Anyway, back to business. I made my way down from Alice Springs over towards Ayers Rock (Uluru), because it's apparantly an offense punishable by 50 lashes to not go and see 'the rock' when you visit Australia. I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed at first glance, I actually found Mount Conner (just down the road) a lot more visually impressive from a distance. It's hard not to be a little in awe of Uluru when you get up close though, it's sheer size in the middle of an otherwise fairly empty landscape, makes you stop and stare. That is until the millions of flies that are also on a holiday to Uluru find you, then you rapidly continue walking.

Some big rock thingy I found in the desert

Uluru, not even remotely like Uhura from Star Trek

A note to prospective visitors: it is definately not advisable to walk around the base of Uluru at midday, in motorcycle trousers. To say it was a little warm would be an understatement. The controversial question of "to climb or not to climb?" was answered for me, as the route to the top was closed due to predicted temperatures in excess of 36deg C. I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have done it anyway, it looked like bloody hard work!

Flies en-mass

From there I proceeded over to the other geologically knobbly feature of the area, the Olgas. This was also where I would join the eastern end of the Great Central "Road", which would take me through the centre of Australia over to the west. Of course mother nature (as always) had been watching, plotting and biding her time, so by the time I started out on the sandy track into the interior of Australia, the wind was blowing as hard as it could.

The Olgas (Desert + additional knobbly bits)

Normally this isn't more than a minor annoyance, however as the track was made up almost entirely of sand, and the surrounding landscape was predominantly desert; so the gusting wind was whipping up some evil sand storms. The photos don't do them justice, but it was almost a complete 'whiteout' at various points along the track; with me being unable to slow down as I needed to keep the speed reasonably high to be able to navigate the deep sand on the track.

A small sandstorm on the Great Central Road (couldn't photograph the big ones)

A small sandstorm on the Great Central Road (couldn't photograph the big ones)

Luckily, by the time I got about 200km along the route, the wind died down a gale-force or two and things became a little less heart-attack inducing. It was quite nice to be able to relax a little bit and not have to worry about crashing into stationary camels, road-trains, pyramids, egyptologists and other desert-related road hazards in the near zero visability.

One humped roadblocks

Speaking of camels, to say there were a few would definately be an understatement. Luckily they seemed to display slightly more road sense than your average cow, sheep or kangaroo. They've definately mastered the art of the "dirty look" too; being able to stare you down with an expression that suggests they are thoroughly offended by your presence, and would quite appreciate it if you effed-off as soon as possible.

This bunch have got the hump (ahaha!)

So after about three days of being looked down at by camels, fighting against the elements, getting ripped off for fuel and generally having a grand old time sliding about; I attained the western end of Great Central Road, by arriving at the town of Laverton. Pretty much the only other traffic on the track up to this point had been four trucks hauling mine equipment, and man were they ever big.

Size isn't everything, but I wasn't going to press the point with this chap

From here, the logical choice would have been to head straight for Perth; however I never made any claims about my grasp of logic, and besides, I had unfinished business to attend to. Up to that point I had visited four of my five targets: the most northerly, easterly, southerly and central points of mainland Australia. People with a good memory will remember that my inital attempt on "Steep Point", the most westerly spot; ended in me wussing out after getting continually bogged down trying to cross the dunes.

En-route to Steep Point

This is what you have to ride through to reach Steep Point

This time however, I was not to be put off so easily. After stripping the bike of every bit of unecessary weight, I had another crack at it. It was basically 40km (80km round trip) of riding through, up, along and over various series of sand dunes. Luckily for me, it would appear that my time round Australia had given me a bit more of a grasp on the off-road skills required than I had last time (and possibly less weight too), so it actually turned out to be quite good fun once I got into the swing of things. I'd also like to mention that there were no bike droppages at all on that day. (Which would make it a rarity I should think)

Steep Point: Most westerly spot of mainland Australia

With the westerly point attained, I now had the complete collectors set of Australian extremities! Unfortunately that also meant that I had to return to Perth, an easy couple of days ride to the south. Unfortunate because that would mark the end of the expedition, and I have to admit to being in no rush whatsoever to stop. I made the most of the time I had left, and was suitably grumpy when packing up my last campsite.

Not a happy camper, last campsite of the trip

Whilst I wasn't pleased to be finishing, that's not to say there wasn't a certain sense of accomplishment. After all, the grand total was 44,347km or 27,556 miles around Australia. Not bad, even if I do say so myself.

Mission accomplished!

So now I'm back in Perth, editing together a few video clips which I will post on completion, and hopefully earning enough cash to fund the start of my journey "home".

Thanks to all those that supported MSF during this adventure, we finally reached the fundraising goal! Thanks of course to everyone that supported me too; before, during and after. You know who you are.

A few more additional pictures to tide you over: (Click any for a larger version, as above)