Today we headed off about 7.30 into the rain. This was not the weather that I was expecting for this part of the journey. After about two hours of riding I thought I am going to struggle to write anything tonight other than: straight roads, 125km/hr, Flat terrain and unchanging bush.
We pulled into Elliot to fuel up and thankfully they did not have premium fuel so we did not stop. I say thankfully as this was a particularly rough looking place with all of the windows barred up, lots of rubbish, wrecked cars, and smashed houses. A few old looking Aborigine people wandering around looking a bit downtrodden and nothing looking too appealing, so was not looking like a good place for breakfast. So we continued for another hour or so at 125km/hr constant drone in a straight line. Pulled into Dunmarra Wayside Inn next to their premium fuel pumps, having travelled about 340km for the pre-breakfast ride. I pulled of my helmet then as I was opening up my tank there was a loud PFFFFSSST! And Dads front tyre went flat! Good place for this to happen, rather than in any time in the previous three hours.
We pumped up the tyre and worked out that it was the valve that had delaminated. Unfortunately there were no mechanical services to help at Dunmarra roadhouse, so we had some breakfast then pushed the bike under cover and took the wheel off. I strapped Dads wheel on the back of my bike and rode down to the next Roadhouse, which was pretty close, about 40km north and luckily they had facilities to replace the valve. We were a bit concerned that I may have to travel to Katherine about 350km up the road, so it was a relief to find repair so close.
The birds of prey that we have been seeing have been pretty small, about the size of a Hawke, I called them eagles the other day which may have been misleading as on this short journey I came across a couple of real beauties, which I guess (again) were Eagles. Their wingspan would have been closer to 2 metres than 1 and they were clearly heavy birds as they lumbered into the sky. Best not hit on a motorcycle at 120 – 130km/hr! I ducked just in case.
Back up the road to find Dad pretty happy relaxing in the shade, having gotten sick of drinking Coffee, not a bad place to have a break down, right beside a restaurant, bar and motel complex, it could have easily been out in the sticks miles from anywhere. We put the wheel back on, which is a bit of a performance with the brake callipers, mud guard, Speedo mechanism, ABS sensor and various spacers needing to be reattached, so good thing to find everything done up and no extra parts at the final tighten up. The whole episode cost us half a day, but we were relieved that it happened where it did and not out in the sticks.
Road back down to Daly waters and refilled Dads Bike and topped mine up on the most expensive fuel yet $1.94/l. Took a side road down to Daly Waters township and decided to stop here for the night. Booked into a motel unit then after a cup of tea went for a run. Lots of Roos out on the road at about 5pm so a good decision to stop. Looked at Stuarts Tree, a fenced off tree that had an S engraved on it in the nineteenth century that is thought to be by Stuart the explorer that the Stuart Highway is named after. Graffiti was alive and well in the 1860s by the sound of things. The tree is dead and is just a stump really. Not sure it will last much longer. Lots of bird out in the twilight, tried to get some photos of the roos but they are nervous we fellas, and take off before you can get close enough for a good photo.
Had a couple of beers and a meal at the pub. This is a pretty special outback pub. It’s a simple corrugated iron building with mud and stone base, but when you walk in there is hardly a building surface visible for all of the memorabilia and items of clothing, cards, foreign currency, hats et. It looks like it may be a clothes optional bar at times as there are collections of every item of clothing, hundreds of bras, panties/undies, shirts, pants, hats….everything. A real charactersome place. Met a ski instructor from Milngavie, Scotland, who was amazed that I used to live there, so reminisced about Scotland. Chatted to couple of guys who are doing a fund raising effort for Kenyan children with Club Feet. One brother and his friend are wheelchair bound and are peddling hand trikes around Australia with the other brother driving a van behind for safety. They have covered over 4000km so far, having left from Melbourne, they are headed for Darwin and will continue until they have made enough for 1000 operations ($200 000) The support brother took me to look at their trikes, very interesting, but he wasn’t keen on me trying them out as it was dark. I got an in depth breakdown an what was wrong with them, as with all disability equipment it needs a lot of fine tuning to get it right for any individual person, and this is the same for athletic gear also with Pushbikes needing a lot of fine tuning, 0.5 – 1cm can make a big difference in saddle height etc, so put the two together and I guess you need a lot of adjustment to get them just right.
Despite a dull start to the day ended up being quite interesting.
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