Had a bad nights sleep, feeling I was going to vomit, I guess the curry last night was not so good after all. Consequently my plan to go for a run in the morning failed as I slept through my alarm, twice. We had a breakfast at the Motel and then hit the road.
We rode north for a quick 200km to Norseman. The country continues with massive paddocks that have been cultivated. My guess would be that these paddocks are 500 – 1000 acres each. If they ever intensify the farming around here then someone is going to make a fortune out of fencing.
Long straight roads were the theme of the morning. Pretty low key stuff really - throw leg over bike, push start button, first gear, clutch out, pull out onto road straight down the middle, second, third, fourth, fifth then sixth gear, hold throttle open 110-120km/hr should do, look ahead scan for Kangaroos and Emus, hold throttle open, check speed, 130km/hr, oops too fast will run out of fuel and upset police, 110-120 that’s better, look up, scan ahead for kangaroos and cows, straight ahead, hold throttle open, look for Kangaroos and Eagles, hold throttle open, check speed, straight ahead, look up, scan for Kangaroos and dingoes, straight ahead… and so on. A simple life it is riding a bike in Western Australia, no corners.
I was definitely struggling to maintain focus and needed coffee at Norseman, and we are back in the country where it is foolish to ride past a fuel pump without topping up. Dad needed a break also, so we fuelled up and looked for a coffee. The occasional fuel station has driver survivor, which is free coffee and Tea for the driver to encourage people to take a break, and it is usually found at the back of the restaurant area and is instant coffee or tea bags. I needed the real thing though so went to the real coffee machine with proper beans and milk, prepared to pay the $2.95, made two coffees and handed $6 to the lady behind the counter, she said no that is free for drivers. My opinion of Norseman soared to the all time best driver survivor town in Australia, thanks Caltex.
After a break we went out and loaded up for another 200km push to the next fuel station. Just as we were getting on the bike I noticed that there was oil on Dads rear wheel. On closer inspection it looked like it came from the differential. Trip cancelled. Can’t head into the Nullarbor with a Diff that is likely to seize.
We checked the oil level in the dif and it was low. There was no appropriate oil in my favourite gas station, but the lady behind the counter said there is a mechanics 100m down the road. We headed down there and clearly the lady has never walked around this town, it was more like 1km down the road. They had the right oil and we topped it up, but decided we should take the wheel off to check that it was put together correctly as it had been taken off to put the new tyres on. It was all OK but for some reason there was a lot off grease around the wheel nuts and in fact this had flicked onto the wheel so it was not oil from the dif. Put it all back together and then we were finally away, having lost about two hours of riding time.
We turned the corner to head east and Karen, the GPS voice, said, “continue on 1 for 1200km”, and then went silent. Now that is a record, I’m worried she is quitting, or going on holiday or something. Was it something I said? But I guess that’s outback navigation for you, there is only one road, all you have to do is decide which way you want to go and stay on the road. Outback navigation course 101, “do not leave the road, and you can’t get lost”. If you do leave the road you need skills from the 201 course paper “Celestial navigation” because it is pancake flat and there are no landmarks to guide you. If you are from generation Y then skipping the 201 paper is an option and going straight to paper 204 “turn on your GPS and follow instructions”, If you have flat batteries then paper 301 may help “You are lost!”. Best to stay on the road and keep going in the same direction.
Surprise, surprise, the roads were straight and fast as we now headed east again and let the k’s roll away. We stopped to take some photos of the bush and were passed by a couple of cars. A few k’s down the road both cars were pulled over by a Police car with two Police Women doing licence and breath testing in the middle of nowhere. They did not pull us over, and there was a bit of luck with this as I had been doing about 140 to catch up with Dad a few minutes before, which probably would have been frowned on, as the limit is 110.
In the middle of this stretch of road about 100km away from any sign of civilisation there was a hitchhiker wearing Ug boots and caring a heavy plastic bag. Sadly I did not have any room on the bike for him so pulled across the road to give him a wide berth and accelerated, was that wrong? Perhaps I should have stopped to see if he was OK? But there were cars that were empty on the road, why would someone drop him off in the middle of this place anyway, there was no turn off?
We got into Balladonia and stopped to fuel up and have a cuppa and some food. Balladonia is interesting in that it was showered with the USA space station. The Space station went into an unstable orbit after being shut down and ended up coming back to earth in a fairly unpredictable way ultimately burning up over Australia and dropping debris that landed between Albany and Balladonia in 1977. Balladonia was in the lime light for a while with the President Jimmy Carter phoning to apologise to the locals and offering to pay for any damage done. There is a very interesting museum in the Roadhouse here that includes a large section of the space station.
It was about 3.45 and the light was fading and it was clear we would not make it to the next roadhouse before dark at 5pm so we decided to stay here. I went for a run down the road and took a few photos of the sun going down. A cyclist was coming along the road and I took a photo of her as she went by with the sunset behind her. She is Glenda Wise, an artist, who has been riding around Western Australia and raising money for the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne, and is travelling with a friend Frank who turned 91 today. They are travelling in a van that Frank has had since the 1950s and has fitted out as a camper himself. He has done 400 000 miles in it. We had dinner with Frank and Glenda.
There was a tame Kangaroo at the roadhouse. The kangaroo was hand raised by the previous owners as its parents had been killed on the road. She lives wild but comes in every night to get some food and was very tame. She has a Joey in her pouch and did not mind being patted etc. She has trained the staff well, she went into the bar and staff lured her out with a banana, which she ate. She also sat around sucking her thumb! Ben would be very impressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment