The Adventure is Complete -- 7288km travelled

The ride was brilliant and everything we hoped for.

 

It had its highlight of great people and magnificent natural sights and wonderful animals and birds. We had a couple of low points when the bike had a flat battery which ended up with a high because we over-came it without any mechanics. We also had great country courtesy in the country towns and country service when we needed to get bad fuel out of the bike.

 

The following images are just a snap shot of what we encountered.

 

 Birdsville Hotel approximately 1500km from Home

 

 

 Simpson Desert sand dune

 

 

 Early morning riding in the Sturt Stoney Desert

 

 

 Mungerannie Station-- Bore water fed oasis where Brolga nest.

 

 

 A failed property about half way down the Birdsville Track.

 

 

 Changing plugs due to poor fuel with The Olgas in the back-ground.

 

 

 Uluru

 

 

 Uluru area Dingo.

 

 

 Ellery Creek approximately 100km from Alice Springs.

 

 

QANTAS Museum-- Longreach.

One week until we leave.

One week to go to the big day. We're loaded and ready to go.



It looks like the weather is going to play nice for the start of the trip at least. If there are any big storms we could find roads impassable, but it looks good so far.

The bike is handling the weight quite well, at least at speed it does. At less than about 20kmh it is a real struggle to manoeuvre, lucky for me I can reduce the weight by 50kg by asking Donna to get off when doing those slow awkward manoeuvres in the camp grounds etc.



So the plan is to leave early next Saturday morning and be in Birdsville by Monday. Donna will be flying home from Alice Springs and I will come home via Tennant Creek and Mt Isa over the following week. I will be seeing Winton and Longreach on the way home which I am very much looking forward to as there are some very interesting things to see in both towns.



The temperatures are looking like being nice and balmy at 22-37c being the current average over the last couple of weeks that I've been keeping an eye on them for central Australia.

We've loaded about two weeks worth of evening meals and enough muesli bars to last two months, I reckon, as snacks.

Tyres

Just a quick update.

About two weeks ago we purchased a new front tyre, a Metzeler Tourance EXP which is the current equivalent of the tyre that was on the bike already and I was happy with. The EXP is a 80/20 highway/dirt tyre.
Last week I gained my first rear tyre puncture which I managed to repair with my kit, which was good practice for the long trip I reckon.

Yesterday we went for a dirt road ride of about 20 odd kilometres. The bike felt really loose and bad in the rear end and it wasn't due to Donna being on the back. We pulled up on the dirt road and I got my tyre pressure gauge out to see if the rear tyre pressure was the issue/cause of the bad handling and looseness in the rear -- 16psi in the rear tyre! I wanted 36psi! Wow that puncture repair I had done really lost some pressure over a week or so. Problem of the handling solved we turned around and went to the nearest place to pump it back up.
From the dirt road we headed straight to our favourite bike tyre shop and got a new Tourance EXP tyre for the rear. We were going to get a new rear tyre for the trip anyway, this just brought things forward a month or so. The old tyre had already been repaired once before and was down to about 40% tread so it was never going to last for the 7000km trip.

The trip has been altered a little as I will be riding by myself from Alice Springs on, which means Boulia and the Plenty Highway are out and the highway alternate route vita Tennant Creek and Mt Isa and in. I am also cutting out a couple of site seeing days, by-passing Carnarvon Gouge and heading home to get back to work a week earlier. Without Donna there is really not much point in dawdling back as I can ride quicker by myself.

The other bloke that was going to come -- haven't heard from the pom git for over a month so we've gathered he's definitely not coming as we've thought for quite a while anyway.
No problem -- we go ahead with our plan, even slightly altered it will still be fantastic!