Beer, Flies and Bulldust 2
When you were once a local, and you roll back into town some years later, it doesn't take long to be recognised. It seems that I'm still known as a mad bastard and I only brought one drink the entire time I was there. Every time I went to get a drink, it was taken care of, no matter how much I objected. It really does such to be suck a scrawny bugger, 'cos everybody else is bigger than you and can push you around with relative ease. Since I wasn't going to win, I turned my attention to the barmaid and tried every bribery trick I could think of to get her top off, but if the regulars couldn't get that to happen after a year, my chances were going to be between none and buckley's…
By the time I escaped out of there it was approaching closing time, and I figured that perhaps I'd had one more than legally allowed, so I pushed the bike (who knew posties are so bloody heavy?) around the back to a track that I knew that would keep me on all private scrub tracks to the camp site I had picked out.
I reckoned that if I could start the bastard I was sober enough to ride it, which was easy enough, but I didn't go very far at all before coming to a sputtering halt. It helps to turn the fuel tap on…
Praise be to tents that don't need pegs to stay up! It only took minutes to get the thing up, have my sleeping gear all laid out in there and even set my stove up for breakfast in bed when the sun come up in the morning. As the sun rose, I did the same, had the kettle on for a cuppa and awaited what I thought would be a glorious western Queensland sunrise.
How disappointed was I when the dawn showed it to be an overcast day. After packing the bike back up and kicking the tyres, I noticed that the rear mount for the XR400 tank I'd shoe horned on was cracked. Something needed to be done about this pretty much before I even left town.
While pondering on how I was going to fix this issue which obviously had been the result of the rough and tumble of the Springsure road, I noticed a lump of 3x2 pine off-cut in the grass. This gave me an idea, and with the help of a largish rock and a few zippy ties, I made a new rear mount up in five minutes flat. I still wasn't quite happy with it, and figured when I reached Blackall, I would made modifications at an engineering workshop or whatever I could find there. The gents at the Mitre 10 store there were very helpful, letting me use the workshop out the back to hack up that piece of pine to the shape and size I wanted. Typical outback sense of humour these blokes, they made excellent supervisors! Lucky the pub wasn't open for at least an hour, otherwise I wouldn't have made it out of the place that day.
From Blackall, I headed west towards Isisford and then back on the dirt towards Stonehenge. Once back on the dirt, grids were taken in my newly found method of flicking the bike out on the approach, flicking it back the other way and launching it over the grid and having it step out ever so slightly on the exit. Sometimes both wheels would be off the ground and sometimes only the front would lift slightly. Of course I had to give the bars a bit of a yank up and back to get the front to be a little lighter, but hey, it sure was oodles of fun and kept me amused.
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The bearded dragons soak up the bitumen warmth |
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Roadside break |
After a short break at the Longreach-Jundah road, it was now a southerly run down the tarmac again bypassing Stonehenge and heading directly to Jundah via a couple of short detours into the scrub to check out some native wells, and a short 2 km scenic track that lead to a rather nice little lookout where you could see far far away. As I rode into Jundah, I wondered how much fuel I had left, it was only another 100km to Windorah, and I'd last fuelled up at Blackall, I must have been getting close, so with the peace of mind having another 5lt stashed in the milk crate I kept heading for Windorah. I fell short some 45km out and had to get the reserve-reserve tank out of the milk crate.
Another long fun eventful day came to an end as I approached the outskirts of Windorah only to find a Random Breath Test set up checking everybody, which made me laugh. Out here in the middle of nowhere and unless you came from Jundah, the nearest pub was quite some distance away… I noticed that a bloke on a DR650 was looking at me like he knew me as I came to a halt for the usual 'have you had anything' stuff and it turns out he was part of a group of ADV forum riders going out that I arranged to meet up with at Windorah. They were only minutes ahead of me, how cool was that? A quick blat into town, refuel in preparation for the run into Birdsville the next day, duck around the back of the pub and set up camp while there was enough room, and settle in out the front of the pub for the street party and yabby races later on that night.
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Windorah night life - a racing yabby gets a pre-race massage |
The yabbies had names like Dill Doe, trained by Johnny Faucet. Dill Doe is out of Hummer by Useless Mail, and buzzing with enthusiasm, will come first and possibly more than once in the race. A favourite with the ladies and most float riders at the Sydney Mardi Gras. Or Annie Lawry, this thing is as mad as a cut snake, never move suddenly near it or make loud noises, back it to win, just don't turn your back on it. Could be medicated and fiery, will go off.
And my favourite, Fix Ya Crack, out of Pullover and Your Nicked, will go hard or go home, but not without a fight, was fined by the stewards for illegal gap running. Can and will go off like a frog in a sock.
Thursday morning, daylight. My red eyes were a little redder than normal -- perhaps it was the odd rum or three the previous night that caused this… It was daylight anyhow, and overcast, some people were just starting to stir, and many were still cutting logs in their swags. I was on a mission today, after giving the ADV riders some cheek the night before, and copping some in return, I reckoned I could beat these buggers to Birdsville.
In reality I knew I didn't stand a chance I mean a postie bike vs a 1000cc V Strom? Or vs a DR650? Not a bloody chance, but by hell, I was going to give it a good go. Just after 7am I was on the road heading out of Windorah at a good steady pace of about 50km/hr when looking down, I discovered that my zippy tie holding the rock in place under the XR400 fuel tank was broken and the rock was starting to move around. T
This wasn't a good start to the day and while paying way too much attention to that I was suddenly off the single lane tarmac and on the loose rocky gravel heading bush, if there was any bush to run into. The bike didn't even get squirrelly, a little back brake brought the rear around into a nice slide coming to a halt broadside to the road. After giving myself a stern talking to, and a slap about the ears, I found the zippy ties, of which I had made sure I was carrying a few, affixed the rock back into its rightful place and proceeded back onto the sealed stuff for another 95km.
With so much traffic on the road here, all heading to the same place and on single lane tarmac, the routine was simple: see a grey nomad with caravan catch up to me, flick the bike off the road, let them go past, and flick the bike back on the road. I soon got this down to a very fine art, and occasionally I didn't even have to move as I would time a widened section in a flood area and simply move over a little. Great time was made to the turn off to Birdsville and I was pleasantly surprised that none of the ADV blokes had caught me yet. After a brief yack to some people who were going out there on a tour bus while strapping the camel back on properly for the first time this trip, I set off on the next leg, and longest leg for the day: some 280km of dirt, bulldust and flies.
I let the bus go ahead of me. I knew I'd be eating enough dust without having to eat dust from that monstrosity. The first 15km of dirt was a little ordinary in spots, but I kept a good pace up, many vehicles passing me naturally. I stuck to the far left wheel rut which gave everyone plenty of room to cruise on by. The road gods were smiling on me today, the wind was blowing left to right, so with everyone passing me, the dust was blowing away from me. How wicked was that? As long as the wind stayed blowing in the same direction, I'd be laughing all the way to Birdsville. I'd set myself a plan of stopping every 50km to check the bike over and what not, that only lasted the first 50km stop.
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A 50km stop |
The next stop that I would make would be about 26km out from Birdvsille running out of fuel… The dirt improved greatly and with the wind blowing in the right direction was was making ground really quickly -- still slower than everyone else though. I soon got used to everyone slowing down and taking photos of a lunatic on a postie bike and waving as they went by.
Only one arsehole caused me grief on this leg. About 100km into the dirt, a convoy of about eight cars were passing me, and this bloke decided to pass me on the left side which meant he was driving in the table drain to go past. He absolutely gave me no room, which didn't impress me much at all, so as he was about three quarters past me, he copped an armoured glove fist into the rear door of his very flash Land Cruiser wagon followed quickly by a boot into the rear quarter panel. It sure got his attention, and his missus and the kids in the back seat. The accompanying sign language from me when his missus looked around also conveyed the message that I wasn't very impressed at all… I don't think she was to impressed with him either, I know I hit those panels hard enough that a visit to a panel shop would be needed, and I know just what it takes to fix those panels…
A postie bike may be slow, but I sure was making ground quick. It's not all flat country out here, lots of little hills and ridges, a few lookouts that you can sit on and gaze out on the vastness ahead of you. About 130km out from Birdsville, I caught up to a convoy of about eight 4wds with caravans and camper trailers all stuck behind this bus towing a massive dog trailer type thing. Umm… if I can catch up, I can pass them. I sure as hell wasn't going to pass them the right way, and with the use of the little hills we were in, I hatched out a plan to pass them all.
Down into the table drain, and back a gear going up an incline, I nailed it as soon as I reached the crest, by the time I was halfway down, I was back in top gear and damn near flat chat. Lucky the table drain was in good shape! By the time I hit the bottom, things were getting a by squirrelly but I'd passed 4 cars and by the time I hit the top of the next ridge, I may have been back in 3rd, but I was holding pass with everyone and wasn't going to lose places. Looking down the other side of the ridge, I saw that it had a steep section with a small hump and after that it was a shallow section and onto a long flat section before another hill in the distance. No wuckers this time, I'd have 'em all. No mucking around, this was requiring full attention, if I made a mistake here… By the time I hit the hump piece halfway down, things were getting a little slippery, and with good cause too. A glance at the gps told me I was doing 80 km/hr. 80km/hr in a table drain on a postie bike down hill. By the time I hit the bottom and onto the flat, I'd passed everyone including that damn bus and trailer. They musta been wondering who that crazy lunatic was, but I wasn't stopping to tell them either. It was a simple case of a slow vehicle out front and all the vehicles behind it were faster one's that had caught up to it and were unable to pass and obviously the bus driver couldn't care less about pulling over and letting others go by. I sure as hell wasn't going to sit behind all that lot. It didn't take me long to put some distance between this lot, and it wasn't until a fair few kilometres later that the cars caught me up again, having finally gotten by that bus. About 26km out of Birdsville the fast pace had burned the fuel up in both tanks, and I came to sputtering halt.
