So today Michelle Mallia completed 4 out of the 5 rides in her top 200 Rides in Australia book. We left our safari tent and headed for Wagait Beach and stood in the water. Then had a look at a crash site for the Milady, a B-24 Liberator. Then headed for Darwin! Sad moment as…
Visited the heritage museum in Kakadu, bought some local art, saw a croc in the wild, went for a dip in Lichfield National Park (The magnificent Florence Falls) and stayed in a safari tent!
Lovely late start in a lovely location. Off to Edith Falls in Catherine Gorge for a morning swim and a coffee. Discovered my chain was so loose it was actually rubbing on my centre stand…slowly wearing away. Rode the 40kms to Catherine directly to the Honda dealership (R&M Motorcycles) where young Jack tightened it for…
Smashed out another big day. Left early and made it to Daly Waters Pub for lunch. Finally clocked over 10,000s on ‘Charlie’ my bike (in the middle of nowhere) Then off to Mataranka hot springs for a swim before bed when a sneaky Little Rock wallaby said hello.
After a great nights sleep. A long ride to see Michelle Mallia’s nephew Thomas who lives in Alice Springs. (In the Ilparpa Swamp and wildlife reserve) Thanks to our host (Tom) for his magnificent kangaroo steaks and mushroom mash and a sunset walk out into the wildlife reserve. Had a look at the Telegraph station…
Rough ride in the dust storms this morning. Then petered out to a nice day at Kings Canyon. Decided to do a helicopter ride rather than the rim walk in the time we had.
Spent the morning doing ‘Desert Awakenings’ which is a tour out to the private sand dune to watch the sun rise over Uluru with a served breakfast and coffee. So dusty there was no Uluru. The dust storms out here at the moment are crazy!! Then we had the Coat of Arms for lunch (Kangaroo…
Long ride. Met some interesting characters such as Cobbie, who was born in a drovers camp and has been a drover for all of his life. He once carried eskies full of beer up to the top of Uluru back in 74 and sold them to the tourists…😂 He was in Vietnam and spent 5…
Spent an amazing day at Coober Pedy, did a tour with ‘Jimmy the Runner’ (google him)! Such an amazing history, so many stories from a man who arrived here aged 18 and never left (he’s now 74). Opal is probably one of the few gems that is still mostly mined by individuals or small groups…
Long day of riding to push through to Woomera. So excited!!! I’ve always wanted to see Woomera since I was a kid! Michelle Mallia is just looking at me with a bemused expression right now!
Smashed out 400kms this morning so I could surprise Michelle Mallia with an oyster tasting tour at Oyster Farm Tours – Coffin Bay. Great relaxing afternoon (finally!)
Tour of the nuclear bomb sites today. The story was that Menzies gave the Maralinga aboriginal reserve away to the British for nuclear bomb testing supposedly in collaboration with us and the exchange of research. (We never got the research) The Brits actually had sovereignty over Maralinga for 13 years. They tested 7 major bombs…
By far the worst day to date, 5 hours to travel 90kms of dust, sand and rocks on the road to Maralinga. Michelle Mallia dropped my bike…lucky it was just in the sand! Essentially traveled 5km, took a break, etc for 90km.
Nundroo, the crappiest roadhouse I’ve ever seen…in the middle of nowhere…but who cares! It was a bed!!! Met a great guy (Alan) who had just done 14,000kms on his bike.
Rob and Mish 