Day 3

Overcast and cool today. After a poor nights sleep I set off around 8am. I wanted to get to Alice Springs by diverting via the unsealed roads from Boulia. After talking to a few locals, and the fact that the bike was heavily overladen, and the fact that it was only doing about 15-18 to the litre, and the fact that after off loading my spare 5 litre fuel can I only had a range of about 380km, and the fact that it was 460km to the nearest fuel stop, I decided against it. Although I was a little disappointed, I believe it was the correct decision. The bike just hadn’t been prepared adequately enough to take on such a trip along unsealed roads, c’est la vie mes amis.

After reaching the first fuel stop of the day at Dajarra, I was still itching to get onto the unsealed roads. From Dajarra I could have taken an unsealed road to Mt Isa, which was about 160km long. I asked the guy behind the counter what he thought.
‘Don’t go on there mate, the road is covered in bull dust’,
‘What’s bull dust?’ I asked,
‘Very fine powder that’s about 3” deep, worse than sand and it will have you off’.

I thanked him and we said our goodbyes. However, I couldn’t resist, I had to have a look at this ere bull dust. Now I have always found sand difficult to ride on but this stuff was really awful. I rode on the road for about 1km, then weighed up my chances of making it another 159km. the chances were against me reaching the end without breaking the bike, or my leg. With great reluctance I turned round and headed back to the main road.

Approaching Mt Isa, I, and a road train driver, got a fright. Just coming around one of the few bends in the road, I met a road train. I have learned from experience and advice just to pull over and wait until they pass. No time for that, the road train left just enough gap for me to slip down the side of hin, missing him by inches, sorry, millimeters. Played my ‘get out of jail free’ card for the day I thought. Below, a typical roadtrain.

After refueling at Mt Isa, I decided to press onto Camoowheal. Just as I came out of the garage, no drive and a nasty grating noise. Rolling to a stop at the side of the road, I went through what could have gone wrong. I instantly thought that it must have been the gearbox giving up, suspected the gearbox from the beginning. I put it in first gear and tried to set off gently, just a nasty grating noise. ‘It’s your chain mate’ a workman shouted. I got off the bike and saw the chain had slipped off the rear sprocket. ‘What a relief’ I thought. Within 5 minutes I had it sorted and adjusted, ‘No worries’, as they say around these parts.

The run to Camoowheal was fairly uneventful, except for hitting a massive bump in the road. I pulled up to give the bike a once over, no problems, just made the front wheel even more buckled that it already was. A bit further down the road a couple of bikers overtook me, they were heading to the west coast, it had taken them 30 years to get the trip sorted.