Last of the long rides...

I sleep well for a change but have to get up at the crack of dawn. Adelaide is where I need to be for a new tyre and it's about 900k ride away so unfortunately it's an early start to a very long day.

It's really cool for a change and not long down the road I pull over to put on over-pants and stuff the thermal liner into my jacket. It's not warming up. I even have the heated grips going.
 

The landscape leaving Coober Pedy looks like the surface of the moon and in the distance you can see the big diggers and buckets creating all the tailing piles.

The road south has an excellent surface but the tyre is all ripped up and wearing fast so I'm having to ride at 90kph to try and make it last to Adelaide.
 

First stop along the way is Glendambo Roadhouse. Like every stop, fuel up, a quick snack, then back on the road.
 

Not long after leaving Glendambo I pass by Lake Hart and can't work out why the water looks so different. A short stop at a rest area overlooking the lake and I see it's a salt lake with just a bit of water off in the distance. For a moment, I thought I was looking out over Lake Eyre but a quick check of the Atlas showed how wrong I was. The area around here is littered with salt lakes either side of the highway for many miles to come.
 

The moonscape type landscape continues to the outskirts of Port Augusta where (you guessed it) I fuel up the bike and put my head down to feast, only this time I've found a McDonalds so it's cappuccino and a burger and out with the road maps and research Adelaide's accommodation on the tablet.

An hour later and it's on the road again and suddenly I'm riding through green fields and glimpses of coastline. Such a radical departure from the dry, barren scenery of the past 2 weeks.
 

It wasn't until Port Augusta that I ran into a bit of traffic and it's been the same way since leaving there. The highway is alive with speed cameras (fixed & mobile) and they have signs that indicate the cameras are linked to give an average speed across distance.

The road into Adelaide seems to be endless with plenty of traffic. As it turns out I arrive late in the afternoon during peak hour and go in search of a motel on the other side of town but with my bladder bursting at the seams I wind up pulling into the first Comfort Inn I find along the way, check in, and make a b-line for the room. It's been a long day and I'm ready for a feed and bed.

Today's route. (out of the desert, past salt lakes, and on to greener pastures)

Sunday - A day of rest...

I fully expected Saturday night to be rowdy in a place like Coober Pedy but there was no noise at all after about 10pm.

I slept like a log till about 4am when the rug rats next door started to ark up at full volume. I just laid there telling myself that they'll be on their way shortly but the noise continued. Just when I was thinking 'those poor parents' THEY (the parents) started to yell and scream as loud as the kids. Monkey see, monkey do. This continued till 8am when they finally departed, and then the neighbours all gathered outside my unit to discuss 'the shits in unit 23'. Great start to the day.

I head up to reception to ask for a 'quiet' room for tonight and I get asked to check the bike. Several cars were broken into during the night and the security footage shows 3 guys all over my bike. Just what I wanted to hear.

Everything that's not bolted on gets taken into the room each night. After a thorough check there doesn't appear to be anything missing. Lucky me. I get a knock on the door half an hour later and spend some time talking to the local constabulary who assure me that this sort of thing 'rarely happens round here' and anyway, they recognised the idiots from the security footage and when they sober up and return home they'll be arrested.
 

(The view outside my room) Somehow I find it hard to believe that crime 'rarely happens' round here.

I spend the morning doing washing and the afternoon sightseeing around town (I even went to church) but to be honest, it's just so hot I don't stay out in the sun for long before returning to the comfort of the air-conditioned motel room.
 

Everything you see here is within 2 minutes drive from the motel, right here in town. I have never seen a more desolate place. It's so barren and unearthly they often have movie crews here filming sci-fi's depicting far off worlds.

Unable to cope with the heat of the day I return to the motel, collect my washing, and curl up in my room with a road map and pen to plot the next stage of my journey.
 

In the morning I'll make for Port Augusta and decide whether to head across to Perth or keep going south to Adelaide.

Another long, long day...

I woke early this morning after what turned out to be a very cold night. My sleeping bag is good down to zero but I wound up putting on long-johns in the early hours as it was just so cold.

The funny thing is that I woke before sunrise, had breakfast, showered, then packed the tent onto the bike just as the sun had risen and already the temperature had gone from nothing to the high teens. It doesn't take long.

Leaving early today in order to make it to Coober Pedy before dark. It's a long 4 hour ride back through nothingness (and heat) to Erlunda on the highway so I can fuel up, get a feed, oil the chain and check the bike over before heading south. 

 

Erlunda Roadhouse - Fuel, groceries, grub, and grog (and well maintained 'public' toilets).  From here it's about 100k's to the SA border with nothing much in between. No point in hanging about.
 

The ride to the border is uneventful. There's time for a quick photo op and a toilet stop and then back on the road. When it's hot like this it's best to just keep moving. Any breeze is better than standing still. I've got to say, this is a much better crossing than the crappy tin sign up on the Qld border. A great looking monument, a picnic area, and public toilets. Even the parking area is sealed. As the sign says, Welcome to South Australia (although on the other side it says the same but for NT).

I am so over the heat and the long straight roads now. The only thing to break the monotony (and the numb bum) is the fuel stops, and the Marla Roadhouse doesn't disappoint. It comes at just the right point on the road. Fuel, a pie, and a cold drink in the shade of a tree while being dive-bombed by an irate magpie. My only respite and I'm being chased away by the wildlife.
 

As you can see, a garage and a pub. Welcome to Marla.

By the time I leave here the temperature has soared and I realise I'm nursing a very sad looking rear tyre. The tread is balling up and there's now a substantial flat spot across the width of the tyre. I'm down to about 1mm of tread in the centre and it's not looking like it'll last all the way to Adelaide where I can replace it.

Watered and fed, I place Coober Pedy firmly on my radar and ride south.

I reach the outskirts of Coober Pedy late in the afternoon. The heat is overbearing, just when I thought it would be getting cooler as I ride south, it's actually getting hotter.
 

I call Mrs Snappa from the outskirts of town while taking some pics and get her to arrange accommodation, she asks "above ground or below, my choice". I go with the Mud Hut Motel and head on into town.

I check in for 2 nights, unpack the bike and then put my feet up and relax with the air-con on max.
 

It's been 2 weeks, 6,500k's, and 3 states so far. Every day up till now has been in the mid to high 30s. The word I keep using is 'unrelenting'. The heat just never gives up. It's time to take a day or two off.

And now for the entertaining part of the day...

As it gets dark I decide it's probably cool enough to go for a walk into town and get some dinner. Just after turning the corner from the motel I see a bunch of drunken aboriginals. Some are laying in the street opposite the pub, some are brawling outside a shop a bit further down the road, and outside the pub a rather elderly (and totally naked) aboriginal woman was screaming out something about rape and waving her dress in the air over her head, to which no one was paying her any attention until she began yelling "rape me" over and over. Everyone scarpered to the other side of the road.

I walked only about 300 to 500 metres along the main street but that and other incidents along the way we're a life education.

Apart from aboriginals in various states of intoxication (it only varied from shit-faced to totally leggless) along the way, I saw no-one else in the street, and this is just after 7 pm on a Saturday night. When I get to the pizza place it's chockas, absolutely packed full, standing room only. A very much inebriated local lad tells me the VFL grand final was just won by the team the town supported so it was celebration time. Hence the packed house.

I order the pizza and walk back to the motel and on the way the police drive down the main street, ignoring all the goings on with the aboriginals, and cruise up to me to check me out. Not once, but twice. I must have looked really shady.

Today's route.

My Pilgrimage to the Rock

The bike has been coughing and spluttering since arriving in Alice so after a hearty breakfast in the restaurant I head off to the nearby Suzuki dealer but their only mechanic works on trail bikes and lawnmowers, he knows nothing of fuel injected road bikes. Great! I head round to Supercheap and grab myself a bottle of injector cleaner and hope for the best. Fuel up, add the cleaner, and off I go.
 

Typical of dogs, poor cow is trying to sleep and the Dingo has to go and sniff its bum. Not sure what hit this in the night but it must have left a scar or two.

I get to Erlunda and fuel both me and the bike and chat to some fellow bikers. Some are heading off-road for a week after having ridden across the desert from Perth (keen) and another couple are riding an old (very old) Yamaha Diversion 900 to Adelaide. They're school teachers from the UK working their way round the world and recently relocated to Alice from Auckland. They have a week to go to Adelaide and back (it's 3 days each way) and are sleeping rough all the way with one night in a motel.
 

I arrive at Uluru early afternoon and head out to the rock. $25 to enter the park and I'm away to see how close I can get. 

This is everything I expected. From all the people I've spoken to it's different things to different people. For me, although already knowing it's just one big rock, seeing it up close knocks you in the head with that. On the way round I sit and watch the climbers, but in jeans, boots, jacket, etc, and as it's in the mid to high 30's it's just too hot to even think about climbing it.
 

 

 

 

After heading back into town I take a campsite, set up the tent, and take a nana nap before heading back out to watch the sunset.
 

Back out at the rock at sunset and I can't believe the massive carpark at the sunset viewing area is over-flowing. There are literally hundreds of cars here and everyone is standing along a fence watching out over the rock. I find a space behind a car near the entrance and start talking to a couple from Beenliegh who offer to share their non-alcoholic wine while we toast the sunset.
 

Such a spectacular view with the rock changing colour as quickly as the sun sets.
 

Today's route.