Superbike's end

I woke up to a thick, uniform gloom and an ulterior sun somewhere to the East. Two ravens were arching their shadowy figures from perch to perch around my campsite.

I rode for a while and then suddenly the bike was dragging, as if it were climbing or against a headwind. However, then I got my first flat tyre. The side wall of the rim on the rear wheel had torn out at the seam, and a jagged edge had pierced the tube from below.

I packed everything slowly to give me time to think out in the middle of nowhere. I thought about packing essentials into the small backpack and trying to walk. But it was too far.

Bronwyin and Neville, a couple of retirees, pulled over in their 4WD and sturdy camper trailer with a front ledge for firewood upon which the bike could fit. I told Neville that I did not feel comfortable asking them for a lift. He replied, 'We're Aussies mate. We look after each other'.

Tjukayirla to 140km out

Easily got up soon after dawn and wandered in bare feet over the pokey pebbles on a path to the toilet through some yellow wildflower bushes.

After riding for an hour, a very nice avocado growing couple from Pemberton, with whom I had chatted last night, pulled over and gave me their address. Also from last night, a couple of guys doing exploration work for a mining company passed in their truck giving me waves like they raising glasses of beer in a triumphant toast.

The road was fantastic most of the way, the bike rolled on a smooth hard surface. I made the one hundred for the day at 1pm and rode on for another few hours.

Into Tjukayirla Roadhouse

In the morning I took it easy, lighting the campfire to ease the cold of the morning. I warmed up my boots by the fire. I rode for a while and quickly came to the Kurrajong Sentinel, a large umbrella shaped tree about 17km from the roadhouse. The tree was fully green and many seeds had dropped in pods onto the ground.

I reached the roadhouse just before 9am and chatted to Ron the prospector from yesterday and also some admiring caravaners. The roadhouse opened but unfortunately the eftpos was not working. The boss gave me a toilet/shower key anyway and said to 'make myself at home'. There is a luxurious room with recliner chairs and a widescreen television. Everything was perfectly clean. Great place.

Another 100km

The silence of the morning was strange. Only one bird chirped once. None were to be seen, nor ants, animal tracks or dung. Only dried dead wood and spinifex. I lit the fire again in the morning and got up in warmth.

The road is sandy most of the way, but I did not have to get off and push, just stop a few times and stabilise a few times. The same wind pattern appeared, a promising tailwind in the morning followed up by a headwind for most of the day. There is a cloud build-up again. This is the third of fourth low pressure system to come across central Australia this Winter, seems like one after the other. Very strange weather.

Hardly any traffic today due to the federal election. Later in the day a few passers. One was a man in a bus from Gympie who was going prospecting with a couple of metal detectors. Another was a celebrity who offered me a cold beer which I gratefully declined.

Realising I would not make the 145km to reach the roadhouse, I turned off the road and followed my long shadow into the bush to place camp and gather wood for a fire. The country has become alive with many green shrubs, ants including termites, flies, spiders and moths. The bare patchy dunes seem to be over for now.

Warburton to 100km out

The road was hilly with a soft surface making it sluggish and unstable for riding. The country is getting dryer and from the crests you can see the vast uninhabited dunes with specks of spinifex and shrubbery. The distances look greater because the shrubs and grass clumps look like distant trees.

Helped some indigenous people in a sedan with a flat tyre. We used my bicycle pump to pump up the flat tyre and amazingly it stayed up. They were very nice, especially Doreen and Nita, and told me where there were some waterholes.

Have been trying not to think how far this is from anywhere. For a while I was imagining I could see signs up ahead but they were merely unusually neat, horizontal branches. I did see one real sign that indicated I had done 100km whereupon I went into the shrubs to place camp.

To Warburton 90km

The road was for the most part in a poor condition with sandy and stony heaps on an often corrugated track. The wind was also a headwind again, despite a clear blue sky.

Some campervaners pulled over, took a photo and gave me a coke. An indigenous family pulled over and gave me a very tasty apple.

Came to some interesting ranges with patches of sand in red and white, dying trees, isolated clumps of spinifex grass all coming to flat low ridges.

At last made it to Warburton Roadhouse. Place is crap, full of unrestrained dogs.

To Yarla Kutjara 120km

Today was brutal all day with a headwind. A good road, some inspiring desert vistas and a defiant attitude led me to do 120km though.

I am starting to think that Aussies are polarised into legends and fuckheads. The legends of the day included two people who stopped their cars to offer me supplies, the cops and ambos who drove past slowly to avoid the dust and tooted their horns hello. However, then a motorcyclist went past making abusive hand gestures. Then a convoy of four wheel drives came through. Half of them slowed and the others sped up.

The campground is very fine, with painted murals by the local indigenous people on a shelter and an information panel with the features of the local bush.