WOMBATS TRAVELS: The Birdsvill Track

Day Six. The Start of the Birdsville Track

After the most comfortable nights sleep of the trip thanks to the caravan park in Marree we set of the next morning on the Birdsville Track in earnest. The previous day riding put me in good stead, and for the next two hundred kilometres it was good if not a little dusty, with just loose rocks to contend with. We sat on 80 to 90 kph and made good progress. We stopped at one of the Artesian bore holes that doubles as a camp site but I think you would have had to let the water flow for quite a while to get it to a temperature that would have been good for a bath.

We finally came to the diversion off the track because of the flooding and stopped for a breather. Two gents in a Ute stopped to make sure we were Ok and just have a chat for a few minutes. People are always interested to here of your travels when you’re on the bikes. They left heading in the same direction as us for the ferry crossing, although that was as far as they were going. Due to the fact that the ferry hasn’t been used for the last twenty years it has become something of a tourist attraction in it’s own right, with people making the journey just for the ride across and back, with this at the back of our minds we pushed on the last thirty km, just in case there was a que.

The Roads Closed

As it turned out there were only a couple of vehicles waiting on our side, and they put us on behind the fella’s in the Ute that had stopped. You have to wear life jackets during the crossing, but seeing it’s a free service then nobody minds even if you do feel like a bit of a berk. The other thing was the Mosquitoes, thousands of them. I can imagine what sort of a night those poor blokes must have had sleeping in their swags!!

There's Crocs in them there waters??

A lot of water

They got us on behind the Ute

The crossing completed we started of again and immediately ran into what I think was the worst twenty kilometres of the trip, sand!!! For nearly the whole way, back round onto the track. Once again my brain kept thinking of the consequences of coming off and refused to just open the throttle and hang on. The sweat was pouring off me by the time we got through it, still upright, but with a mouth a certain TV chef would have been proud of. Next stop was the Mungeranni Road House and Hotel, and a cold beer and a monster bacon and egg roll. We took a room for the night too.

Phil who runs the Roadhouse with his lovely partner Pam is one of the real characters that you meet the bush, a big bushy beard and a well-worn hat, who likes a chat and a drink or two with his customers in the evening.

Mungeranni Phil

The other unsung hero at the moment is the truck driver who supplies them. Usually coming up from Marree, he now has to do a diversion of 100km to go round and come in from the north!! And he’s not getting paid anything extra for that.

Where the roads been covered in mud the ruts start

Day Seven Mungeranni to Birdsville

After breakfast the next day enjoying the company of the two lads who had been down to ensure the ferry was safe from an official transport safety, point of view, we pinched some of their Port Augusta water to replace the bore water we had in our camel back packs, and we headed out onto the track again.

Very shortly after starting out we came across some more of the hot artesian bores, but this time they were flowing all the time and with the temperature still being reasonably cool they provided some good photo’s. I can tell you that after putting my hand in the water coming out of the pipe it was nearly scalded!! You could have made tea with that (although with the amount of sulphur in the water it wouldn’t have tasted very nice)

Very hot water in these Artesean springs

The evidence of the heavier traffic showed in the ruts that were starting to appear Ok to drive through as long as you pick your line and hope that the foot pegs don’t dig into the side when you go through some of the deeper ones!! At various stages the gibber rock got a little bigger, but luckily the sand only appeared in small patches and were easy to navigate as you hit them at speed and it was all over before anything stupid could happen. The only other notable thing that we came across was a small creek across the road where another of the temporary lakes had burst it’s banks and crossed the track. Without knowing how deep it was we did the right thing and walked though it first to see, that went well. Then Mike was the first to go through, and was fine until he went off the line that he had walked and hit a pot hole, just as he was changing up into second. The resulting stall put him off balance and he laid his bike down on the left hand side. Needless to say we both ended up with wet feet getting it out to the other side. Luckily I learned form his misfortune and stayed over to the left hand side.

What should have been so simple

The road got better after that.

We arrived in Birdsville with a sense of achievement and a thirst, so the pub was the first place to visit. It turns out that they had no rooms available, so it was the campground for us.

The Birdsville campsite

Day Eight Birdsville.

We decided to have a rest day. Both body and mind needed one from the high concentration required to ride, so after a lazy breakfast and a bit of washing, we walked around the town. There’s not a lot to see really, the bakery is doing a thriving trade, and I can vouch for the Kangaroo and Claret pies, delicious. There are a lot of plane coming a going all the time, with sight seer’s and tourists taking the easiest option to get to this remote corner of Australia. Apparently when the rains came they were cut off for about six weeks!! The other big attraction of the town is the Horse Races that are held every September. There are more private planes than cars here then, not that that give you an advantage for accommodation; a lot of people end up sleeping under the wings of the planes!! The population of the town grows from around 100 to about 6000!! A mate I used to work with went up there for the races and can attest to the amount of alcohol consumed over the week. A very large quantity.

Good Kangaroo Pies

Good cold beer!!

We also met some guys on KTM 950’s that had come in from the east with the intention of riding through the Simpson Desert. On of them was desperately trying to do some running repairs after hitting a very large rock. He has smashed the bashplate, and crushed the oil feed tube to the head, and he also had a large dent in his front rim. His father was driving the back up ute, and said he was trying to work out how to slow him down, apparently he was doing something like 180kph when he hit said rock!! We also heard of someone who had burnt his clutch out on a DR650 Suzuki in the middle of the desert and had spent two days sitting there before someone with space came through to carry him and the bike out. There were a lot of people coming through he Simpson, due to the fact that the Finke desert race had been on the week before.

Day Nine Birdsville to Windorah

Two hundred more kilometres of dirt before we hit the tarmac and turned right. I think this was perhaps the dustiest of all, that very fine bull dust, or what the Africans call “fesh fesh” that gets into everything. Then back onto the tarmac (very welcome) for the run into Windorah. We were looking forward to getting a room of some sorts, but when we got to the Motel we were out of luck, with the town roads being resurfaced (a major event??) the road crew had beaten us to it. So we went off to find the local camp site. Luckily as we pulled in the lady from the council who ran the site was there and told us to park up behind the old wash facilities where there was some lovely flat grass, and virtually our own private bathroom!! All for $2.50, you can’t complain about that. Just after we got the tents set up the bloke on the DR650 arrived having fitted the new clutch parts that morning. He told us later down the pub that sitting in the desert for a couple of days hadn’t been that bad, as everyone that past him either left him some food or a couple of cold beers from their onboard fridges!!

One of those outback sunsets in Windorah

Days ten to thirteen, Windorah to Melbourne.

We packed up and left the next morning. Just outside of the town we were flagged down by the Police, both Mike and I were trying to figure out what was happening when the copper produced the breathalyser!! In the middle of BF nowhere at nine o’clock n the morning!! He past comment that he had just stopped our mate on the DR up the road and because he had such a bad attitude had slapped a ticket on the bike for being un-roadworthy. Poor bugger just wasn’t his week. The copper then proceeded to breathalyse the two vehicles behind us (trying to make his weekly quota I guess) and let them go while telling us to hold on?? I was just starting to worry about my “very” worn rear tyre when all he wanted to do was chat to mike about his Andy Straps Panniers. Phew….

Again the evidence of past rain was everywhere from the grass at the side of the road, which makes you a little paranoid of anything that will suddenly run out in front of you. The last thing you need on a motorbike is to hit a Kangaroo at 100kph. The other thing that we ran through were swarms of locusts. Now for anyone who hasn’t seen these things they are big, up to 10cm long and 2cm thick, and they hurt when they hit you!! They also stink after they have splattered all over your helmet, especially the front vents, Yuk!!

We pulled into Charleville that night at around 5pm expecting to find a Motel without any problem, but once again we were told that they were all full!! WTF?? Everyone is heading north at the moment, “it’s holiday season” Luckily as we were waiting for the proprietor of one Motel to ring the next town (200km away, which meant riding in the dark) when she got a phone call from someone cancelling, thank you Lord. We had a bed for the night.

The next day had pretty much the same result when we reached Bourke. No room at the Motels. Luckily a visit to the visitors centre had us ensconced in the newly opened Gidgee Guesthouse located in the old Victoria Bank,

Day twelve of the journey saw us heading for Hay on the NSW / Victoria border where Mike and I would finally go our separate ways, him heading for Adelaide and myself straight down to Melbourne. We didn’t quite make it that far, as we reached Goolgowi about 100km from Hay the sky was beginning to get very dark and threatening, so we stopped at the motel just next to the pub to see if they had any rooms. We were in luck and ten minutes after we unloaded the bikes, down came the rain. Luckily all we then had to do was go next door for one of the biggest pizzas Mike and I have eaten.

The Saturday luckily was fine as we said our farewells and headed in different directions and home for both of us. All I can say it was a very, very cold and lonely ride home.

All in all, a very successful, and satisfying trip. It was good to catch up and ride with Mike again. And he even asked me to send him the itinerary for the US part of the next trip. Maybe he can arrange to hire a bike and join me over there.