Katherine to Wagait Beach

I'm at Wagait Beach. Rode up today. The road was loaded with vans heading too and fro. I came up the Stuart hwy alongside burning forests. I think they were out but still a lot of smoke.

I turned off to come here and after the final turn to Berry Springs I was the only person on the road. I finally found oil. I didn't include it in my previous post but all these outback roadhouses only had weird oil in 1 litre quantities. Two stroke oil and diesel oil. In case someone wants to mow the desert or needs a litre of oil for their road train.

The bike burns oil massively if I hold it above 5000rpm, which equates to 110km/h in top gear. I told you, it ain't a fast bike. So I had to stick to 110 along those long stretches to conserve oil. Pretty crazy to be riding to oil requirements, but also standard for every vehicle I've owned. I once had a Corolla that I put oil in every time I filled up.

I got to Wagait Beach and the camping area is someone's yard. I rolled in and this dude came out called Phil. He told me it'd be cool to stay, but he's only a guest too. I rang the lady who runs the place but she was at work and didn't answer. Phil and I sat and drank for a while and he has told me about Arnhem Land, where he has just returned from. It's was out of range for me but I'd like to find a way to visit.

As a kid I loved the Bushtucker man, Les Hiddins, and he was always cruising around Arnhem land. Phil said it was like Australia 20,000 years ago. I've got time to think about it but I'd like for this trip to be about more than chickening out of stuff and Arnhem Land sounds amazing. It's about 750km down a dirt road with a petrol station halfway there. I'd also need a permit to go. Hopefully there is a way. I'd probably need a bigger Jerry can. 

Tonight we went to the local club. This place is tiny, and everything matches that. The club is all outdoors for the patrons. The bar is a small window in a building. The locals were super friendly. One of them offered me a spare petcock. That's the fuel tap on my bike, not a friendly greeting (I hope).

A big load of people came over from Darwin on the Ferry for dinner. Apparently that's something they're trying to get going to keep the club running (this place is really small and shouldn't really even have a club). The kitchen couldn't handle the influx. I know this because the cook was drinking with us and told us! He was really struggling, between puffs of his cigarette.

I really like this place. I told Jenny I'd stay 4 nights and gave her $50. It's $10 a night so I guess I'm staying five nights because she didn't offer any change. They're really friendly and relaxed. I'll take some photos tomorrow.

This is the sunset immediately after the last blog post. I could see the light changing as I wrote. Old people came past to tell me it was a nice sunset because I was facing the wrong way.