After a great night with the Victorian sheep farmers we all packed up and left today. I have added a 10 litre jerry can to my load. Slowly running out of space for me. Packing took longer while I figured out where to put it.
I left down the road to Burkeville. It was a fairly good road. About 120km of it was dirt but not many rough sections. I didn't even air down my tyres. The back has 36psi and the front 32. I sat on about 70km/h along the dirt.
A huntsman spider came out of the bike at some point and crawled along the inside of the windshield. I had flashbacks to Thailand years ago when I was set upon by a spider while riding a scooter. I pulled over to surrender the bike to the huntsman but he disappeared. A car behind me pulled up to see if everything was OK. I told them everything was fine because I was embarrassed.
A bit further along I came across a cyclist. He was heading for Normanton, about 70km out. My odo still doesn't work, so he told me that. I offered him some water but someone had already topped him up.
I couldn't find the falls at Leichardt Falls. The river was very low so they might not exist, or they may have been down one of the sandy tracks. The crossing required riding down through a cutting in the bank, through some wet sand and onto a concrete bridge that basically sits on the river bed. I pulled off onto the river bed and was going to have a chat to a man sitting by the channel of the river that still had water. As I approached he started aggressively talking to himself so I figured he had all the company he needed and left.
After the falls the road was bitumen. Riding through the Savannah was really cool. It was very flat and open with dry grass on either side. Some sections had been burnt, which I made a mental note of if I ever camp in it.
I arrived at Burketown and there was a hot spring on the left. It was bubbling out of the ground and was genuinely very hot. Scalding hot I'd guess.
I went to get fuel and asked the lady at the servo about camping. She talked to me like I'm an idiot, like people for the past week have done. She told me after what happened at Adel's Grove last night everywhere was full. I asked what happened at Adel's Grove and she slowly said "It... Burnt... Down?". Like I was stupid for not knowing.
I continued being polite to the dumpy little toothless hag and she told me they've been told not to send people to Adels Grove. I'm going there tomorrow so I'll tell them a witch-like lady that runs the servo in Burketown is sending everyone down here as a mild form of revenge for her rudeness. Like she has the power to send anyone anywhere. Witches don't have a potion for that.
I went to the information centre in the hope of finding someone with some teeth but I guess they didn't have any, because it was shut. So I continued towards Adel's Grove about 30km and am camped in the bushes next to a creek. So far nobody else is here and I think it will stay that way. It is really nice and peaceful. I don't think there are crocodiles.
I've just cooked dinner, which is actually the first thing I had today. My head hurts now so I'll probably go drink a lot of water.
...
So after drinking lots of water last night I lit a fire and enjoyed the serenity. Nobody else came so I had the place to myself. I took a cracking photo of the moon but my internet is really bad so I can't upload photos. I'm amazed I have internet at all.
While pottering around getting wood last night I noticed a couple of weird little lights. Something was reflecting my headlamp. Tiny little dots of light in the grass. It reminded me of the glowing eyes in the bushes around a camp fire from cartoons, except these were on the ground and small.
I went to investigate and discovered they were spiders. They were about the size of a bottle cap and lived in little holes in the ground. The little front part of their body/heads reflected. I guess where their eyes are, although I have been led to believe they have 8 eyes and it was only one glowing dot for each spider.
I did a 360 on my dirt patch and counted 19 spiders in the grass. Some of them would flicker as they popped in and out of their holes. I spent the rest of the night monitoring their location.
This morning I rode down to Gregory. It was more flat savannah but today it was blowing a gale. Made for a crap ride.
There was a lot of road kill with a heap of birds eating it. At one point I came across a cow in the middle of the road. It didn't have any birds around it so I didn't blast my horn like I usually do to scare the birds away. As I got right up next to it an eagle launched up from the other side of the cow where I couldn't see it. I ducked behind my windshield, sure I was going to hit it, but it somehow did a t-1000 manoeuvre (terminator reference, mum. Google) and suddenly was flying the other direction. That was probably my closest call yet.
I got to Gregory. It's another dusty outback shit hole with relatively unfriendly locals. I got some fuel and left for Adels Grove. The road was atrocious. The first 60km or so had at some point been tarred but was totally destroyed. There were a few sections where it still had a smattering of broken tar that made the surface even worse. The corrugations were horrendous. I had to slow to walking speed for some of them. How the bike didn't break I don't know.
There was a drain on either side of the road so I rode in that as much as I could, but it turned to deep sand and it was pretty hairy getting out of it a couple of times.
After the turn off to the mine, the last 20km of road improved but not by much. The drain improved a lot so I stuck with that for a good long section. The fuel can rattled off. Luckily I looped the rope through the handle. I put it back on twice but ended up just riding with it hanging off the side of the bike.
I stopped for a break and discovered a new water leak on the bike. It was dried, and there wasn't much water. It appears to be coming from the engine case. It looks cracked, to be frank, which means the bike might not be long for this world. I'm hoping that the leak has just dried crusty (the bit I can touch was crusty) and the crack is actually a crack in the crust. The good news is my sikaflex held on the other leak.
Anyway I got to Adels Grove and it did indeed burn down. I felt a bit bad riding in with a fuel can hanging off the side of the bike. Pretty much all the buildings are now smouldering rubble heaps with a load of police sitting around. It is all a crime scene. Luckily the grove itself didn't burn down. That's where I'm camped now.
Apparently they had 500 people staying here and nobody was hurt. The buildings that burned back onto the grove so it's really lucky it didn't catch fire. The petrol bowsers are right next to it too.
The grove is really nice. The trees make a thick canopy so it is nice and shady. There is a deep creek flowing through it where I swam this afternoon. Caravans and tents are dotted amongst the trees. It is the nicest place I've camped this trip I think.
Unfortunately there is no food or drinking water here. I assumed if they had reopened for camping they'd at least have water. I only really have enough food for tonight and tomorrow so I'm going to see the gorge tomorrow morning and then I'll have to go down that bloody road again. I've spent tonight boiling the water they do have. It did not look good.
Anyway, because the bike I probably going to break I'm not heading back north. The road is too remote if I break down. I don't know whether to loop back around on the tar to Mount Isa and then back West, or take a 100+km dirt road straight down from Gregory. I'm leaning toward the dirt as it cuts off so much distance, but Mt Isa will have a bike shop. Tomorrow I'll probably camp in Gregory.
If I go to Mt Isa I'll have internet, otherwise I won't for quite some time.
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