3/8/16
MUNDARING TO FREMANTLE
We packed up as early as possible and checked out of the
creepy Mundaring Motel and hit the bike path back into Mundaring for breakfast.
We really didn’t want to hang around this place very long. It was the first
motel that we ever had to check into through a cat flap in a screened window
where we couldn’t see the lady on the other side at all, just the eftpos
machine being poked through the cat flap for us to enter our pin. Enough said,
we were out of there quick as, pronto the next morning. There was still no
sign of our dear little furry wombat on the way in.
We had a nice brekkie in Mundaring and then headed for the
Heritage Rail Trail to take us into Perth. This was an extremely fun, nearly
all downhill ride, all the way down to the Midland Railway Station. We then had
to self navigate through Midland for a few k’s looking for the beginning of the
new soon to be opened cycle path that follows the railway line into the Perth
city. We found it with contractors still adding final touches to the Midland
end before opening it, but we were able to ride it anyway. This is an awesome
bike path that takes you all the way into Perth with lots of options to get off
at various train stations and suburbs along the way. We stopped off at Maylands
looking for a loo as we aren’t allowed to pee in the bushes anymore, and ended
up having a terrific lunch at a really nice Lebanese Café. Back on the path we
rode into the city and managed to find our way onto the next bike path that
follows the train line past SUBIACO Oval and the WA Royal Showgrounds and then
on down into Fremantle.
The final part into Fremantle was a bit scary over the
Stirling Bridge as there was no cycle lane. Here we just had to hold our line
and hold the traffic up until we got over the bridge. We got spotted and
photographed by a couple of people that work with Trent near the Stirling
Bridge I think our big yellow bags on the bikes give us away. Shortly after
this we arrived at Trent and Amanda’s place in Fremantle. We were greeted with
lots of cuddles and kisses from Natyri, the family dog who showed us around the
house and kept us company until the family came home from school and work. It
was exciting to see these guys again, the kids have grown up so much. Here we
started to relax and look forward to a few days off hanging out with these
guys.
4/8/16 – 6/8/16
REST DAYS IN FREMANTLE
Other than the family catch up, which was really important
to us, we had some important things to do while we were in Fremantle. This
included swapping out some of our wintery gear and sending it home and
replacing it with warmer climate gear that we had sent over in advance. It was
still quite cold in Freo so we were still a bit nervous that we could be a bit
cold still for the first couple of weeks out of Perth. We knew we had to do it
though, as especially our sleeping bags would have been way too hot. We managed
to lighten the bikes by around 5k’s with this change. Also we had to replace my
camping mat as my Exped mat had started to delaminate. We managed to find a new
Sea to Summit one at Mountain Designs in Freo which we hope will last longer
than the old one. Mary had some pamper time in the hairdressers while I walked
about 10km’s to three different bike shops picking up a few extra things that
we needed. We discovered a really cool café/restaurant called ‘Bread in Common’
and that we now want to live next door to and never leave. We actually visited
it 3 times in 24 hours. Coffee was amazing and food was to die for.
On our last day in Fremantle I needed to get the bikes
sorted and ready to leave when disaster struck. I found that my Chris King
bottom bracket on Larry had finally given up the ghost. So, urgent phone calls
were made to see if there was a bike shop that could help me out. Luckily the
guys at Captain Mercer’s Bicycles said they could help, so we ripped the bike
down there and they sorted me out with a new bottom bracket. Not Chris King
anymore, but the pedals go around smoothly and all should be good from here.
Breathing a sigh of relief we were now able to look forward
to our big family dinner at ‘The Little Creatures Brewery’. This was a lot of
fun in a very noisy and busy place where the food was fantastic and the
entertainment enthralling. They had an acrobat/gymnast going around doing
cartwheels, handstands and back flips and even did a head stand on someone’s
table. Oh and the beer was pretty good too. After this we went out for a gelato
despite the fact it was pelting down with rain and hail and sounds of thunder
and a few flashes of lightening. The evening ended with us being able to catch
up with the final episodes of Game of Thrones. After that who could sleep…..
7/8/16
FREMANTLE TO YANCHEP
We woke up to Trent and Flynn making their specialty
buckwheat pancakes for breakfast, Yummmo. While that was going on, Mary and I
were packing the bikes and getting ready to go. Finally, despite Trent
threatening to slash our tyres so we couldn’t go, we made the move and got the
bikes out the front for the group photo. Passers-by, once again attracted to
the fat bikes offered to take the photo for us, nice people in Freo. I’d be
lying if I said a little tear or too wasn’t shed, but the adventure must
continue, and so, on our way to Yanchep we were. Thanks again Trent, Amanda, Skye and Flynn
for the hospitality, it was a great few days for us, big hugs.
We crossed the Swan river again, this time heading North and
worked our way onto the coast and the bike trail that follows it. We had a
severe Westerly wind blowing which wanted to push us sideways off the bikes
continually, but we made good time, getting a little bamboozled getting around
the Swanbourne SAS base until getting back on the coast and up through the
Perth beach suburbs, stopping for lunch at one of our favourite cafés at North
Beach, Yelo.
We could follow bike trail all the way to Burns Beach, where
we headed a little inland, then onto Marmion Avenue which has a good cycle lane
all the way to Yanchep. At Yanchep we stayed at a little AirBnB which was
great, and just had a basic dinner in.
8/8/16
YANCHEP TO LANCELIN
We woke up to some different muscle aches in our transverse
abdominals and realised that it was from the constant work against the side
winds the day before. Well guess what, more strong Westerlies today. We rode
out on Lancelin Beach Road and then turned North onto the beginning of the
Indian Ocean Drive. This changed the traffic conditions and despite the quite
good verge we did get off the road a few times for trucks. “take me back to the
Munda Biddi” said Mary. Hmmm
Lacking a good coffee we noted signs for an upcoming café at
a little place called Woodridge. Applying the Cycle Touring Rule No 1 “never
ride past a good café”, we decided to check it out. What a gem this was, run by
a young girl with what we think was a Russian accent, great coffee once again
and some nice food too.
Then we were battling the Westerlies, and as the odometer was
passing the 70klm mark, we were starting to fade pretty fast. We had the option
to stop short at Ledge Point, but decided that we could keep going to Lancelin.
There is a nice descent as you come off Indian Ocean Drive into Lancelin, but
not for us, the Westerly was still so strong, we had to peddle down hill in
only gear 5 or 6. That sucks.
We arrived at the caravan park and after finally finding the
managers, they helped us out with a nice protected camp site for the night, it
was going to be a bit wild. We just got the tent up as the showers started
coming through again and hammered the tent. So we just waited it out before finally
hitting the shower and we decided to head out to the tavern for a meal. We were
the only ones in there, not surprising given the weather, but the meals were
good and helped replace the large quantities of lost calories for the day.
Lancelin as a town didn’t impress us much, maybe it was just the bad weather,
but the vibe of the place just wasn’t right, we’d probably skip it if we did
this coast again.
9/8/16
LANCELIN TO CERVANTES
Finally, the Westerlies dropped off after a rather wild
night in the tent. We had a fairly big day today, so it was lucky that I asked
the caravan park manager for some advice on the route North from Lancelin.
Google maps had us heading North on dirt roads straight out, rather than going
back to the main road, but I was a bit unsure about it, so luckily he explained
to me that we would not get through that way as it was the RAAF’s bombing range
and was closed off. So back to the main road we went, 7k’s of mostly up, which
funnily enough was a lot easier than coming down it the previous afternoon.
The Indian Ocean Drive is a beautiful road to ride, it can
be busy at times, but once it hits the coast north of Lancelin (and the bombing
range) it really is a joy to ride. Lots of caravans and holiday makers cause
us to have to explain the fat bike thing at every stop, but it is fun talking
to people, and sometimes for some good advice about the places to stop and see
on the way North. The road constantly rolls, which seems to add up to a lot of
climbing over the day and then eventually as you head out of the Nambung
National Park, you get a big steady descent that helped pick up some time. We
had a nice lunch in one of the very flash roadside stops before finishing the
day off into Cervantes.
The caravan park was nice with a green lawn out the back,
the camp kitchen was a bit nuts with a pass code that had to be entered in
every time you went in and out, very annoying. We didn’t see much of the town,
as we arrived fairly late and got going early the next morning.
10/8/16
CERVANTES TO JURIEN BAY
We got brave as we were leaving Cervantes and decided we
needed an off road fix, so we followed an awesome sandy track out of town hoping
it wasn’t a dead end. Luck was on our side and we followed the track for about
5km’s before it ran out and joined up with the highway. The ride was pretty
sweet today, the sun was shining and before we knew it we had arrived at Jurien
Bay. This little town looked so pretty and before we knew it we made a rash
decision and decided to call it quits for the day nice and early so we could
enjoy being lazy in the sun. We rode out onto the short little jetty and
admired the beauty of the turquoise coloured water. Right near the jetty was a
café, so we plonked ourselves down and enjoyed some lunch and coffee before
booking into the caravan park. When we peeled ourselves away from the café, we
set up camp at the back of the caravan park and headed back to the café to sit
in the sun, drink more coffee and catch up on a bit of house keeping on the
computer. All afternoon we had a RAAF training aircraft flying over practicing
all sorts of manoeuvres so we felt quite entertained all afternoon. Before
dinner we went for a lovely stroll along the beach to find blue bottle jelly
fish everywhere. Large ones and lots of tiny baby ones all washed up on the
beach. With riding, sunshine and a good dinner cooked in the camp kitchen we
settled into our tent for a good night’s sleep.
11/8/16
JURIEN BAY TO LEEMAN
With only a short day yesterday we started our day today
with pretty fresh legs. So here we were minding our own business, just riding
along and probably singing a song along the highway when this car drove past. Next
thing a half full iced coffee plastic bottle gets ditched at us and only
missing my head by a centimetre or two. Scared the absolute crap out of me. We
just couldn’t believe that someone actually tried to hit us with a flying
object. If that had connected with my head it would have definitely caused me
to crash on my bike as I was sitting on about 22kmh. Bloody idiot. Worse still
he littered the highway with his shit. Grrrrr we were so angry. About a minute
later a cop car went past us so we waved out to them and they slowed down, did
a U turn and came back and stopped. We rode over to their vehicle and explained
what had happened with a description of the car and trailer and they drove off
to investigate. We really hope they caught this guy, what an asshole.
Not long after this incident we decided to take the turn off
to Green Head and have a look at the coast. Wow, what a beautiful sight when we
arrived at the bay. Dynamite Bay was just spectacular with beautiful turquoise
coloured water, sand dunes on either side that have been rejuvenated and green
grass on the foreshore with a couple of lovely shelters and picnic tables. It
was such a pretty place we decided to stop and spend a little bit of time here
and made a coffee and had an early lunch. We got speaking to a local who
informed us about all the work a small group have put in over the past 20 or so
years. The sand dunes used to be bare and badly eroded. With time and effort
they were able to rejuvenate them to their natural beauty. Most of this came
about by just putting pathways in which enabled them to keep people off the
actual dunes. And without any planting at all the vegetation just came back by
itself. The seed is always there, it just needs to be protected while it grows.
Such a huge effort these amazing people have put in over the years to make this
a very special and beautiful spot.
We rode the scenic route along the coast before re-joining
Indian Ocean Drive that then led us straight into Leeman. This Scenic Route
gave us our daily dose of dirt. It was a really well maintained dirt road that
ran along the coast giving us some pretty amazing views. We stopped at a couple
of the beaches to have a really good look and also at a timber platform that
gave us a great view of the beautiful coast line.
Leeman was quite a little town, and we stayed at the Caravan Park
just on the edge of the town. They had a great fish and chip shop there so we
filled our bellies with yummy chips that tided us over until dinner. While
cooking dinner we met some lovely chatty people in the camp kitchen and had a
few laughs with a young Italian guy touring around by himself in a Wicked Van.
12/8/16
LEEMAN TO DONGARA
We rode a back sandy trail that we spotted on google earth out
of Leeman until it re-joined Indian Ocean Drive about 10ks out. A nice little
break from the traffic. This road joined highway 1 (Brand Hwy) about 20k before
Dongara, the traffic level certainly went up, but we did have a better verge to
ride to keep us at least a bit separated from the trucks. The rest of the day
was just a cruise until coming to the turn off to Port Denison/Dongara. After
quite a lot of climbing for the day, this route gave us quite a long descent
into the town, which was a nice way to finish. We skipped the first caravan
parks in Port Denison and rode into the main town of Dongara and found a nice
coffee shop. Dongara had a nice feeling about it, a few nice older buildings
and beautiful old Moreton Bay Fig trees line the main street. We headed down to
the Seaspray Beach Caravan Park which was a bit expensive, but was pretty nice
and each site had its own private ensuite, cool.
We walked into town and picked up a few basic supplies and
decided to eat in town as there was a nice looking Thai restaurant there. We
had a great meal there and enjoyed the moonlit walk back to the tent and slept
to the sound of crashing waves once again.
13/8/16
DONGARA TO GERALDTON/SUNSET BEACH
As we left the caravan park we had a climb straight up off
the beach which wasn’t really very kind to our cold legs. We rode the back road
out of town for a couple of k’s again passing some really lovely old and
interesting architecture. Once on the highway, it really wasn’t long before we
were on a really long flat road with a lovely tail breeze helping us along. It
was a beautiful valley with sand dunes on the left and really healthy looking
crops on either side of us. We stopped at an old unused church for a quick
stretch of the legs and admired the workmanship in this old stone building. Not
long after here we were given the option to take the back way into Greenough
which ended up being a really nice quiet and good road to ride on. As we
approached Greenough we passed a beautiful old pub and a few k’s later a
magnificent old stone building, built in the 1870’s that use to be a store.
Across the road was another beautiful old church. Both of these buildings now
belong to the National Trust and are in the process of being renovated back to
their former glory.
Back onto the main road we came to the visitors centre so
decided to check it out as there was a café open sign luring us in. To our
great surprise this was awesome. We sat down and enjoyed the yummiest of cakes
and great coffee. We sat out in the courtyard and enjoyed our morning tea in
the sunshine. Back on the bikes and with the tail breeze helping us along we
headed toward Geraldton. This was great riding until we hit the outer burbs of
Geraldton where it just turned into yuk. That city feeling of fast pace, cars
zooming, houses everywhere and this was a good 5km’s out before we hit the
actual centre of the city/town. We were able to ride a bike path most of the
way into the centre and found a sports shop to buy a couple of new bright
coloured cool shirts. 
With shopping done we headed to the beach front and found a
really cool pop up café called the Jaffle Café. We found a little table on the
lawn and sat and enjoyed jaffles for lunch. We really didn’t want to stay in
town so we headed on about another 8km’s to Sunset Beach Caravan Park that gave
us a good head start for the next day. We got prime tent position at this
caravan park, on some lovely green lawn with a sneaky view of the ocean and
only a few metres from the best camp kitchen we have ever seen. It was like a
huge house kitchen and had a really big comfy lounge to sit on at the other end
of the room. Yes, it was a room, fully enclosed with lots of windows and a big
sliding door. Wow such comforts here.
We went for a lovely walk before dinner along the beach and
found that the sand was actually pink. So much pretty pink sand. We caught the
sun setting which was really beautiful and then in the early hours of the morning
saw the moon setting which was just breathtaking.
14/8/16
SUNSET BEACH TO LYNTON STATION
It was lucky that we got the head start by doing a few extra
kilometres out to Sunset Beach yesterday. Straight out of here we were into
slow rolling hills that just added up to more and more climbing as the day went
on. The riding was all through established cropping country all the way out to
Northampton where we stopped for lunch.
This was where we turned off the main Highway 1 out towards Kalbarri.
This was a very scenic route with the wildflowers, famous in
this region, starting to show their late winter colours, the hills however kept
on rolling. We finally came across the entrance to Lynton Station, home to a
working farm, The Historic Convict Hiring Station and small private camp
ground. We rode in the access road and into the shade of a massive Moreton Bay
Fig Tree and met Vic, the caretaker leaning over the fence chatting. Vic was a
very helpful guy, he showed us around the camp ground and gave us several
options of places to camp, all on nice green lawn. They had basic, but good
facilities and we felt very comfortable, in friendly surroundings.
After setting up camp, we headed up to the historic
homestead that looks over the property which was just fabulous. A lot of
restoration work has been done on the original buildings on the property by
owners, local conservation groups and the national trust. This has really only
achieved stability of the structures and it would be wonderful to one day see
this iconic homestead returned to its original standard. We then headed up the
escarpment behind the homestead which gave us a view of the whole property, as
well as the Hutt River mouth, the beach, the (pink) Hutt Lake and ocean beyond.
We sat up here and watched the sun set before heading down to make dinner and
escape the horrendous mosquito population.
We would thoroughly recommend anyone visiting and or staying
at Linga Longa at Lynton. Very friendly people and such a nice place to stay.
15/8/16
LYNTON STATION TO KALBARRI
Just before leaving Lynton Station we headed over to say
goodbye and thank Vick for a wonderful stay. Here we met his lovely wife and
the very friendly couple who own the property. We chatted with these guys for a
while where they gave us some good sound advice on what lay ahead of us. We
ventured off the property via the back road that led us straight up to the
highway and the beginning of the Pink Lake. The weather this morning was warm
but we could see clouds collecting and threatening us with rain. The rain spots
started and then it got heavy, so a quick dash to the nearest tree gave us
enough cover to keep dry. The road continued on a pretty much straight line
hugging the pink lake for nearly 15km’s. Before too long our legs started to
feel heavy and zapped with energy. I think with all the climbing we did
yesterday, and the first real warm day, and on top of that it was our 10th
day on the road in a row we were starting to really feel the fatigue. There was
quite a bit of pain, some swearing, some complaining, and some vague moments
before we finally came to the outskirts of Kalbarri with a long fast
descent into a very pretty town with the surf on one side and the Murchison
River Estuary on the other.
This place had a really great feel about it. We were hungry,
thirsty and tired, so we went straight to the pub and got a ginger beer, a real
beer and shared a bowl of hot chips. Here we sat and enjoyed the completion of
10 days on the road and worked out where we wanted to stay. It was decided to
stay in the middle caravan park, right near the beach and close to the shops.
This park, Murchison River Caravan Park was really lovely. All sites were set
in amongst lots of trees and shrubs with a good spacing between each site. The
toilet facilities were awesome too with each cubicle being a room with both
shower and toilet in each. This gave you the feeling of more privacy and a lot
more space.
With the last couple of days catching up with us, we both
crashed out in the tent pretty early. We decided that this was a great place to
have a day of rest so tomorrow morning would start with a little sleep in.
16/8/16
REST DAY IN KALBARRI
REST DAY IN KALBARRI
It was nice to get up at a leisurely pace, have a shower and
hang around in the camp kitchen having a lazy breakfast and just taking it
easy.
We had a few things we needed to do today, including re
stocking the pantry, ready for our week ahead to Carnarvon. This leg was also
going to mean some big breaks between water, so a bit of thought was required
to get everything organised. We bought some nice food to barbecue that night
and also to have a great breakfast the next morning before heading off into
carbohydrate land. Then we finished off the washing and got the bikes loaded
with three days of water ready to leave.
Once we had this done, we headed for the beach for a bit of
work on the tan. It was so nice to chill out in the sunshine.
After that we headed back to the caravan park via the camp
kitchen to find that some low life scum had stolen all of our food that we had
stored in the fridge. WTF. My Steak, our eggs and bacon, even our chocolate and
Mary’s ginger beer. Weirdly they didn’t pinch my beer. So we had to do an
urgent shop just before closing time so that we would have the supplies we
needed.
We really liked Kalbarri, but this theft left us feeling a
bit distrustful unfortunately. In the end however, we had a nice dinner and
chatted with some really nice people enjoying their own adventures in the Wild
Wild West.
17/8/16
KALBARRI TO GALENA BRIDGE
The expected winds arrived during the night, making quite a
lot of noise and keeping us awake. Only a light shower of rain however. We got
up early and got packed up so that we could have a leisurely breakfast before
heading out. Fried Eggs, mushrooms and spinach, as well as fresh fruit salad
and yoghurt, yumm.
I did a quick run up to the bakery to get some fresh bread,
which made me realise that we were in for a real treat of a tail wind for the
first 50ks of the day today. We headed out of the caravan park and had to ride
just a short distance before turning right and with that turn came our tail
wind. What a hoot this ride was. It felt like we were cheating. It just pushed us
along all morning, even pushing us up the hills. Nearly 60k’s of pushing us
along with our legs just spinning and with our speed nice and fast, how awesome
was this.
When we reached our turnoff we had a quick stop for our
second breakfast and then enthusiastically jumped back on the bikes and
pedaled on forward on a great dirt road getting our daily fix of dirt once
again. We only had about 20k’s to go to camp, with the first 10 or so having
quite a strong side wind. This wasn’t too bad to ride with, but we were actually
quite glad we were on a very quiet dirt road as the wind at times did push us
around on the bikes. We were about 5km’s from our camp at Galena Bridge when
down came the rain. We sheltered for a short time behind some trees as the
worst of it went through then jumped back on the bikes with our raincoats on
and rode the last few k’s to the campsite. We had to wait awhile under the
shelter for the rain to ease a bit before trying to put the tent up. With a
short break in the weather we got the tent up and everything inside, dried off
and put warm clothes on before having a nice warm cuppa and a fresh vegemite
roll for lunch. 
18/8/16
GALEENA CAMPSITE TO BILLABONG ROADHOUSE
The wind last night dropped just after dark and the rain
ceased. A few times during the night we could hear a duck or two and a swamp
hen making a bit of a racket. Then there was the snorer. I can’t believe we
could hear someone from one of the caravans that was near us snoring their
heads off. Finally, all was quiet and settled and we had a pretty good sleep.
Waking up in the morning to the sound of birds chirping gave us a promise
that today we would have good weather. After climbing out of the tent we could
see a misty fog lifting off the river. This cleared by the time we had
breakfast and had packed up. While packing up the tent we found that all the
local slater bugs had used our little tent as their own to keep themselves dry
and safe during all of the wet windy weather. We had to tip them out of the
tent before we packed it away, we really don’t want to carry any free loaders!!
On our way out of the campsite we bumped into two other cyclists who have been
on their bikes for over 5 months. They have ridden from Qld and have done the
top end and slowly riding their way down south. They ride just like us, looking
at all the things along the way and spending time here and there not in too
much of a hurry. We wished them safe travels and started our ride for the day.
Back onto the highway we started to pedal and had a light
breeze behind us. The sun was starting to warm us up so we very soon stripped
down to our brightly coloured t shirts. Pedal pedal pedal was todays calling.
After a couple of hours on the bikes we realised we were making really good
progress and clocked up over 60kms before lunch. The tail breeze by this time
had strengthened and was even a greater assistance. We made the decision not to
bush camp tonight and head straight to the Billabong Roadhouse. We arrived
shortly after 3.30pm and had ridden just short of 120km’s. This was one great
effort that we celebrated with a beer and ginger beer, and then a good evening
meal at the café.
19/8/16
BILLABONG ROADHOUSE TO WOORAMEL ROADHOUSE
A fairly cool start again, my light sleeping bag is only
just doing the job in the early hours of the morning. The night had been a full
moon, so a lot of light kept certain annoying birds twittering their monotonal
nothing songs all night, not a lot of sleep was had between them and the
passing road trains. Whinge, Whinge, Whinge.
Once we got going we had a real coffee at the roadhouse on
the way out, it was quite good. The staff at Billabong were fantastic and very
friendly with great quality food. Not a lot to contribute to the ongoing food
supply however. Leaving a little later seems to dodge a fair bit of the early
truck traffic which seems to be a bonus. Light southerlies were blowing gain
and the bikes seemed to come up to 20-25kph very easily. The first ten ks had quite a lot of rolling
sand hills to keep the average down, but after that we sailed along enjoying
the ride.
47ks in we arrived at the Overlander roadhouse, rather
conveniently, spot on 12 noon,,,, lunch time. So we had a drink and smashed a
toasted sanga. This roadhouse was astoundingly busy, caravans and people
everywhere. It is at the turn off to Monkey Mia, so we were hoping that this
meant the road further north was less busy, which certainly turned out to be
the case. We also decided to have an
icecream before we left, first one in a long time and we really enjoyed it. Of
course, as usual we provided the freak show with several people wanting to take
photos of the bikes, you know, for the grandkids back in Liverpoool love.
We headed off again and enjoyed the ever strengthening
southerly breeze that just kept easing us along the very flat road, we were
starting to hatch plans of skipping a camp and heading straight to Wooramel.
This we did, employing our every 10k stop, drink, stretch, rest the butt and
keep riding method that we employ in the afternoon of long days. Before we knew
it, we had done 123ks and were rolling in to the Wooramel Roadhouse, craving
cold drinks and salty chips, nice.
20/8/16
WOORAMEL ROADHOUSE TO WORRAMEL STATION
After a good night’s sleep, we were having breakfast when we
discovered that just a few ks up the road was the Wooramel station. This
sounded really attractive to us, so we declared an almost day off and headed
over there to check it out. So a total of 6 kilometres had us being welcomed by
Jackie at the station Homestead. They had an awesome camp ground overlooking
the Wooramel River which is dry at the moment. They do however, have a natural
artesian bore that delivers water to very large spa pools in the camp ground at
a very nice 33 degrees. We decided to stay. We had a great day, the camp ground
and river beds are lined with gnarly old river gums, home to lots of different
birds including Ospreys and Wedge Tailed Eagles. After setting up camp we
headed for the spa and just soaked our tired bodies in the artesian water for
two hours. We got out all wrinkly then chilled out in the tent for a while and
had some lunch. Afterwards we went for a walk that took us around the homestead
and up the river side until we decided to walk back in the sandy river bed.
This was awesome as we were spotting all sorts of animal tracks in the river
sand. As we got back to camp, a small herd of cattle came across the river to
drink at the spot where the spa water flows out to a pool on the river bed. Lots
of birds also come in here to drink.
21/8/16
WOORAMEL STATION TO CARNARVON
So after the best sleep ever and the lasting effects of
being mineralised from the long soak in the natural spa yesterday we felt brand
new. No aches and no pains and very relaxed. Honestly it felt like we must have
had stayed here for a week with how good we felt. Sadly, we packed up, said our
goodbyes to our wonderful hosts and rode down the dirt road back to the
bitumen.
It was pretty cool sailing today, with our beloved tail wind
helping us along so nicely. The temperature was around 21-23 degrees, but that
sun had quite a sharp burning bite to it. We must have looked a little hot as
at around the 80km mark this random aussie bloke pulled over and gave us a
couple of cold tinnies. “looks like you guys might be in need of these” he said
as he passed the beer out of the window. We nearly fell off our bikes with
surprise. Thanks so much mate you are an absolute legend.
We got into Carnarvon around 3:30pm, threw the beer into the
camp kitchen fridge as we set up camp and then Dave, with the biggest smile on
his face enjoyed the beer. We were pretty stuffed and being a Sunday, the shops
all seemed to be closed so we headed up to the marina, found the local pub and
had a really amazing meal.
22/8/16
REST DAY IN CARNARVON
Today was a rest day, washing day and shopping day. Bags are
now full of goodies once again and clothes all fresh and clean. Everything is
packed and ready for our next few days on the road heading to Coral Bay.
23/8/16
CARNARVON TO ROAD STOP REST CAMP LAKE MCLEOD
We had an early late start. Well we started off early and
had to do a quick run into town before we left and just seemed to get caught up
with people wanting to know all about our bikes and our trip. It was about
10k’s out of town when we pulled into Bumback’s to check out their most famous
fruit ice creams. Ok, this little shop is just to die for. Full of the yummiest
ice creams, yep mango icecream, preserves, yep mango preserves, dried fruit,
yep dried mango, did I mention that they have yummy mango treats there? Dave had a
large mango creamy ice cream which was apparently Grandma’s special recipe, and
I had mango ice cream covered in chocolate. They were both totally wild and
amazing. We also bought mango rocky road, cranberry and pistachio rocky road,
miniature mango fruit cake and some dried mango. If we had a trailer I’m sure
we would have filled it with all of the amazing goodies this store has to
offer. Once the ice creams were consumed it was back on the bikes for some
serious riding.
24/8/16
ROAD SIDE REST CAMP LAKE MCLEAOD TO ROAD SIDE REST STOP
CORAL BAY ROAD
It’s starting to get easier to get up a bit early, it’s not
so cold in the early hours, so a quick brekkie and a see you later to our camp
guardian angels and we were heading north once again. The upside of today was
that we had a road house 50k’s away, which was a nice goal as we were planning
to have lunch there. On the way we were noticing lots of bird life, especially a
lot of osprey’s.
About 10k’s out of Minilya, Mary spotted 3 Wedge Tailed Eagles
sitting in a low tree. There were also 8-10 Osprey’s, which were air born and so
I hadn’t seen the Wedgies. Luckily we stopped and the wedgies weren’t
frightened off straight away, so we were able to get some good shots.
We arrived at the Minilya Roadhouse, had a good lunch and an
ice cream and headed out towards Coral Bay. Once off the main road I started to
really struggle. There was no real reason for this. The weather was fine. The
winds were ok. The road was pretty flat. I was just seeming to run out of legs
and a good attitude. Mary was also struggling with sun exposure to the top of
her legs. We had already started to wear our long woollen shirts to protect our
arms which seems to be working well. So we stopped and tried a few different
things to try and protect Mary's legs. The funny thing was the arms from my jacket
became Mary’s leg warmers. Whatever works use it. 
We spotted the road side camp that we planned to use which
is on the turnoff to Warroora Station and were concerned at how exposed it
looked. It was just a white rubble paddock with a few caravans there. We
took the back entrance which ended up being the wrong way, as we had to ride
down into a creek bed and then follow the fence down to a small opening.
Nothing like taking a different way in. Luckily we noticed that there were some
shade cloth structures over a couple of picnic tables so it was nice to park
the bikes in the shade of one of those and start to get camp set up. Just as we
thought that this camp was going to suck a bit, a guy with a familiar face came
striding across from a nearby caravan saying, is that you Mary? We couldn’t believe
it, it was Kim and Lyndell Oates from McLaren Flat who we knew from the footy
club and CFS and good friends of our dearest friend Pammy. It was so nice when
they offered us a nice icy cold drink, which turned into a dinner invitation
that we just couldn’t refuse. We had a really lovely evening with Kim and Lyndell,
they cooked us a beautiful meal, and kept supplying the nice cold drinks. We had
some great conversations while sitting outside under one of the most beautiful
starry skies we have ever seen. This camp was the best, and we are so grateful
for their hospitality.
25/8/16
ROAD SIDE REST STOP
CORAL BAY ROAD TO CORAL BAY
We awoke early this morning to a beautiful sunrise. In the
far open lands ahead of us we could see and hear 3 Brolgas, and while watching them, another three flew overhead and landed nearby. Such beautiful elegant looking
birds. We were on the bikes before 8am this morning, and headed off with a
slight tail breeze which didn’t seem to last very long. The wind turned into
that annoying side and head wind that seems to zap the energy right out of us.
By 10am the temperature was warming up and the sun getting that bite to it once
again, so a quick stop to put the leg protectors on to stop the sun burn. We
started to see a few large termite mounds scattered over the landscape and
before too much longer there were a lot of them. They are so tall, and to think
that tiny little ants make these huge sculptures it is just amazing.
It was great to see the turnoff to Coral Bay up in the
distance, as this meant a tail wind and hopefully a little downhill as we seemed
to have done a lot of climbing this morning without much glory. We seemed to
put on some pedal power to get to the looming turn, and yep sure enough that
tail wind picked us up and sped us to a nice fast downhill. That was short
lived as the road kept changing directions and threw in a few more climbs just
for the fun of it for the next 10km’s. We could see the blue ocean here and
there, but we were just not quite there.
Once finally in town we could smell the ocean and see the
beautiful bay. Such a pretty and inviting view, simply amazing. We checked
into the caravan park and quickly headed to the café for a nice cold drink.
After quickly setting up camp and a shower, it was off to explore the town. A
lovely stroll down to the beach was the very first thing to do with a paddle in
the beautiful clear blue water. We then went and booked ourselves onto a tour
for tomorrow out to the reef for a day of snorkelling and a swim with the manta
rays. Apparently today has been the best weather they have had here for weeks
and tomorrow is going to be even better. So excited.
26/8/16 – 28/8/16
REST DAYS CORAL BAY
A very early rise so we could have a good brekkie and head
to the dive shop for our 8.15 start to head out to the reef. We were so
excited, the day was looking absolutely amazing. The sun was shining, the
temperature already warm and wind very calm. We arrived at the shop and got all
fitted out with wet suits and flippers. We were with a small group of around 20
people some snorkelling like us, and others diving.
A bus took us out to the mooring of our boat for the day, and
we all climbed on and headed out to the reef. It was just a magical day. On our
first snorkel we saw some awesome formations of coral and lots of fish all
different types, colours and sizes. Our next activity was to check out some of
the wildlife and we saw so much. Lots of large green turtles who were popping
their heads up on the surface for air and swimming all around. Then we spotted
a tiger shark, actually there were 3 tiger sharks. How cool was that, we
actually saw tiger sharks. They were just calmly swimming around minding their
own business taking no notice of us. The dive photographer got dropped in close to one of the tigers and he was able to take some pretty cool shots. These
sharks are really well fed in these waters and just not interested in humans at
all, they are doing their job of cleaning up the ocean floor. This tiger didn’t
even look twice at the dive guy taking photos.
Next we saw a dugong. She was beautiful and popping her head
above the water to breathe as she quietly moved along. Such shy guys, so we were really
privileged to have been able to spot her. Then we came to a thrilling activity.
A manta ray had been found, so in small groups we were dropped into the water ahead of her path. As she swam past us, we were able to swim along with her. As she approached, she
swam straight under us and we were able to keep up with her for a while. On our
next drop, she did a complete barrel roll so we were able to clearly see her under belly. Such an amazing sight. Our third and final drop she
was in full flight, really hiking it along. Dave kept up so well with her that
the tour guy couldn’t believe how fast Dave swam, lol.
After a great lunch that was provided by the tour, we
ventured out onto the final snorkel. Here we snorkelled out to the cleaning
station. This is the area that the reef sharks go to get cleaned by these
amazing little wrasse. As we approached there was one grey reef shark that was
being thoroughly cleaned by the little fish. He even opened up his mouth, and
they hopped in and gave his mouth a good clean, and then they happily swam out
and continued to clean the rest of him. Shortly after he was joined by 2 other
grey reef sharks, so we just floated and watched the three of them swimming slowly
around the coral, being cleaned. As we moved on through the coral, we came very
close to a big green turtle that was quite happy with us passing by, as he just
kept nibbling away at the coral having a really good feast.
On our way back to shore we were greeted by a dolphin and
her calf. They happily played with the boat and we got some really great views
of the baby. We also spotted an sting ray on the way back and a large eagle ray.
The reef is just so full of life and we were really lucky today, to be able to
see as much as we did on such a beautiful sunny day.
The next two days we just hung out and rested. We had some
lovely walks along the beaches and did a little bit of sun baking to try and get
rid of the bike tan. The weather was a bit cooler and a bit cloudy with a
little bit of wind so we didn’t venture back into the water and just had a
great, well deserved rest up.
29/8/16
CORAL BAY TO BULLARA STATION
It was a bit sad to leave Coral Bay, it is such a beautiful, relaxing place to just chill out. We did however need to move on, and actually
felt well rested and ready to get back on the bikes. We got up early, packed
up, had a simple breakfast and headed off with one quick stop at the shop for a
couple of last minute items to stock the food bag and grab some fresh bread
from the bakery. It was then a 12km ride out to the highway with a side wind.
Our legs felt very fresh so the wind really didn’t worry us at all. As we
turned left onto the highway there she was, our beloved tail wind. Woop woop
she pushed us along really nicely hitting speeds of 30+ at times. By 11.30 we
had already ridden 65km’s which was just simply awesome going. Our turnoff onto
Burkett Road soon came up and we copped just a little side wind and a few small hills for the 5km’s along this road before turning into Bullara Station. We
were very warmly greeted at the office by Edwina, and then shown around by John
in the camping area, who found us a lovely protected spot in some nice cool
shade. The camp kitchen is really rustic and unique as is the outdoor shower.
We made friends with one of the friendly sheep who then
proceeded to attack our loaf of bread we had left on the kitchen table, trying
her hardest to open it. The bread had to be rescued and put away in a more
secure spot like the inside of our tent. She followed me over to the tent
hoping to get a treat or was she just watching where I was hiding it!! John got
a pit fire going for a damper treat that he makes around the camp fire at about
5pm. While we waited for the damper to be cooked we went for little walk around
the property. The station has 1600 head of cattle, no sheep anymore, only a few
pets and a few station horses and a couple of kids ponies. 
People suddenly arrived at the camp kitchen like flies as
John was removing his damper from the camp ovens. Some friendly chatter got
going while waiting for it to cool off enough and there was even a guitar and
some singing by one of the Ladies staying there and her 10 year old daughter
Lilly, it was a great atmosphere. The damper was stunning with a slap of butter
on it, we just about could have headed off to bed on that alone. Another
terrific place to stay, and we even got the recipe.
30/8/16
BULLARA STATION TO BURKETT ROAD 24hr ROADSIDE REST AREA
Well, we had an eventful morning. We knew we had head winds
until lunchtime, when they would turn and become tail winds, so we were a bit
slow getting going. We had the usual chats with friendly people and slowly
packed up. The station office had a coffee machine, so of course on our way out
we had to give that a go, it was very good too.
So then we had photos at the Homestead paddock gate and then
started rolling out the dirt road as one of the station horses was grazing in
the outer paddock and getting a bit upset about not being out with his mates in
the main paddock. He went tearing down the road, but we weren’t too worried as
there was a cattle grid at the end, before the main road. Well of course as we followed
him out, he kept going, eventually jumping the cattle grid and out onto the
main road. We thought we would call the station to let them know, but of
course, no phone signal. We followed down the road for a short while but
realised that one of us was going to have to ride the three k’s back to the
homestead to let them know.
So, off I went. By the time I got back, Mary had caught him,
as he had decided that it would be fun to stand in the middle of the road with
the road trains, bloody horses!! We
waited quite a while for the owners to come out and were getting a bit anxious
to get moving, so we decided to let him in through an unlocked gate that was
the paddock that the other horses were in. Then the owners turned up, oh well. 
Off we finally went, into the wind and getting quite warm.
It was quite a pleasant road to ride, lots of changing country and occasional
glimpses of the bottom of the Exmouth Gulf which then turned into open grazing, and further still, back into red sand hills. We rode past an area that had been
burnt by a fire and with all the new growth on trees and new shoots on plants
we spotted our very first Sturt’s Desert Peas. Wow what a brilliant red colour
they were. By this time, the wind had
changed and we were making better time, but we decided that we would make it
only as far as the intersection with the North West Coast Road and camp
somewhere around there. It was getting pretty warm. We finally turned North
again and spotted a 24hr roadside camp with a few caravans there and what
looked like a shelter. A couple of caravaners had claimed spots right in front of the
shelter, so we just rode in there letting them know that we needed the shade
and hope you don’t mind if we share. We decided to put the tent up in there and
made camp with the wind howling through. While we were having a coffee, we
realised that it was actually a shelter for a bus transfer station, and that sometimes the bus picks
people up from there at 2am. Oh well, camp we did, in one of the worst places of
the trip, but it also made us laugh pretty hard. Not much sleep was had.
31/8/16
BURKETT ROAD 24hr ROADSIDE REST AREA TO NANUTARRA ROADHOUSE
After a pretty noisy night with lots of trucks screaming
past, our neighbours snoring their heads off, other cars driving in in the
middle of the night and the moment when I thought a bus had actually stopped
and let people out, that actually turned out to be just a truck that had stopped
for a few minutes, we really didn’t get much sleep. It was quite a warm night so
the sleeping bag seemed to go on and off all night long. It was actually nice
to see the light of the morning so we could get up, pack up and ride away from
the 24 hour (NO) rest stop.
The morning was beautiful, cloud cover, cool, just a slight
breeze and the traffic pretty light. About 10k’s down the road, the road works
started. Lots of work being done on this section of the road. This really didn’t
bother us at all as it actually slowed the traffic down, even the trucks. We got
stopped twice and had to wait for the road to clear but we chatted with the
traffic control guys and they were really happy and friendly. On some parts of
the road, we found it easier to ride the newly formed dirt as it seemed to be
quite a fast surface and this kept us away from traffic on pretty narrow
sections. It would have been at least 30km’s of road works that we had to
negotiate, and I found it quite an interesting section to ride.
Just as the roadworks finished we came up to the rest stop
at Barradale, and here we found the Burger Bus. We have heard about this bus
from many people all saying we have to stop and have a feed here. There used to
be a roadhouse here, but that closed down and now the loveliest lady from Emu
Springs Station has set up a bus where she cooks freshly made hamburgers,
toasted sandwiches, chips, cakes, coffee etc… and the food is fantastic. Such a
happy friendly lady that works out of the bus every day from 7am to 3pm. This
bus is a side shoot of the station, something that helps the station keep going
especially through the hard times. A lot of the stations have had to look for
alternative incomes and this is just one of them. They also do station stays at
Emu Springs, as do quite a lot of the stations now. So we sat and ate our early
lunch and thoroughly enjoyed it and chatted and laughed with the bus lady out there in the middle of nowhere. 
Back on to the road we ventured, pedaled and pedaled, clicking
over the k’s with a nice light tail wind behind us. After a couple of hours we
stopped for a little break and found a nice little quiet spot in the bush to
have a cuppa and a bite to eat. Here we sat down in the red sand surrounded by
all sorts of different plant life and just enjoyed the time away from the busy
road.
We got into Nanutarra Roadhouse at around 2.30pm making
pretty good time. We sat and had a drink in the roadhouse before putting up our
tent on some nice green lawn out the back. We were hoping to have a pretty good
sleep tonight, but are a bit unsure if that is going to happen as a group of
backpackers have just turned up and they are all pretty chatty. Mind you it is
only 8pm so there is still hope for an early quiet night, fingers crossed.
1/9/16
NANUTARRA ROADHOUSE TO ROBE RIVER 24 HOUR ROAD STOP
We had a pretty sound sleep last night and our early alarm
went off at 5am with the group of back packers being told it was time to wake up and pack up. A few of them were sleeping in swags on the nice green
lawn near us. Their bus left just after 6am so we rested up for another half an
hour before starting our day.
Just as we were having our breakfast, we chatted with a lovely
couple who were heading home from Broome to the Riverland. They have had such
an awesome time travelling and shared a few good spots they have camped at with
us. We in return, told them about the couple of stations we have stayed at, and
they decided to head that way. It’s so good to be able to share experiences
with other travellers.
We got on the bikes just after 8am and our day started with
a slight tail breeze, sunshine and a good road surface. We hooked along for a
couple of hours before stopping for our second breakfast. We rode into a rest
stop and were greeted by a lovely couple from Albany, who made us a nice cup of
coffee and filled us up with biscuits. Such generosity, that always puts a smile
on our faces.
The landscape today was forever changing, with red sand
dunes, small mountains popping up out of nowhere, and beautiful ranges made from
iron ore boulders. Wildflowers were appearing everywhere, as were lots of new
healthy looking trees and shrubs. We pulled into a dry creek bed today for lunch
which was a very good choice of location. It was off the road away from the
traffic and we had beautiful cool shade from a few lovely river gums. Just
sitting in the shade of these trees immediately made you feel cooler and we
found a couple of nice rocks to chill out on as we ate our vegemite sandwiches.
As we had a slight tail breeze today, we decided to put the
k’s in as tomorrow looks like the winds will change and be in our face. We
clicked up just under 120km’s before coming to Robe River where there was a 24
hour road stop. We found a little spot down the end of the camping area
overlooking the dry river bed. We scored flat ground, a table, and some shade, so we considered it a pretty good spot to camp. There were a dozen or so caravans in
here tonight but it is very quiet, I think the mozzies have chased everyone
inside into their little homes.
2/9/16
ROBE RIVER 24 HOUR
ROAD STOP TO SPOTWELL CREEK BUSH CAMP
We were on the bikes and out of camp just after 7.30am this
morning. We really didn’t want to stick around too long as we knew the pesky
little black ants would be all over us in no time. On the way out we got chatting to a lovely old guy who was travelling with his kids who decided to take the
old fella on an adventure down the Canning Stock Route. He was pretty excited
about his journey and not long after we left, they drove past us and there was a
fair bit of toot toot on the horn.
We rode into Fortescue River Roadhouse feeling pretty hot
and sweaty, and really weren’t sure if we would stay here for the night or if we
would continue. We decided to go in, sit down in the cool, have lunch and a
cool refreshing drink or two and make a decision after that. Our lunch was
pretty good, the cool drinks went down a treat and the ice cream just made
everything good again. Considering it was only just after 1pm and our
refreshment stop was a good pick me up, we decided to continue riding and just
see how far we got without putting on any pressure. After 20k’s or so we realised it wasn’t going
to be too hard to set our distance and make it to Spotwell Creek.
We started to ride through an area with a lot of mines in
action. All mining for iron ore. We had a lot of mining cars pass us, and a lot
of buses taking guys to and from all the different mine sites. Before we got to
Spotwell Creek, we had to ride over a very large bridge that had a wide dirt
road underneath it. It was used for the mine. There wasn’t any more truck
traffic on the highway so we were guessing the ore is moved by train. When we
got to Spotwell Creek, we had to negotiate a bit of bush to get close to
the creek to find a camp site. There was only a small pool of water in the
creek and lots of long grass. We very carefully, while looking out for slithery
friends, found a flatish spot for the tent. We set up camp, had a cuppa, ate a
very simple dinner and hit the sack early. Once the night settled, we could hear a train in the distance. This train was picking up all the iron ore from the
mine that we had passed earlier. We could hear it chugging along for quite a
long time.
3/9/16
SPOTWELL CREEK BUSH CAMP TO MIAREE POOL
We can’t believe the time we awoke this morning. We both had
a pretty light sleep but as the sun came up, we both fell into a very deep sleep
and didn’t wake up until well after 7am. Not what we had planned as it was
going to be a hot day and we really wanted to be out on the road early. It was
close to 8.15 by the time we got packed up and had breakfast, and already it
was feeling pretty warm. The wind was everywhere today, a little on the side,
then a little in our face, a little behind and just everywhere. The landscape
was pretty amazing today, changing all the time and the colour of deep red was
really starting to appear. We rode through some flat areas of open Savannah
plains that then turned into plains of spinifex. Occasionally we could see the
ocean, which surprised us as we didn’t think we would be that close.
As we were travelling along about 20ks into the day, we could
see a bike rider in the distance so we stopped to have a chat with this guy.
This guy was Joe, he was the riding partner of the guy we met before in
Nanutarra. They had become split up due to a mechanical problem, and it seems
as though it was going to be a solo ride from then on, for both of them. Joe
seemed pretty chilled out and filled us in on the camp site ahead, letting us
know that it really was worth stopping there tonight. We wished him well, and
headed off through gently rolling country until we reached the Miaree Pools
Camp Site some 20 ks later.
This was one of the Pilbara “Welcome Camps” and as a result
had a shelter and composting loo out the back. But the real treat was the
river. While not flowing, it was a very large pool, probably 3ks long and at
least 100metres wide with heaps of bird life including swans, ospreys, egrets
and numerous other small birds. There was also a lot of fish life in the water.
We had a chat with some people who had been there for a few days and they
assured us there were no Crocodiles there, so we set up camp and went for a
very refreshing swim, which turned into being offered some cool drinks by a
couple of fellas, which turned into a pre-dinner nibbles invite from another
caravaner, which then turned into a dinner invite by another couple. This means
we have to tell our story quite a few times, but we loved the hospitality, and
really enjoyed chatting with some pretty interesting people once again. It was
an awesome afternoon and evening spent in an awesome location under a beautiful
sky once again.
4/9/16
MIAREE POOLS TO KARRATHA
We had an awesome sleep, serenaded by the all night birds
again. We woke up quite early but it was such a nice place, we struggled to get
going. We paid the price for this, as the wind came up a soon as we left around
9am and didn’t give up the whole way to Karratha. This was probably the worst
head wind we have had to date, but we had to push on. Luckily there is an old
roadhouse at the turn off to Karratha about halfway along, so we had a rest and
a cool drink sitting on the shaded concrete at the front of the roadhouse
before finishing the last 15ks. We must have looked pretty homeless. There are
no real accommodation options in Karratha that let you be close to the city
centre. So we stayed at the Pilbara Holiday Park, which is about 5ks out of town, but is really very nice and quite quiet, despite the size of the park. We got
set up, had a shower and called a taxi to take us into town. We asked the
driver for advice on a cool spot for lunch and he dropped us off at Blanche Bar
for Father’s Day lunch. We had great Tapas and a couple of Beers, and a very
good coffee to finish. To top it off, we had a call from Lauren, who is in
Turkey at the moment, and later with Evan and Ruby. So despite the crappy wind
while riding, the day still turned out awesome. It always does.
5/9/16
REST DAY IN KARRATHA
We had a bit of a sleep in before having our breakfast in
camp. We were discussing the things we had to do today, which centred around
needing to pick up Mary’s new tyre from the post office. A Lady staying in the
park came and introduced herself (Janette), who upon asking if we were
travelling on those bikes, promptly offered us her spare car for the day. We
were gobsmacked, but gratefully agreed as we knew that this was going to make
things much easier for us as the day was starting to heat up already. So we
headed off for town, got the tyre and sent home a few kilos of clothes we
didn’t need any more. We went to a service station and used the compressor to
put the new tyre on Mary’s rear wheel, which seated and held really easily, so
that was another job done. So we went and had another coffee and caught up with
a few things (facebook) and then went to the supermarket to get our supplies.
We dropped them back to the park and Janette was insistent that we continue to
use the car and go and have a look around. So we drove out to Dampier, which we
instantly fell in love with. While still quite industrial, with the port etc,
it is a really nice place and had a great beach that we went for a long walk
on. The beach had bush growing right
down to it, with even some Sturt’s Desert Peas at the high tide mark. Even the
local Cockatoos (white corellas) were that dusty red which covers everything in
the Pilbara. Even the jelly fish washed up on the beach were red, weird.
And so we headed back, thanking Janette for her amazing gift
and proceeded to get our stuff organised for a big fast push on to Port Hedland
starting in the morning with the promise of favorable winds, yay.
Despite the flatness of this country, there always seems to
be something to look at and occupy our time. You get lots of hills, not unlike
Eyre’s Rock, that just rise out of the plane. We made good time to Roebourne
where we pulled up outside a community run café and general store. This was a really
nice surprise, the lovely girls running the café really looked after us and
while we were outside the local cops stopped to chat, and were so impressed by
our adventure that they featured us as their community twitter story of the
day. Nice people.
We had to move on as the temperature was climbing. Ride we
must. The tail wind really kicked in around now so we were making very good
time. Then the road slowly veered around to the North for our last 20ks which gave
us a gusting side wind which started to make things difficult. We started to
break the ride down into short 5k stints again. This slows things down, but is
a good strategy to keep things moving. The landscape became very interesting
5ks before Whim Creek, with hills that just look like piles of boulders, very
dry, just like us. When we turned into the pub car park, we immediately thought
“this looks cool” and parked our bikes, headed for the bar and a long cool
ginger beer for Mary and an ice cool pint of James Squire 150 lashes for me,
followed up very quickly by another round. Aaaah. 127ks today, a trip record. This
pub has an interesting accommodation system, if you are staying for dinner, you
can camp in the car park for free and have a shower, what a bargain.
We had a nice meal and had a great chat with the bar manager
after that, before being offered by the manager to go upstairs to the Gallery
which occupies the whole top floor. Here they showcase winning art from the
annual Cossack art festival, which is mostly stunning local aboriginal art
works. Aren’t we lucky to have such great offers like that.
An interesting evening was had in the tent. It started out
very windy, which is ok. Then around 3am the wind dropped and the smell
started. At first I thought it was me, but no, I had a shower before bed? Then,
really it was smelling like treated sewerage. I looked outside to make sure
nothing was overflowing in the car park, nope, but it did smell marginally
better outside the tent. We put up with it, but got up at first light and
packed up, it still smelled bad. We worked out that they drip their treated
sewerage through the lawns and gardens around the area we were camped, and as
soon as the wind had dropped, the smell wasn’t being blown away but trapped
inside our tent fly. Disgusting right? We weren’t going to eat breakfast there,
so we took the bikes into the pub’s beer garden and used one of their tables,
much better.
We rode out just after 7 and started the 110ks to Port
Hedland. It was going to be another warm one, get used to it. Our legs felt
recovered from yesterday and we slowly increased the pace as we warmed up. We
were aware of the potential for a tough last 30ks, not due to wind or heat, but
at this point the North West Coastal Highway, meets up with the Great North
Highway. At the moment one of the large mining companies is in dispute with the
other major companies that control the train line system, so they are carting
their iron ore into Port with massive four trailer road trains. A friend of
ours Tim had been driving for them for a while and warned us to expect at least
one road train a minute each way, and this didn’t include the already busy
truck load coming and going form further south on this road. As it turned out,
it wasn’t too bad, as there were quite a few sections of roadworks happening,
which was slowing the trucks down, as well as causing them to come through in
blocks, so we could just get off the road when they were coming. We still had a
few anxious moments as we had a few narrow bridges to get over, which weren’t
fun at all with the massive trucks coming up behind us, and they don’t slow
down for anyone. Our strategy was to just talk to each other heaps, go fast as
we could when trapped in a narrow section, and get the hell out of the way at
all other times.
So our day consisted of just pottering around in our donga
having breakfast, catching up on a few things on the computer and then heading
into town for some lunch and a quick shop. We heard from our friend Tim who has
just started a new job based out of South Hedland and he flew in this
The DeGrey’s River was a dry river bed with only a couple of
large pools still existing near the bank of the river. As we rode over the
bridge, one of the pools, though very narrow did look quite deep in one section
of it. We followed the well used track down to the river bed and worked our way along it and
picked out a nice shady spot to put up our tent. We were feeling really hot and
were very excited to open up our paniers and retrieve the hidden beer and solo
that was tucked away safely and kept cool by two frozen fruit boxes. What an
absolute life saver, we slammed those drinks down hard. As the afternoon
progressed it seemed to be getting hotter and hotter and we were really feeling
the heat even in the shade. Dave crashed out in the tent and I just wondered
down to the stagnant pool of water and found a little spot that was clear of
weed and soaked my feet in the coolness of the water. The water itself looked
really clean and there were dozens of fluoro blue dragon flies flying around
and landing on the surface. Some bloke walked up to fetch a bucket of water, and
was telling me that there were bull sharks in the pools. Really!! Apparently he
has a photo of three of them and said that they swim up the river and get stuck in the
pools when the river dries out. I really didn’t believe him, but he didn’t seem
to be joking. I just continued to soak my hot feet in the crystal clear cool
water. Apparently after I left there was a huge splash from the pool, so was it
a bull shark??
We got a great early start from Pardoo Roadhouse, about 5:50
am, we met Tekay, one of the owners on the way out, he was just opening up
after having worked till 1am. It’s a tough life running a roadhouse, but this
group of friends are doing a great job here, I am sure they will do well. The
sun began to rise as we started to tick off some kilometres, the road was very
quiet, awesome. There wasn’t a breath of wind, which allowed us to cruise
through some slight undulating country at a 20km/h average with Mary out in
front as she likes to do in the morning. We had cold water bottles this morning
thanks to Kevin, so it was really nice until about 10am when everything just
became warm again. 
The promised tail wind didn’t turn up really until the 93km
mark where we turned left into the access track for Eighty Mile Beach. This
road is about 9kms long and a reasonably well kept dirt surface, a few
corrugations but pretty fast. Unfortunately, the wind became strong on our side
which slowed us down, but we could start to feel the air conditioning effect as
it was coming off the ocean. As we arrived we crested a small rise that revealed
the most inviting turquoise ocean that we have ever seen. Our aching muscles
gave a sigh of relief at this sight as they knew it was time for some therapy.
We booked into the campground for two nights and set up our
tent on a beautiful stretch of lawn, with just a low row of sand hills between
us and the beach. We went for a look at the beach and couldn’t believe our
eyes, the scale is amazing. A seemingly endless expanse of sand in both
directions, vast swales of sea shells, swirling sea birds of many descriptions
and a few fishermen and four wheel drives on the beach.
One of the things I (David) have been struggling with on
this leg of the trip has been the lack of motivation to get the camera out, or
am I just becoming picky about my subjects? Either way, I don’t feel that I
have done the Pilbara and now, the Kimberley, photographic justice. I am sure
there will be some good shots, enough for the blog, but in my mind, not good
enough. And then we got out of bed and hit the beach before sunrise and
everything changed. What a spectacular morning. The beach runs almost East to
West, which means that the sun rises behind the sand hills to the right and
sets just off the beach on the left. Due to the shallow waters there are a
myriad of opportunities for reflection shots and a lot of potential subjects. I
hope I captured it well.
It was a fantastic time to be out on the beach, only one or
two other people and a lonely fisherman. Such an invigorating way start to the
day watching the sun arrive and light up the beach. It fills your body and soul
with energy, clears your mind, allowing you space for a meditative walk and
awakens you to the new day ahead. 
We did a bit of bike maintenance and set ourselves up for a
relaxing few days off. We were offered a lot of hospitality from some awesome
people we met up with in the park. Terry and Grace, who we had met back at
Karratha had promised us fish and chips once we got to 80 Mile. We couldn’t
believe it, they actually did mean they would catch a fish, and cook us fish and
chips and this is exactly what they did, it was just awesome. We had another
lovely couple join us for dinner who made an amazing salad and chocolate cake
for dessert. We all sat outside and enjoyed a beautiful meal and really lovely
evening. Grace is the loveliest of ladies, the next day she packed us a small bag
of veggies to help us out.
With the usual lack of wind from any direction in the early
morning, we made good time to Sandfire and sat down to have a roadhouse meal and
discuss the plan for the rest of the day. The initial idea was that we would
stay at Sandfire and then break the ride to Barn Hill into two days. But as it
was only 9:30, we decided that would be a waste of a day, and we were feeling
good. So we had a good break here, and then kicked on around 11am and decided
that any distance we got today would help in the ensuing days.
We were back on the road around 4pm and were feeling a fair
bit cooler as we rode another 20k’s before we started looking for a spot to
camp. We noticed a small station access track going off on the left and headed
down there. It ended at a locked gate, so we headed along the fence line and
found a nice flat spot to make camp. We decided to just have the tent inner up
as the sun was already setting and this would maximise our airflow during the
night as it was still quite hot. The nearly full moon rose and made everything
very light throughout the whole night.
We headed off again around 3:30pm to do the last 38k’s. About
20k’s in we started to hit the wall quite badly. We had reached the limits of
our food, it’s not that we didn’t have any, but what is available up here is
severely nutritionally challenged. Very poor quality carbs, nothing fresh. We
were really starting to feel the effects. For the first time in 7000k’s we felt
the need to take an energy gel. Bad shit, and to be honest, I don’t think it
helped at all. Oh well, at least we weren’t carrying those little suckers any
more.
Finally, we turned left onto the dirt access track into Barn
Hill Outstation. The bikes loved this road, real fat bike country. Larry and
Priscilla laughed wickedly as they floated over the bike tracks of some skinny
tyred bike, that had been having real trouble in the bulldust the day before.
18/9/16
The beach was calling us. We checked with a lovely couple,
Chris and Jenny, who stay here for most of the dry season and they suggested a
cool swimming spot down on the beach. We descended a “goat track” access to the
beach and were blown away by the scenery here.
There were incredible geological formations, bright white sand and a
beautiful azure blue sea, gently lapping against the beach. The beach was a
fair bit steeper here than Eighty Mile, so the swimming conditions were
awesome, and the water a little bit cooler. We even saw a turtle cruising along
parallel to the beach. It was so refreshing, but ultimately the sun beat us
back to the camp ground shade as the temperature began to soar. We have found
that we can’t afford to get too much sun on a rest day and expect to ride well
the day after.
We sorted out our camping bill and had a cool drink and an
ice cream. We met up with Phil and Tricia who we have met a few times up the
coast. These guys have passed us a few times on the road and always stop to say
hello and check to see how things are going and if we are all ok for water etc. 
Chris and Jenny invited us over to their bus for a coffee,
so we sat over with them under the shade of their awning and chatted about our
lifestyles and how we all ended up doing what we are doing. It’s amazing how
similar our backgrounds are, as well as the choices we have made in order to
escape the rat race. Here we spotted Humpback whales in the distance, breaching,
splashing and putting on a long show for us. How awesome sitting on the red
sandstone cliff top overlooking the brilliant blue ocean with a view of whales
playing and enjoying the warm northern waters. 
We caught up again with Phil and Tricia later in the
afternoon and they invited us to stay for dinner. This was a really lovely
treat as we were a little low in supplies. We sat outside and enjoyed a lovely
meal with these guys, a few drinks, coffee and great conversation. The evening
was quite warm, so it was really lovely sitting outside watching the sunset as
we ate dinner. We are looking forward to catching up with these guys again once
we hit Broome.
A quick burst of reality occurred as we had to drag another
dead kangaroo carcass off the road to try to stop the eagles from getting hit
while feeding on it. A bit sad.
With lunch and beers at
Matso's to continue our celebrations, we then found our way to our luxury
accommodation where there was a real bed, private outdoor shower and garden with an actual flushing loo waiting for us. Time now for a pause in our cycle touring
journey. We are staying here in Broome in a beautiful Airbnb studio for nearly
two weeks for a little R&R and time to get our head around and start
planning the next stage of our cycle touring adventure.
6/9/16
KARRATHA TO WHIM CREEK
We got up early to beat the heat, only to be faced with
drama as our food and drinks had been stolen from the camp kitchen again.
Luckily we didn’t have much in there, but it meant we had to just have toast
and coffee, instead of our planned fruit salad and eggs. Oh well, move on.
Despite there being a big day ahead, we had a good feeling about it as we were
expecting to have good tail winds for most of the day. We negotiated our way
through the morning Karratha traffic and got back out to Highway 1 and turned
East towards Roebourne.
Despite the flatness of this country, there always seems to
be something to look at and occupy our time. You get lots of hills, not unlike
Eyre’s Rock, that just rise out of the plane. We made good time to Roebourne
where we pulled up outside a community run café and general store. This was a really
nice surprise, the lovely girls running the café really looked after us and
while we were outside the local cops stopped to chat, and were so impressed by
our adventure that they featured us as their community twitter story of the
day. Nice people.
We had to move on as the temperature was climbing. Ride we
must. The tail wind really kicked in around now so we were making very good
time. Then the road slowly veered around to the North for our last 20ks which gave
us a gusting side wind which started to make things difficult. We started to
break the ride down into short 5k stints again. This slows things down, but is
a good strategy to keep things moving. The landscape became very interesting
5ks before Whim Creek, with hills that just look like piles of boulders, very
dry, just like us. When we turned into the pub car park, we immediately thought
“this looks cool” and parked our bikes, headed for the bar and a long cool
ginger beer for Mary and an ice cool pint of James Squire 150 lashes for me,
followed up very quickly by another round. Aaaah. 127ks today, a trip record. This
pub has an interesting accommodation system, if you are staying for dinner, you
can camp in the car park for free and have a shower, what a bargain.
We had a nice meal and had a great chat with the bar manager
after that, before being offered by the manager to go upstairs to the Gallery
which occupies the whole top floor. Here they showcase winning art from the
annual Cossack art festival, which is mostly stunning local aboriginal art
works. Aren’t we lucky to have such great offers like that.
7/9/16
WHIM CREEK TO SOUTH HEDLAND
An interesting evening was had in the tent. It started out
very windy, which is ok. Then around 3am the wind dropped and the smell
started. At first I thought it was me, but no, I had a shower before bed? Then,
really it was smelling like treated sewerage. I looked outside to make sure
nothing was overflowing in the car park, nope, but it did smell marginally
better outside the tent. We put up with it, but got up at first light and
packed up, it still smelled bad. We worked out that they drip their treated
sewerage through the lawns and gardens around the area we were camped, and as
soon as the wind had dropped, the smell wasn’t being blown away but trapped
inside our tent fly. Disgusting right? We weren’t going to eat breakfast there,
so we took the bikes into the pub’s beer garden and used one of their tables,
much better.
We rode out just after 7 and started the 110ks to Port
Hedland. It was going to be another warm one, get used to it. Our legs felt
recovered from yesterday and we slowly increased the pace as we warmed up. We
were aware of the potential for a tough last 30ks, not due to wind or heat, but
at this point the North West Coastal Highway, meets up with the Great North
Highway. At the moment one of the large mining companies is in dispute with the
other major companies that control the train line system, so they are carting
their iron ore into Port with massive four trailer road trains. A friend of
ours Tim had been driving for them for a while and warned us to expect at least
one road train a minute each way, and this didn’t include the already busy
truck load coming and going form further south on this road. As it turned out,
it wasn’t too bad, as there were quite a few sections of roadworks happening,
which was slowing the trucks down, as well as causing them to come through in
blocks, so we could just get off the road when they were coming. We still had a
few anxious moments as we had a few narrow bridges to get over, which weren’t
fun at all with the massive trucks coming up behind us, and they don’t slow
down for anyone. Our strategy was to just talk to each other heaps, go fast as
we could when trapped in a narrow section, and get the hell out of the way at
all other times.
Coming into Hedland brought back some bad memories, as I had
worked up here for a few months on a contract we had a few years ago. Let’s
just say that this town hadn’t left a good impression on me. On approach, it
didn’t look like anything had changed.
We booked into a cabin at the black rock tourist park so that we could
hide our bikes inside. This place had a bad reputation for thievery. This was
not a cabin of the traditional style that you would imagine in a Caravan Park.
It is just rows of working camp Dongas in a dusty gravel yard, noice!!
8/9/16
REST DAY IN SOUTH HEDLAND
I woke up numerous times during the night with the thought
that we should pull a rest day. Yep have a day off in Hedland. I could feel
that I wasn’t recovering from the ride yesterday, and that maybe the past few
days had taken a lot more out of me than I had realised. I woke Dave up at 4am
and said I think we will stay another day. Dave was thinking exactly the same
thing.
So our day consisted of just pottering around in our donga
having breakfast, catching up on a few things on the computer and then heading
into town for some lunch and a quick shop. We heard from our friend Tim who has
just started a new job based out of South Hedland and he flew in this
9/9/16
SOUTH HEDLAND TO DEGREYS RIVER
We were up before dawn and out on the bikes just as the sun
came up. It was an awesome feeling riding early in the morning as the air still
felt cool and there was very little wind. We clocked up about 40k’s before 8am
and then the wind picked up. The forecast head wind smacked me right in the
face and I really struggled to push through it with any real speed, so I dropped
back and Dave took the front and I hid in his shadow for the rest of the day.
The temperature slowly climbed all morning and it well and
truly reached 35 degrees by 11am. By this time we were breaking the ride into
5k’s at a time and stopping and having a drink of our lovely hot water.
The DeGrey’s River was a dry river bed with only a couple of
large pools still existing near the bank of the river. As we rode over the
bridge, one of the pools, though very narrow did look quite deep in one section
of it. We followed the well used track down to the river bed and worked our way along it and
picked out a nice shady spot to put up our tent. We were feeling really hot and
were very excited to open up our paniers and retrieve the hidden beer and solo
that was tucked away safely and kept cool by two frozen fruit boxes. What an
absolute life saver, we slammed those drinks down hard. As the afternoon
progressed it seemed to be getting hotter and hotter and we were really feeling
the heat even in the shade. Dave crashed out in the tent and I just wondered
down to the stagnant pool of water and found a little spot that was clear of
weed and soaked my feet in the coolness of the water. The water itself looked
really clean and there were dozens of fluoro blue dragon flies flying around
and landing on the surface. Some bloke walked up to fetch a bucket of water, and
was telling me that there were bull sharks in the pools. Really!! Apparently he
has a photo of three of them and said that they swim up the river and get stuck in the
pools when the river dries out. I really didn’t believe him, but he didn’t seem
to be joking. I just continued to soak my hot feet in the crystal clear cool
water. Apparently after I left there was a huge splash from the pool, so was it
a bull shark??
We met a lovely couple from New Zealand that are travelling
around Australia in a motor home and they invited us over to their camp for a
coffee. It’s amazing how a hot drink actually picks you up when you are feeling
hot. I have never understood how this works. So we sat outside at their camp
drinking coffee and having a great chat. Some beers and cold juice then came
out which we really enjoyed. By this time it was starting to get dark, so we
thanked them very much for the refreshments and headed back to our tent where
we just had toast for dinner and hit the sack very early.
10/9/16
DEGREYS RIVER TO PARDOO ROADHOUSE
Larry was in the bad books this morning. He had a rear flatty.
How could you do this to us Larry, when we had got up at 4.45am to get an early
start to beat the heat and you decide to chuck a wobbly. So with quick thinking
and no time mucking around, Dave put a tube in the tubeless tyre. We packed up
camp and rode back onto the bitumen at 6.30am. Again it was a nice cool start
with very little wind, we just settled into a good rhythm and rode 40k’s before
8am. The wind seemed to be all over the place this morning, but we still seemed
to make pretty good time.
We arrived at Pardoo Roadhouse around 11:30am and headed
straight into the shop for a cold drink and one of their famous sausage rolls
for Dave, and a really nice toasted sandwich for toasted Mary.
A really nice Indian guy was serving and directed us to the
campground and to introduce ourselves to Kevin, he would show us a good place
to camp. Kevin introduced himself and we a had a good chat before he showed us
to a great lawned spot under a very shady tree where we could camp, he even
arranged a couple of chairs for us to sit on.
As the afternoon wore on, Kevin turned up for another chat
and then kindly offered for us to come to his van for dinner, have whatever you
want. We graciously accepted and once again we were well fed and watered. Kevin
is a great guy and shared some of his brother’s bush poetry with us, which is
really very good, and well recited by him in a very appropriate setting. He also
told us some fantastic stories about his own life growing up, and as a stockman
working in all sorts of remote areas around the North of Australia. And of
course we had to have a tour of his amazingly well set up Toyota Ute, this is
the ultimate outback touring set up, with everything very well thought out and
designed by Kevin himself, with plenty of fridge space of course. We had a
great evening, thanks again for the hospitality and the great stories Kev,
Cheers.
11/9/16
PARDOO ROADHOUSE TO 80 MILE BEACH
We got a great early start from Pardoo Roadhouse, about 5:50
am, we met Tekay, one of the owners on the way out, he was just opening up
after having worked till 1am. It’s a tough life running a roadhouse, but this
group of friends are doing a great job here, I am sure they will do well. The
sun began to rise as we started to tick off some kilometres, the road was very
quiet, awesome. There wasn’t a breath of wind, which allowed us to cruise
through some slight undulating country at a 20km/h average with Mary out in
front as she likes to do in the morning. We had cold water bottles this morning
thanks to Kevin, so it was really nice until about 10am when everything just
became warm again. 
The promised tail wind didn’t turn up really until the 93km
mark where we turned left into the access track for Eighty Mile Beach. This
road is about 9kms long and a reasonably well kept dirt surface, a few
corrugations but pretty fast. Unfortunately, the wind became strong on our side
which slowed us down, but we could start to feel the air conditioning effect as
it was coming off the ocean. As we arrived we crested a small rise that revealed
the most inviting turquoise ocean that we have ever seen. Our aching muscles
gave a sigh of relief at this sight as they knew it was time for some therapy.
We booked into the campground for two nights and set up our
tent on a beautiful stretch of lawn, with just a low row of sand hills between
us and the beach. We went for a look at the beach and couldn’t believe our
eyes, the scale is amazing. A seemingly endless expanse of sand in both
directions, vast swales of sea shells, swirling sea birds of many descriptions
and a few fishermen and four wheel drives on the beach.
We chilled out for the afternoon in the shade and then went
up to the Café for their Sunday Evening weekly roast dinner.
REST DAYS AT EIGHTY MILE BEACH
12 - 15/9/16
One of the things I (David) have been struggling with on
this leg of the trip has been the lack of motivation to get the camera out, or
am I just becoming picky about my subjects? Either way, I don’t feel that I
have done the Pilbara and now, the Kimberley, photographic justice. I am sure
there will be some good shots, enough for the blog, but in my mind, not good
enough. And then we got out of bed and hit the beach before sunrise and
everything changed. What a spectacular morning. The beach runs almost East to
West, which means that the sun rises behind the sand hills to the right and
sets just off the beach on the left. Due to the shallow waters there are a
myriad of opportunities for reflection shots and a lot of potential subjects. I
hope I captured it well.
It was a fantastic time to be out on the beach, only one or
two other people and a lonely fisherman. Such an invigorating way start to the
day watching the sun arrive and light up the beach. It fills your body and soul
with energy, clears your mind, allowing you space for a meditative walk and
awakens you to the new day ahead. 
We did a bit of bike maintenance and set ourselves up for a
relaxing few days off. We were offered a lot of hospitality from some awesome
people we met up with in the park. Terry and Grace, who we had met back at
Karratha had promised us fish and chips once we got to 80 Mile. We couldn’t
believe it, they actually did mean they would catch a fish, and cook us fish and
chips and this is exactly what they did, it was just awesome. We had another
lovely couple join us for dinner who made an amazing salad and chocolate cake
for dessert. We all sat outside and enjoyed a beautiful meal and really lovely
evening. Grace is the loveliest of ladies, the next day she packed us a small bag
of veggies to help us out.
Eighty Mile Beach itself seems a bit of an anachronism. It
is effectively a Marine park with various usage available for beach access and
recreational fishermen depending on the location. The beach is a major nursery
for the Flatback Turtle, and if you read the information available it is stated
as important that four wheel drives don’t drive on the beach above the high
tide mark, as that is where the turtles lay their eggs. In usual western
Australian style, no-one either reads or gives a shit, as they just mow
everything into oblivion with their vehicles, as far as the eye can see. And
not a ranger in sight to regulate or educate.
With beautiful mornings watching the sunrise, relaxing days
lying on the beach, lots of walking along the waters edge, dips in the warm
water and amazing evening sunsets really chilled us out and gave the rest we
needed to continue on our journey to Broome. Only 5 more riding days to go
before we get to our destination. We are feeling it is really close now, just
down the road, not too far to go at all.
16/9/16
80 MILE BEACH TO BUSH CAMP
We headed out early again, just before sunrise. 9ks of dirt
road had the bikes feeling happy, we saw lots of small kangaroos on the way out
and we marvelled at the variety of small animal tracks we were seeing in the
sandy track. We got out to the main road and turned North West again towards
Sandfire Roadhouse.
With the usual lack of wind from any direction in the early
morning, we made good time to Sandfire and sat down to have a roadhouse meal and
discuss the plan for the rest of the day. The initial idea was that we would
stay at Sandfire and then break the ride to Barn Hill into two days. But as it
was only 9:30, we decided that would be a waste of a day, and we were feeling
good. So we had a good break here, and then kicked on around 11am and decided
that any distance we got today would help in the ensuing days.
Around 2pm we decided
that it was a bit hot and made the call to find some shade for a couple of
hours, eat, and then head on for another 20k’s or so before we made camp.
Finding shade however, is not an easy thing to do in this country. We
ultimately found a small tree growing on the edge of a roadside drainage ditch
and threw the tent base out to lie on, and made a coffee and ate a sandwich
while we lazed in the shady ditch and discussed some plans for our next trip.
We were back on the road around 4pm and were feeling a fair
bit cooler as we rode another 20k’s before we started looking for a spot to
camp. We noticed a small station access track going off on the left and headed
down there. It ended at a locked gate, so we headed along the fence line and
found a nice flat spot to make camp. We decided to just have the tent inner up
as the sun was already setting and this would maximise our airflow during the
night as it was still quite hot. The nearly full moon rose and made everything
very light throughout the whole night.
17/9/16
BUSH CAMP TO BARN HILL STATION
It was never our intention to ride 144k’s today. But we
realised that while we were ok for water, we weren’t going to have enough to
camp tonight and ride again tomorrow. So we had to go on. We were going through
quite a bit more water now in the heat, and our normal three day load with
safety margin was really only good for two days now. The forecast was for
favourable winds so we thought that if we structured the day as we did the day
before, we would make it to Barn Hill. We arrived at the Goldwire 24hr Roadside
Stop at about 1pm with 107k’s done. There was a good shelter and tables here,
so we made the most of the shade for a couple of hours, chatting with some
other people there.
We headed off again around 3:30pm to do the last 38k’s. About
20k’s in we started to hit the wall quite badly. We had reached the limits of
our food, it’s not that we didn’t have any, but what is available up here is
severely nutritionally challenged. Very poor quality carbs, nothing fresh. We
were really starting to feel the effects. For the first time in 7000k’s we felt
the need to take an energy gel. Bad shit, and to be honest, I don’t think it
helped at all. Oh well, at least we weren’t carrying those little suckers any
more.
Finally, we turned left onto the dirt access track into Barn
Hill Outstation. The bikes loved this road, real fat bike country. Larry and
Priscilla laughed wickedly as they floated over the bike tracks of some skinny
tyred bike, that had been having real trouble in the bulldust the day before.
We arrived at Barn Hill, only to find that the office and
small store was closed, help yourself to camping and see you tomorrow the sign
said. We were devastated, as we really needed a cool drink. I think Mary was
going to melt down through the red dusty pavers, never to be seen again.
Luckily for us, Steve, the caretaker, spotted us and came over and sorted us out
with some supplies. What a legend. He suggested that we camp over in the
unpowered section as the views were better there. We picked a site that
overlooked the beach from an elevated position and after the sun set, we could
see the lights of Broome about 50km’s across Roebuck Bay. Our Destination. The
most amazing moon rise we have ever seen happened while we cooked dinner and
drank a cold can of Fanta (all we could get, but it was very cold). The sky
once again lit up, the moon was so bright that we could only see one or two
stars overhead during the night.
18/9/16
REST DAY, BARN HILL OUTSTATION
I was wide awake at 4am, my body clock seems to have
adjusted to the early starts we’ve been having. I lay back and watched the moon
traverse the early morning sky and eventually, I just had to grab the camera
and head out of the tent for some photos. We had coffee and a piece of toast as
the moon set and the sun rose behind us.
The beach was calling us. We checked with a lovely couple,
Chris and Jenny, who stay here for most of the dry season and they suggested a
cool swimming spot down on the beach. We descended a “goat track” access to the
beach and were blown away by the scenery here.
There were incredible geological formations, bright white sand and a
beautiful azure blue sea, gently lapping against the beach. The beach was a
fair bit steeper here than Eighty Mile, so the swimming conditions were
awesome, and the water a little bit cooler. We even saw a turtle cruising along
parallel to the beach. It was so refreshing, but ultimately the sun beat us
back to the camp ground shade as the temperature began to soar. We have found
that we can’t afford to get too much sun on a rest day and expect to ride well
the day after.
We sorted out our camping bill and had a cool drink and an
ice cream. We met up with Phil and Tricia who we have met a few times up the
coast. These guys have passed us a few times on the road and always stop to say
hello and check to see how things are going and if we are all ok for water etc. 
Chris and Jenny invited us over to their bus for a coffee,
so we sat over with them under the shade of their awning and chatted about our
lifestyles and how we all ended up doing what we are doing. It’s amazing how
similar our backgrounds are, as well as the choices we have made in order to
escape the rat race. Here we spotted Humpback whales in the distance, breaching,
splashing and putting on a long show for us. How awesome sitting on the red
sandstone cliff top overlooking the brilliant blue ocean with a view of whales
playing and enjoying the warm northern waters. 
We caught up again with Phil and Tricia later in the
afternoon and they invited us to stay for dinner. This was a really lovely
treat as we were a little low in supplies. We sat outside and enjoyed a lovely
meal with these guys, a few drinks, coffee and great conversation. The evening
was quite warm, so it was really lovely sitting outside watching the sunset as
we ate dinner. We are looking forward to catching up with these guys again once
we hit Broome.
19/9/16
BARN HILL STATION TO ROEBUCK PLAINS ROADHOUSE
As we were heading out pre-dawn, we called past Chris and
Jenny’s bus to say “see ya” as we had promised. Hugs were given and photos
taken, Mary then fell off her bike, just to prove her professionalism as a
Touring Mountain Biker. Once we had composed ourselves, we then headed out the
9km dirt road, floating across the bull dust and sand. The weather man had
promised us tail winds for most of the way, and there was just a hint of that
promise as we turned onto the main highway and once again headed North. The
heat was really building up early, but luckily the breeze was with us, but also
quite heavily on our left shoulders, this was a bit concerning for later. We
made reasonable time, until about the 80 kilometre mark when we had to turn
West across the Roebuck Plain. It was like turning through the open door of a
blast furnace, It was hot, It was open and the wind was “a bastard”. The
station were mustering cattle as well, which was kicking up quite a bit of dust.
Amongst the Brahmans, were stockmen on horses as well as quite a large flock of
Brolgas hanging around in the dusty paddock. Mary was extremely lucky to spot a
large Brolga feather on the ground and stopped to add it to her trip
collection. We pressed on, barely able to manage 10kmh. Finally after
15 kilometres of this the road slowly began to turn back around to the North and
out of the head wind. At the same time, the scrub alongside the road began to
thicken quite heavily, which also offered protection from the wind and as a
result the final 10ks into Roebuck roadhouse was not too bad. The damage was
done however, and we sat in the roadhouse for a couple of hours drinking cool
drinks and enjoying the airconditioning before we headed out to set up camp in
the roadhouse campground, which was shady and green, even if a bit noisy.
20/9/16
ROEBUCK PLAINS ROADHOUSE TO BROOME
(by David)
We woke up early, excited about today, our destination was a
short 33kilometres away. It was a surreal feeling, four and a half months on
the road, seven thousand one hundred and twenty kilometres. It seemed like a
blur.
We had a roadhouse breakfast at 6am, then mounted our
trusty steeds for the last loaded ride of the stage. I felt strange, I was
looking forward to our time off in Broome, eating some fresh food, drinking
some great beers and of course sleeping in a real bed. Since leaving home we
had slept under a real roof only eleven times, a real bed even less than that.
But I also wonder how we will cope with being home, even though that will be
temporary, as we are already planning the next stage of our adventure.
Before we left home, some people suggested that this would
be a hard trip on our relationship. I responded by saying that if we had
already made it the thirty-one years we have been together, I couldn’t see why
it would be a problem. Mary and I enjoy each other’s company immensely, my
attitude was that it would be the strength in our relationship that would make
the trip possible, and this turned out to be the case. We are now even stronger
as a result of this adventure, and it is only just beginning. I am in awe of
Mary’s strength, both physically and mentally, she is much tougher than I
am. A few years ago, one of her best
friends nicknamed Mary “The Pocket Rocket” and I think this tag is well earned
today.
Back to the ride, and thirty-three kilometres of reflection,
but a knew feeling was coming over me. I couldn’t describe it. It was a sense
of achievement perhaps, maybe even being a little proud of myself, mixed with a
new found confidence. It felt like what I reckon Cadel Evans must have felt,
riding into Paris on the last day of the Tour de France, knowing that you’ve
got it won, just stay upright on the bike and no-one can take it away from you.
I was astoundingly proud of us, as well as maybe just a little sad that the
Australian leg of our trip was over.
A quick burst of reality occurred as we had to drag another
dead kangaroo carcass off the road to try to stop the eagles from getting hit
while feeding on it. A bit sad.
We coasted into town, and as our coffee and beer radar was
on, it automatically guided us to Matso’s brewery, where we finally had our
first good coffee since Karratha, and an awesome breakfast. It was too early for
beer, even for me, so we headed down to town beach and took some photos of us
and the bikes on the beach. We chilled out there for a while before heading back
to Matso’s for that promised beer, and coffee, and lunch,,, what an adventure.
(by Mary)
Our last 33k's. I really can't believe that we were about
to ride our last 33k's. It actually didn't feel real. Was it going to hurt
after yesterday's hardship? More than likely. Was it going to be exciting?
Something big was brewing inside. Was there going to be a feeling of sadness
with the end in sight? Going to miss my life on a bike. I was filled with so
many mixed feelings, but once on the bike and spinning the legs it felt good,
just like a stroll in the park. It was early morning and that freshness of the
morning with a slight tail breeze got us feeling pretty good on the bikes. Once we saw the welcome to Broome sign at
about 10k's out of town the excitement hit. We got off our bikes to take the
photo of jumping with joy with excitement of our near completion. We tried to
capture the jumping bit but ended up with a dozen blooper shots that had us
deliriously laughing on the side of the road. As we pulled ourselves together
and remounted the bikes and tried to look like seasoned cycle tourists and not
mad, crazy nuts, we proceeded to approach Town Beach and spotted the sign to
Matso's. This is a beer hang, the place to go for the best beers in town. It
was however, only 8am, but we stopped as they also excel as an exceptional food
café. An amazing celebrational breakfast was had, and then it was on to see
the first sight of one of Broomes Beach's. Town Beach did not disappoint. We
rode the bikes down onto the sand and took an amazing happy, exciting, 'oh hell
yeah baby we have finished' photo. All done. We did it. We have literally loved
every moment of our journey from Kangarilla to Broome.
With lunch and beers at
Matso's to continue our celebrations, we then found our way to our luxury
accommodation where there was a real bed, private outdoor shower and garden with an actual flushing loo waiting for us. Time now for a pause in our cycle touring
journey. We are staying here in Broome in a beautiful Airbnb studio for nearly
two weeks for a little R&R and time to get our head around and start
planning the next stage of our cycle touring adventure.
'My journey hasn't ended yet!'
"FOREVER YOUNG"
