We head out across the Nullarbor-Funny story!

After a night in town we turn to head
 south to Norseman

204 km we make a right turn onto the Eyre Hwy

Crossing the Nullarbor! Well we did it – almost!

Day 1

So off to cross the Nullabor!  This is a 2300km crossing usually done in two overnight stops and 3 long days driving, we set off under cloudy skies that morning from Esperance, left at around 10am,  rode up to Norseman and then made a right hand turn onto Balladonia, where the beginning of the Nullabor officially starts.  We were making good time, the weather was drizzly and windy so we decided to stop, put on our rain suits and continue onto Caiguna, where we stayed the night in a “roadhouse” stop.

  The roadhouses consist of 1 gas station, with outrageous gas prices of $1.94 a litre, 1 motel, again pricey at $114.00 per night and 1 restaurant, Trev had roast beef and veg and i had chicken Tandori, 2 coffees, 2 beers and it came to $80. again they’ve got you at these stops because in between them there is nothing, and i mean nothing. 

These road stops are about 180km between each other so there is no shopping price!!  Having said all that,  i must say we met some of the friendliest people at these places, i guess they are used to housing weary travellers, the food wasn’t bad either.  No internet or cell coverage so that means no blogging tonight, great we have time to catch up on some reading, then before bed we watched a really good movie Trev had downloaded with the “Torrents” from the internet, called “The last 3 days” suspenseful movie..

Now this is a course for Stan and Karen
You could loose a lot of balls on this one

"Adelaide" Now that is A Long Way Somewhere

On a beautiful day the scenery is stunning

Big Sky Long Road!! Fantastic!!!

Ease back on the throttle
 With Gas prices like that it will make a big hole in our budget

Only first class accommodations here!!

As the air temperature drops the rain starts 

A little explanation of where we are going

Out on the Nullarbor as Happy and Sneezy come
out to play!
 Snow White is missing

Day 2

Next day we set off a bit later as Trev had to help some old fokes, one, wind up and start his 1930 Model T Ford , whos starter motor had given in and one old guy who had a flat tire and seemed a little weary, so Trev helped him change that too, good Karma day for him today, or so we thought!

This time we started out with our rain gear on as it was pouring in the night and still lightly raining as we set off, we had hoped to make it to Ceduna today, 947km, yeh that would have made it our longest day yet on this trip but we got as far as Nullarbor! It was a gloomy, bleak day on the Nullarbor today, lots of cross winds, rainy off and on and dramatic cloudy skies, great for photos but not for riding in. It gets very tiring riding on a windy day as you are always fighting the leaning of the bike into the wind.  We both had our ipods on listening to music, I was on the back totally in my own world, getting lots of great ideas for my book Im writing when  I suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the bike, i looked around thinking, “was it the bike or is someone just behind us”, we hadn’t seen much traffic today at all, I tapped Trev on the shoulder and told him to pull over to check and Im glad that i did because what we found was that our back tire was coming unwound and had cut slots in our rear mud “metal” fender that Trev had installed from Touratech while in Thailand.  We took a closer look at the back tire and we could see at least 7 or 8 strands of metal wire appearing on the outside camber on the right hand side of the tire, the one thread was hanging out about 10” and this was the one that caused the noise and the cutting into the rear fender.  Trev cut it off with pliers and we decided to continue on for another 75km, albeit very slowly, what else could we do, it was getting dark, windy as hell but gladly it had stopped raining.  Most of the Nullarbor we had travelled at speeds of 120km + as these are dead straight roads with nothing on them and you can see mostly on both side pretty clearly for the animals crossing, but now we had dropped down to 60km as we were worried that the tire might actually blow.  We last got our new tires in Tel Aviv over 18,000km ago, these tires are supposed to be good to 20,000km but we remember our friend Mark from Melbourne had warned us about the Australian roads, that they would “eat your tires”! I guess he was right!

Our neighbour for the night try s to
start his 85 year old Ford
 Yes he is doing the Nullarbor in that at max speed of 60km/h

Time to play another round

We were told that some of the roos out here get this BIG

A warning!!
 More of those funny looking animals

We hit the border

Now thats
 "A Long Way To Somewhere Else"

Ok so now the music was off,  I needed to listen for the tire noises, up until then we hadn’t seen any animals on the Nullarbor, the signs say to watch for camels, yes they do have those in Aus, kangaroos and Wombats.  So now we were concerned about the tire blowing and us coming off in the middle of no-where,  what should we spot but, 2 “DINGOS”, yes they are real out here.  The only time I had ever heard about Dingo Dogs was in a movie i watched years ago that terrified me, it was about these dogs attacking a car and the person inside it being eaten by them and yes it was set in Australia!  So great, now here we are in the middle of the Nullarbar, nothing for miles and very little traffic to boot, the possibility of the tire blowing out on us and then to make it worse these Dingos hanging out on the edge of the road, ok i must admit i started to pray that the tire would get us the 75km to the next roadhouse, at least.  Neither of us spoke to each other for the next hour, we just willed the tire to stay intact, then we saw another 2 Dingos and then a couple of the Australian Eagles flying around eating something that was dead on the side of the road, this trip was starting to feel decidedly creepy now, remnants of that movie... 

Yes they are real

The sun was going down and it was getting cold too, we hadn’t seen another vehicle pass us for ages, i was thinking if this tire blows what exactly should we do, park the bike, one stay with the bike and one thumb it or walk to the next town but then what, I for one don’t like that idea, I don’t cherish being eaten by a Dingo!!  what we needed was a tire, and when we find one how do we get it on the bike, there is nothing for miles but roadhouses, not tire shops or tire installers..  not to mention that if the tire was to blow would Trev manage to hold the bike upright still and prevent both of us from falling off, oh yeh then my mind drifted back to the bloody Dingos!!  I don’t know why but I thought that they were maybe just made up for that movie, I guess I was hoping, never mind all the other creepy crawly’s that Australia is famous for that would be lurking around in the desert out here.  It wasn’t until we got safely in that night that Trev admitted that he had a thought earlier in the morning, when he was changing the old boys tire, how lucky we had been so far on this trip, that we hadn’t had a flat tire, ha so its his fault!

We seem to be getting thru some rubber
 on this road - oops!

As the wire comes out of the tire it cuts thru
 the rear mud guard 

Well, you will be relieved to know that the prayers worked and the bike took us to the next roadhouse, 75km away, called Nullarbor, funny thing was the sign outside said, “welcome to DINGO’s Den” see there are Dingos out here, I told you so, we are laughing now, but I for one, did not find any of it so funny an hour ago.

We pulled into the roadhouse around 4:30pm,  just at dusk, booked into the motel this time it was $140.00 for the night, yikes, then we phoned down to the next “inhabited” town called Ceduna, this being the last town of the Nullarbor,  to see if we could get the bike picked up and trailered down there, well yes that is possible for $1200.00,  frigin hell and thats nothing to do with buying the new tire, thats just to get it to the tire shop!  Trev inquired further at the roadhouse and a young guy said, “no problem mate” phone down tomorrow and get the tire brought here and I will change it for you, that should work out cheaper!

So tomorrow am we will phone down to the tire shops, apparently there are 3 of them in Ceduna, to see if they have a tire that will work and have it brought up here..what an eventful day!

Yes this is how we felt in the morning
PS we did not scratch this in the sand