Day 1: Perth to Balladonia

Perth - Balladonia Map

Set off a bit later than planned. I decided I’d packed too much stuff the day before so I emptied it out, and repacked 99% of it L  So, went straight into rush hour traffic.

All up, today was a pretty dull ride – not many towns or much to see. Unfortunately, I expect tomorrow to be just as dull.

The first couple of hundred kilometres was straight through the WA Wheatbelt.  Enormous grain silos & train loading facilities every 40 or 50kms.

The Great Eastern Highway isn’t great in places or much of a highway. Most of the way to Coolgardie it’s a single lane road with a bumpy surface. There’re plenty of straight sections to overtake the road trains & people towing camper trailers though.

Picnic lunch at Southern Cross

Some long straight stretches on the way to Norseman – the road disappearing into the horizon and flat land all around. This country is vast.

Decided at Norseman to push on another 200km to Balladonia. The only thing here is the Hotel/Motel/Roadhouse/Museum. Having eaten dinner here I didn’t bother to look around the Museum – I just assumed it was another door to the kitchen.

948kms from home and I still haven’t got out of Western Australia. I’ll make it into South Australia tomorrow. I better make sure I eat my banana at breakfast or I risk being busted at the border for smuggling fruit!

I'll make an effort to take more photos too.

Bike stuff

As usual on long rides, I move about a bit on the bike to keep the blood flowing to all the essentials. Found that shifting my butt back onto the pillion seat works really well J Pillion pegs are in the wrong place to try the ‘feet on the pillion pegs chin on the tank’ aka ‘Jono style’.

The Honda Crosstourer is ideal for this type of touring  - the V4 motor is superb. The Michelin Pilot Road 4s that I’ve just had fitted soften the previously harsh front suspension, although that’s probably assisted by the tightening of the head bearings at the 12K service last week.

Found out that I haven’t quite got all the touring stuff sorted on the bike – I can’t see the Sat Nav with the tank bag this full. Not that it really mattered – once on the Great Eastern Highway past the Roe Highway the Sat Nav showed the next turn was 537km away.