Day 13: Esperance – Lake King – Lake Grace – Arthur River - Home (766km, 9033km total)

Today I realise I’ve done some really poor planning. I was going to head along the south coast and overnight in Albany, however I just can’t find any available accommodation for the night. The Easter weekend is not the time for ad hoc planning. Camp fires are not permitted at this time of year along the south coast so I didn’t fancy a cold dinner bush camp. So, the plan changed and I decide to head for home through parts of the country I haven’t travelled before. 

Head for Ravensthorpe, turn north to Lake King, west to Lake Grace. Pass by salt lakes on roads that look like they were made by guys as practice for the Eyre Highway. Hardly any traffic out this way. Eventually I pick up the main road back to Perth at Arthur River. 

Lake King to Lake Grace

I’m 50km from home and the bike that hasn’t missed a beat so far let’s me down: the left mirror mount has worked its way loose and the mirror swings inwards! A stiff letter to Mr Honda required I think – hahahaha.

This coincides with the first time I’ve been really, really uncomfortable on the bike. My backside was torturing me! 

Home, just over 9000km in two week, across the continent and back. That was a road trip.

Day 12: 51km west of Balladonia - Esperance (488km, 8267km total)

I forgot to mention a few things about yesterday’s ride – more strange sights along the Nullarbor. The guy I saw pushing the cart on my way out last week, well I saw his cart pulled up at Nullarbor Roadhouse. No sign of the crazy dude though. A touring cyclist – crazy. At two places, fellas pedalling recumbent bicycles enclosed in streamlined fairings, one pink the other lime green. Yup, crazies.

I saw a biker pulled over on the side of the road ahead so stopped to check he was OK. He was riding some kind of Yamaha cruiser, I don’t know them well enough to know which one. By his accent I guess he was German, but what kind of German tours on anything but a BMW? He told me he had an oil warning light on so he was just topping up with oil. This guy is miles away from anywhere and doesn’t seem that bothered by an oil light. He tells me he’s riding around Australia, started at Sydney, been through Melbourne and was making his way to Perth.  I leave him to it and I see him again at the next roadhouse where I’m getting something to eat. He wasted no time in getting to know two girls travelling in a combi van in the opposite direction – he enlisted one to sit on his bike to keep it upright while he put even more oil into it! I hope he makes it – I didn’t see him again.

A few hours down the road, again I see a biker pulled over on the other side of the road so I stop to check on him too. A rough looking DRZ400 with long range fuel tank and a milk crate tied to the back as a top box. Standing beside it is an old Japanese guy eating something I couldn't identify. He told me he’s biking around Australia. He started in Sydney, had travelled around the top end and was making his way east back to Sydney. Of these two guys making it all the way around, my money’s on the DRZ!

A bit of a circus to pitch the tent but ready for supper

Back to my overnight camp – first time I’ve ever bush camped. I’d ridden down a dirt track that came off a rest stop that was empty when I came across it, but a couple of hours after dark a truck must have pulled up in it and left his engine idling for about an hour. I should have gone further down the track out of earshot. Woke up a few times with my old bones finding the camping matt a bit hard. Still, I got a fair bit of sleep and was woken up by the dawn chorus. I planned to get breakfast in Norseman about an hour & half away so get packed quickly and get going. It turns out that I’d done such a good job of packing all the camping gear into the drybag back at home that I couldn’t fit it all back in now! I have to leave the tent out of the drybag and strap it onto the bike separately. I think I gave the truck driver in the rest stop a bit of a scare when I emerged from the track fully loaded, rode past him and onto the highway. 

Epic selfie fail

Nothing remarkable on the way to Norseman but as it marks the end of the Eyre Highway I was glad to see it. Breakfast, organise some accommodation in Esperance for the night and hit the road. I take in Cape Le Grand on the way – fabulous white beaches edging some bloody cold ocean! 

Esperance is busy – looks like half of this half of WA has come here for the Easter weekend. The camp sites and caravan parks are busting at the seams. Out to get some dinner early evening and the hotels are already heaving. I chatted to a guy who had spent 10 hours driving here with his family, towing a camper trailer who was here for a week. The irony was that he lives in Busselton, a favourite Easter destination for people from Perth!

Day 11: Ceduna – 51km west of Balladonia (1082km, 7779km total)

I picked a bad motel to book. The address said McKenzie street so I assumed it was in the town. Nuh uh. It was actually on the Eyre Highway with my paper thin door 20m from the only traffic that moves on it after dark – trucks. The walls & door were so thin I could hear the moths farting outside. The curtains didn’t manage to keep out the light, I could read with them closed.

Stay on this road for ever then turn ..... left

Ahead lay a day and more of straight, mainly flat, dull road. Only one way to deal with it, get on it and get as far as you can while keeping it legal as it’s a double demerits weekend. 

And that’s what I did – my first 1000km day of the trip. Travelling from east to west gave me probably one more hour of daylight (as well as 1.5 hours back in time from SA to WA time). I was on the road at first light, refuelled and running at 6:30AM. Put in 12 hours of riding before the light started going and made it 40km past Balladonia. I stayed there on my first night away, paid $120 for an ordinary room and didn’t sleep well. So, no point in making that mistake again, I refuelled and pressed on into the sunset!   

The plan was to make it to the next overnight parking spot but I lost the light well before I could get there so – bush camp it is. I’ve carried the gear around the country so let’s see if I can use it!

Camp's set - bit of a frace getting the tent up - good job there was nobody  to see it!

Fortune favours the brave and it was a perfect night for sleeping under the stars - didn't even need to close up the flysheet - there wasn't enough breeze to even ruffle it and not cold either. Up with the sun and off again ......

Day 10: Clare - Ceduna (777km, 6697km total)

Clare is a pleasant little country town.

I took the minor road out of Clare towards Wilmington – same speed limits as the main road but much less traffic. Today I share the road with three emus, a skink and of all things - a stag. He stood in the middle of the road and stared me down, but leapt over a fence and was away before I could get my camera out.

Some quaint little towns & villages along the way like Laura & Melrose. Georgetown proudly announces itself with a sign at the edge of town claim to be “Australia’s largest inland grain storage facility”: well, why wouldn’t you boast about it? 

Wilmington is nothing to write home about. It was from here that I started back along the road I travelled east on last week at. Back through Horrocks pass, but this time in sunshine. It seems much shorter now than it did when it was in a cloud!

I made a schoolboy error at Port Augusta: I’m 20km the other side of town when I work out that I’ll be too tight on fuel to make it to the next station. Bollocks – I just added 40km to the dullest road on the planet and ride back to Port Augusta to refuel.

Back on the dreaded Eyre Highway, I pull off into the town of Kimba - I’d stopped at the Roadhouse before but didn’t realise there was a small town/village just off the highway. Nice looking hotel that I’ll remember if I’m ever back this way – looks much better than the Roadhouse motels.

Here I decide Ceduna is my destination for the day, sort out the motel and hit the road again. This is the Eyre Highway, there’s not a lot more to say about it.

Ceduna is a bit of a disappointment – not sure why I expected more. I’ll be hitting the road early I think ….

Day 9: Swan Hill – Mildura - Clare (620km, 5920km total)

Headed out of town towards Mildura. The downside on being south of the Murray river (and hence in Victoria) is that while there are more towns & villages to see, there’s also a 100kph limit. On similar roads across the river it’s 110kph. The road crosses the Murray at Robinvale and yey, 110kph for a while. It crosses back over the river again at Mildura which is a much bigger town than I expected. Has quite a modern feel to it as well as its heritage past. For some reason the stretch of road towards Renmark and the South Australia border is 100kph even though it’s still in VIC.

Met an old fella called Steven when I was refuelling at the Yamba Quarantine Checkpoint just outside Renmark. He had bought a Honda Crossrunner (the smaller version of my bike) in Perth, flew over from his home in Sydney, picked it up and was riding it home. He said it was on his bucket list to ride across the Nullarbor and this way he only had to do it once. He was a bit annoyed though that he had picked up a speeding ticket earlier in the morning: despite telling him how he was retired and never had a speeding ticket in 40 years of riding a bike etc. the cop still issued him with a ticket – 10kph over the limit, $400!!! Slowed me down a bit for the rest of the day.

I’d booked a great little motel just outside town with a very friendly owner. I had a few minutes standing at a table outside overlooking the pool, having a drink, checking emails and phoning home etc. When I got back to my room I discovered that I’d gotten a cluster of bloody mozzie bites on my ass – I was wearing shorts. They are gonna be uncomfortable on the bike tomorrow.

Clare Valley Motel

Clare Valley Motel

The Chef at the motel had taken ill at the start of the week and according to the owner, had just had a pacemaker fitted. He expects him back at work on Friday though – it’s Good Friday and the place is fully booked!