travellingbennetts

I rode a grassy country, a land of swarming flies. Of reasonable accommodation, and pub steaks with salad and fries. I rode her far horizons, and stopped for morning tea, I even did some dirt roads, the wide green land for me.
Dorothea Mackellar would have written it like that if she had been on the BMWMCQ May “Ride to the Rock” starting just west of Brisbane, and I thank her for the format.
The Cindy-inspired plan was a seven-day epic to reach Ayres Rock (Uluru), with stops at Miles, Blackall, Longreach, Mt Isa, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs before hitting the Rock. Routes for each day were loaded into the GPS, although the tight schedule and paucity of road options meant simply putting the day’s start and finish accommodation in – Basecamp for idiots fortunately. Once at the Rock, all navigation assistance was cancelled and riders were tasked with working out how to get themselves back, because I no longer cared.
With Cindy recently starting a new job she could only get as far as Roma before risking running out of weekend, and with a month off planned in June for the Compass Expeditions Alaska tour I could only go as far as Longreach using Newton’s third law of motorcycling; “for every day riding out, there is an equal and opposite riding day back”. The trip was a farewell lap for The Precious, with the trade-in to a 2019 Triumph Tiger 800XCa planned for late May. With 90,000km of epic riding on the clock, The Precious has truly been a life changer and will be a very hard act to follow, and so a big trip into uncharted territory was a suitable send-off.

The send-off at the Blacksoil BP on Day 1 was well attended by riders and supportive club members Les and Kellie and Dave and Tracey. Les was immediately into action and managed to complete repairs to Craig’s R100RT gear lever suitable for surviving the 7,000km journey. At the advertised time of 9:00am after some group photography by editor Dave, we hit the road north to do a tough 38 minute section before stopping for morning tea and meeting Huw and Liezel in Esk to make 15 riders in total. After the inevitable cappuccino for me and a lactose-free latte for Cindy, we re-grouped and hit the road for the next target of lunch. The weather was looking pretty dodgy by this stage, and we went through heavy rain before Oakey, but it had mainly cleared to a cool dull day by the Jondaryan Woolshed lunch stop. After a relatively short day by club standards to avoid traumatising the unprepared glutes, we pushed on through Dalby to Miles.
Bike Inventory – Day 1
• R1200GS x 4 (Paul H, Mark G, Huw & Liezel, Don & Kate)
• R1200RT x 3 (Greg G, Dave W, Mario & Fiona)
• R1200R x 1 (Chris H)
• R100RT x 1 (Craig B)
• Chain-driven Unmentionables x 3 (Cindy, Duncan, and Cees)
Miles Cross Roads Caravan Park and Cabins didn’t mind that we didn’t have caravans, and the cabins were basic but good quality. A sign at reception invited all park residents to share a meal with the BMW riders that evening, which was a lot of pressure for the first night of a long journey. Fortunately, the stew that was put on by the owners was so good that time was better spent eating rather than talking to BMW people. Eventually the social scene loosened up, possibly due to the vast quantity of drinks consumed before, during, and after the stew, and the BMW riders were almost indistinguishable from the vanners, Gomads and campers and their 4 legged companions around the fire.

Day 2 was a big 629km day to Blackall, with Don and Kate heading off to the Bunya Mountains and Cindy and Paul making it to morning tea in Roma before heading for home. The rest of us ploughed bravely on in the perfect weather, and the wide-open highway and reasonable petrol station frequency allowed for some reasonable speed so we arrived before 5pm. The Blackall Caravan Park also didn’t mind that no-one had a caravan, and the house Dave W and I shared had a footprint similar to the Palace of Versailles so I took the west wing while Dave took the east wing, and we met in the Great Hall for drinks which didn’t include any town water as it smelled of sulphur. A wander up to the Barcoo Hotel to meet the rest of the team for more non-town water drinks and dinner concluded the day.

Day 3 was a short one, with Longreach and its tourist attractions the target. A ride up and down the main street of Blackall indicated that breakfast options were numerous, just not in Blackall. Dave and I decided that Barcaldine was the logical place because it was the next town, and thoughts of a full English breakfast kept us going for the 109km. The weather was again perfect, just a little crisp for those who had forgotten yet again to put in a long sleeve riding shirt. Barcaldine was partly locked down due to the Labour Day public holiday, with public sector unions getting set up to conduct a parade to the site of the Tree of Knowledge to celebrate the Barcaldine shearer’s strike in 1891. Our breakfast venue was fortunately outside the blocked off area, so we sat down to celebrate an Eggs of Poached while the rest of the team slowly wandered in.

After another 109km, we had seen the 1 mile of tractor porn displayed in Ilfracombe and pulled into the Longreach Tourist Park. This place is enormous and takes advantage of the fact that Longreach is almost impossible for Gomads to avoid if coming from the south, which of course they must be. There was plenty of room as we were early in the season, plus the flooding rains of previous months and resulting road closures had delayed the progress of the swarm. Having managed an upgrade from the sub-par Ringer’s Quarters into a deluxe cabin, I headed off with other team members to the Qantas Museum.

The museum is very well done, with Boeing 747-238B and 707 jets parked outside with a DC-3 and the magnificent-looking Super Constellation long distance passenger aircraft. We did the 747 and 707 interactive tour, read all the history of the two ex-WW1 pilots who managed to get the whole thing started, watched Mario crash the simulator biplane into a simulated orphanage, then headed back to the Tourist Park for bike maintenance and/or a lie down.

At 6pm we all loaded on the complimentary bus and headed to the Bird Cage Hotel for a great dinner, which rounded out Dave’s and my last day with the rest of the intrepid group going all the way to the Rock.

Day 4 commenced with emotional farewells from me and Dave to the group, and a breakfast in town before heading south west. The distances are apparent out west, we had a 505km day just to get south to Quilpie rather than make a dent in the easterly direction to get home, but the opportunity to see more of the south west while already out there was not to be missed. The road headed toward places which are probably familiar to Gomads, such as Stonehenge, but completely new to me. The landscape 100km down the road was remarkable, flat open plains which were expected to be brown and dusty looked like the Serengeti – grass as far as the eye could see. Herds of Wildebeest and Zebra were anticipated but must have still been in Africa scavenging the last of the feed over there. Unfortunately, herds of flies were in residence in their trillions, swarming around any exposed areas which prompted putting the helmet back on with the visor closed to keep the masses at bay.

We pulled into Jundah at roughly morning tea, and in keeping with long distance travel in the outback protocols I filled up with fuel. Dave’s 25 litre tank was barely dented, so he decided to wait until the next stop to fill up, and we sat at the little shop and tried to have our refreshments while battling unwinnable fly invasions. There were two roads to Quilpie, one of 300km and the other slightly further, but the lady in the shop mentioned that the shorter route was mainly dirt, and as I wanted to see Windorah we took the long way.

Swinging into Windorah, we marked our arrival at the most westerly point of the voyage by pulling up at the only service station, only to be told that due to the public holiday the day before, the fuel truck had not arrived and was coming the next day. Dave’s trip computer calmly stated that based on its calculations he was 15km shy of Quilpie, which we decided was close enough for him to abandon the R1200GT and walk the rest of the way, or I’d go and get fuel depending how I felt at the time. Typically out on the wide plains 115kmh had felt about right, but with limited fuel the consumption could be markedly reduced by travelling at 100kmh to Quilpie, or in Dave’s case 90kmh at the end. Dave was so focussed that he ignored the service station coming into Quilpie and coasted 2km further on to a servo on the other side, which didn’t have premium so he had to speak loudly about 98 octane to distract the BMW while sneaking a couple of litres of 91 in.

The motel in Quilpie was excellent, big rooms and undercover parking to keep the dew off the seats. The evenings had settled into the motorcycling norm by this time – relaxing in the room for an hour or so before dressing for dinner, then off to the pub for drinks, and in this case back to the motel for some excellent rissoles and a nice bottle of wine.

Day 5 we’d decided must chew up a bit of distance now that we were heading east, otherwise we’d end up with a ridiculously long day or an annoyingly short day to finish off. Just to add to the challenge, I decided to keep going south and do some dirt down to Thargomindah, while Dave headed in the right direction via Charleville, and we planned to meet up in Cunnamulla for lunch. There was only about 35km of dirt on the 195km trip south, but it was enough to satisfy me for a bit, especially the loose gravel, the ruts, and the occasional wash-out on the just re-opened road.

Arriving in Thargomindah at precisely cappuccino o’clock, the reason for road closures was made obvious on the way in with the Bulloo River running a banker. Having seen Dave nearly learn the hard way, a top up of petrol and lengthy discussion with a bloke who owned seven KTM’s and I was finally and permanently heading east through Eulo for the un-emotional reunion with Dave at Cunnamulla for lunch. A decent Caesar salad lacking only for anchovies, and the slog commenced toward the challenging target of St George.
The cruising speed was pushed up as being caught west of Toowoomba in the late afternoon and evening is scary, as the trip had already been an occasional kangaroo and emu dodge even in the middle of the day. With 50km to go, the sun set and speed dropped and paranoia levels peaked, but the rains had grown grass everywhere so there wasn’t the normal clustering of suicidal marsupials along the road, and with relief we rolled into St George after a 686km day. Just for something different, we had both drinks and meal in the same place at the Cobb and Co Hotel, before repairing to the Ballone River Motel for the last night of the adventure, while the long-distance crew posted photos of their ride from Mt Isa into the Northern Territory to Tennant Creek.

Day 6 saw a parting of the return team, dirt was apparently in the offing past Moonie for me on the more direct road through Cecil Plains, however this turned out to be all bitumen, a spectacular motorcycling road, and a more direct route to Toowoomba than Dave’s ride probably was through Dalby. Toowoomba was avoided by heading south across the cotton growing plains, before running parallel to the Warrego Highway back into Brisbane in the late afternoon. Thanks to all the team who made my half-baked effort a lot of social and riding fun, especially Dave for his company on the return, and his ability to select top wines even in the remote outback.