Monday & Tuesday

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Monday morning we were on the road again . We had plotted a route through the Marrakai Road which as luck would have it, cut off a big section of sealed mainroad - just to our liking. Marrakai Road was a red dirt road still with quite a few puddle & stream crossings. Even though they are into the start of the dry season there is still a lot of wet patches on the road. Takes a few months for all this to dry up.

The first challenging section we encountered was a full road-width puddle allowing little room for manoeuvring. I dropped my front wheel into the mud but luckily had enough momentum to ride out the other side. Keith was not so lucky dropping his bike, fortunately away from the muddy puddle & onto the grass bank. A few more crossings gave us some preparation for a “doozy” river crossing. Keith did the right thing & walked his bike across with help from Ian but I decided foolishly, as it transpired, to ride across. The water was fast flowing and started dragging my front wheel downstream - with the rest of the bike following it & nearly going over the edge of the ford. Luckily Ian & Brenton were on hand to help drag it back onto a safer course. Water up to our waists so we were lucky to save it.

Finishing the gravel we were on a 130kph highway into Katherine for quite a few hours. Sounds boring but interesting to see the flora & fauna & some unusual rock formations. We saw a couple of dingoes, wallabies & probably missed seeing plenty of other interesting stuff.

On arrival into Katherine, Keith had an oil change done on his new bike & Ian bought a new pair of boots as they had gone hard being stored in the heat & had started to disintegrate. I am still struggling with mine. Although as I write this Keith has now worked his magic on them with some leather lotion & removing the insoles - seem much looser on my feet.

Tuesday we were on the road by 9am after a café breakfast. Not much to report on this section of 515kms except 130kph speed limits, plenty of Road Trains & some serious big rigs for outback camping. We crossed the border into WA, just before Kunnanara with a backdrop of the spectacular Kimberleys, At the border crossing we were grilled by a friendly customs officer checking if we were carrying any fruit or vegetable matter. Kunnunura is the main town for people to depart on 4wd tours or helicopter trips for a Bungle Bungles tour. Tomorrow we ride to the Bungle Bungles and the next morning do our own motorcycle tour.

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Comments

[Bill]

Awesome
“Puddle” crossing! You’re doing some big miles Enjoying keeping up

[Vicki]

River crossing
Great to have your biking mates on standby and Keith to set a good example ?