Deer Park

The Mac power cable is up and running, so

To save time we’re going to combine the five days from Coral Bay to Broome, they look like this

Total Oz ride so far, 400 miles more than total NZ

So we left Coral Bay

Lucinda’s new life for a while

Immediately we’re in open grassland (not sure if it’s what they call spinifex yet) and huge termite mounds

Surface detail

As far as we can see. Hot

A pretty plant in bloom in large patches

Up close

A good shrub

Up close

Lucinda isn’t sure what my bike friends make of the flower shots, but she doesn’t complain when we stop for pics. She doesn’t complain about anything really. Except when this happens, which she hates

Then drama: ow! stop! Jeremy there’s something in my eye!

We decide not to go to Exmouth. More temptation to dive and best to be pressing on, so we head east and spend the night at Nanutarra roadhouse.

The next day we head to Tom Price, a mining town. Flat and hot

A few features but not much in a couple of hundred miles

We cross a dry riverbed

And see this sign, Wyloo

It looks interesting so we ride down the road. To this

It looks like a village made up of ATCO trailers. Then we guess that it’s an aboriginal town and we shouldn’t be here by law. So back we go.

Shards

A single-lane sunfried bridge

A nice big shade tree and rest stop

Then the landscape changes to rolling hills and finally we ride some corners. Not many

Then into Tom Price. Made lush and tidy by the mining community we’re guessing, but not sure

Outside of town there’s a golf course. Anyone who knows me and Lucinda knows that we think golf is an odd way to spend valuable time, but here they look like normal people

It’s a dirt course. The ‘green’ below is raked dirt. Aussie golf. Not so bad then

Then two things happen. Firstly, one of the reasons we came this way was to cross more outback and then ride a dirt road back from here to Karratha. We learn the night before we need a permit which we can get at the Tom Price information office. Which opens at 9:30, late. So we head off and not only find we need a permit, but the road is owned by a mining company and we have to watch a safety movie, about 20 minutes long, after the crowd of tourists in front of me have watched their tourist movie, which won’t leave us enough time for the route.

So we check the map and head off in a more N than NE direction to Port Hedland on the coast.

The second thing that happens is that we find out we’re passing the Karajini Gorges and we don’t stop. Aussies reading this are going to say what?! but anyway we zoom by motivated by things ahead and just wanting to ride. Hard to explain but it sometimes happens. Other long-distance riders have talked about this: for a successful long ride, recognizing the benefit to the ride of doing the things you want to do at any given moment, not should or must do. Not hard to figure out why this is. Sayonara Karajini

On the next plain, more termite mounds. Lucinda went over and parked for scale

Another excellent roadhouse for lunch and shade

More of this

Then we bump into a rider from Hobart. He’s on a DR 650. This is interesting because the two Aussies we met in South America were on DR’s. We get in a weird sync taking the customary photo

He’s made a custom dash. Various light controls, a feed to a beautiful lithium ion cell in his tank bag for his laptop, cool switches just for cool switches sake. Lucinda wants a custom dash to relocate various things and to look cool too, so we will, and I know where and when. Melborne, 3 to 4 months

He’s just done the big route that’s a bit ahead of us. He tells me some stories we’ll tell you when we get there.

Fire ahead

Burning happily

Birds overhead circling in the fire thermal

They look like this. Hawks of some kind

Into Port Hedland for the night.

Back on the road a road train is coming. This isn’t a nickname, it’s the official name of giant 4 box trucks. They’re the same as Canadian LCV’s but longer (no mountain corners here) and the Aussies are very proud of them and love to talk about them. Aussies are motorheads. It’s nice. I’m told the maximum truck length is 180 feet/55 meters. Anyway, here comes one

Aussies favorite subject, after football, so far

Much more of this. I’m pointed the wrong way because I’ve done a u-ey

To look at this

Incredible blooms. The most exotic-looking yet here. Once again, haven’t looked it up yet, but will. Maybe cousin Nicky in the UK can tell me

Over a river. Looking at a detailed map there aren’t a lot of river systems draining off the NE corner of Australia. Because it’s a desert

Looking downstream

A huge flock of cockatoos follow the shoreline towards the sea

They’re making a huge noise

Later, a few of these. We remember the huge road cattle of El Salvador, massive and interesting, as much as cattle can be

Stayed at 80 mile beach for the night. It’s actually 80 miles, not like the whopping exaggeration of 90 mile beach in NZ. The red dirt road in

There were trucks along the beach and people fishing. But not swimming. I asked why not, keen to jump in the water. Sharks

The next day was the most featureless and straightest road we’ve ridden in 2 years. But still a wonderful experience as it all is here. So Australian

Lunch was like the event aberration of the day. Another terrific roadhouse

Then into Broome

Which has a large aboriginal population and is the first time we can watch and think about this.

Broome is a pearling town. Also a tourist town for the hardier caravan travellers from the south. I read in the paper that for some city people ‘going to Broome’ is a retirement ambition.

And we have a small problem: this has happened again

Down in tread by 60% in the center, again. No way will we make it to Darwin at this rate on this one week old tire. And we need all the tread we can get a few days out. Oh well.

It’s the road surface, the heat, knobbies on slab, and Lucinda’s torquey rubber greed. The surface has been super aggressive since Perth. Cut rock, like in southern Texas in stretches.

This isn’t loose gravel, it’s the tarred-in surface, and very sharp

We order a new tire from Perth to Broome. Australians are the fast shipping masters, at no special cost, so just a few days, which means it’s travelling without a significant stop around the clock, by road, door-to-door. Impressive.

So we wait and explore around Broome