Deep sand, ruts & an Iron Lung - The Border Track

Late yesterday I was rethinking the route for today and decided to head west to Tintinara instead of looping around and heading north through the park. Regardless of our chosen route we had no option but to ride out another 40km of sand.

The sand was nice and damp on top from the moisture overnight. The DR just eats this stuff up. I found second gear and standing on the pegs the easiest way to ride this, occasionally dropping it down to first for the steeper sandier hills or flicking it into third for the more open sections. The tracks were sandy and rutted but easier than the northern end of the Border Track. It wasn't long before David blew another gasket and was needing to stop regularly to catch his breath.

We continued on and were both happy to see the hard packed soil on the opposite side of the gate leading out of Ngarkat Conservation Park. At Tintinara we fueled up and David bought oil for his bike. His DR had burnt a litre of oil in the sandy conditions. Mine hadn’t used any at all. I’m certainly going to miss this bike, it’s been bullet proof.

I off loaded all the rubbish from the previous nights camp in the bin, we grabbed something to eat and took some time out to rest.

Then it was easy dirt roads onwards towards Tailem Bend.

About 20km from Tailem Bend I opened up the throttle in fifth and the DR lost power and died. I drained the float bowl which fixed the problem until I opened it up in top gear again and the same thing happened. I drained the float a second time and this time the bike ran ok. As we rolled into Tailem Bend I noticed my front tyre was flat. After closer inspection it appeared to be a leaky valve so I replaced it with a spare valve and pumped the tyre back up to 26psi. We left Tailem Bend and merged onto the Freeway when suddenly my bike lost power again. I pulled over convinced there must be some shit in the float bowl. I stripped the luggage off the bike and removed the safari tank to gain access to the float bowl screws. With the float off I could clearly see there was some scum sitting in the bottom of the bowl. I can only assume that under heavy load the engine was sucking this scum into the main jet causing it to run lean.

After putting everything back on the bike we got moving again for the final run into Adelaide along the South Eastern Freeway. Apart from strong gusty winds the remainder of the trip was an uneventful cruise along the black top.

The track log downloaded into Basecamp.

For those with DR’s who may be interested in our fuel consumption on the trip here it is. I’ll firstly outline our bike setups.

- Open airboxes
- DJ needle 4th clip position
- DJ 155 main (David) DJ 160 main (mine)
- Drilled slide
- Backfire screen removed
- GSXR 1000 mufflers
- Gearing 14/41

My bike:
Average for the entire trip (692km) 12.9 km per Litre

David’s bike:
Murray Bridge - Pinnaroo (178km) 13.7 km per Litre
Pinnaroo - Tintanara (179km) 12.8 km per Litre

I really HATE the powder-sand...:eek1
That looks like "damn extreme sand". I have to ride in quite a bit of it living in AZ. I keep thinking experience will make me a better sand rider! ...and I just keep thinking that way...
Great ride report, thanks for taking us along.

Holy crap that was a lot of deep sand! Thanks for letting me know where not to go riding if I ever get over there!

I hope David is all right

Awesome stuff well done to both of you the border section can be a killer of a track for a loaded bike. Dave said you did not have a single off. That was not the case for me on that track.

God,
that is my idea of hell. I think I will give that part of SA a miss!

AWESOME!
what does more cowbell mean?

I spoke to him yesterday and he's still not feeling the best. He's got Diverticulosis apparently.

Thanks Tony. Yeah it's a pretty technical bit of track. Hardest ride I've done without doubt. I had a few wobbly moments so was lucky to not come off a couple of times. We need to catch up for a beer soon. :

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

I got it from an SNL sketch with Will Ferrell and Cristopher Walken. Fuckin funny stuff.

Well done boys. Looks like another great adventure. Hope to join soon on the small jaunts..

Pity about the beers......makes you wanna cry!

Good ride report Kano. Not done that track fully loaded, had back up to carry our gear and the fridge. Never carried the extra weight of drinks and ice,:huh on other trips. Usually a plastic bottle of port has to suffice. Sounds like Dave is one tough dude.
I heard there is going to be an entry fee on top of camping fees at Ngarkat being introduced soon.

No worries mate, hope your wrist is healing up alright too

Seems that beer cans these days are made bloody paper thin. I'll be working out a better carriage system for the next one!

Thanks for that Kiz. Yeah I read something a while ago about entry fees being introduced soon. They'll make a bit of dough out of it given the number of 4x4's that travel through there.

Now that's one bloody big sand pit, well done fellas

Top effort Dave, I know how sick you have been, you're a tough bastard to get through that's stuff, but I know, I know, yeah! yeah! yeah! ......... you were on a DR