Singleton to Innamincka, Outback Australia 4500kms in two weeks , solo adventure ride

Hi fellow riders, I would like to share with you guys a trip I did in August 2009 from Singleton NSW in Australia to Innamincka in South Australia. It all started when my brother in law Mike from Melbourne and his mate Travis were planning a trip to Innamincka camping and they were going to trailer their bikes up there and they were to leave in three weeks time. Mike had a DRZ400 and Travis had a WR450. I asked them if I could meet them up there. Mike said put your bike on your trailer and drive to Broken Hill and we can put your bike on our trailer and we can all go up together. I said drive? I'll ride my bike there and I'll meet you at Innamincka. Its a bit far too ride a bike he said, but what ever you want to do. I had a KLX650R which wasn't adventure ready so I had 3 weeks to get it ready.

Here is my bike with two weeks until I had to leave, new tyres, heavy duty tubes, wheel bearings, chain and sprockets, greased everything, new headset bearings and new set of piston rings and cam chain. I bought a 17 litre Acerbis fuel tank and a GME TX3100 5watt UHF, made a lexan windscreen. Years ago I had made for another KLX I owned an alloy 12 litre fuel tank that sits over the rear gaurd and an alloy 15 litre under frame water tank, both are rubber mounted. I welded some 30 x 4mm flat bar on the underside of the rear sub frame to strenghen it.


The day came to say good bye to the wife and kids and head off on my grand adventure.



I headed west and intended to sleep the night at a friends place in Dubbo, The first couple of days were going to be on the tar just to get out there. I met up with my mate Tony and he just had to have a go on my bike with all the gear on it and was suprised on how well it went.

I headed down the Hwy to Narromine, here I stopped and fueled the bike at a servo, about 50 bikes rode past of all shapes and sizes with a member of a biker gang leading the charge. I tagged on the end and thought how am I going to get past all these bikes and that guy up the front if I want to travel faster then them. On the the other side of town they all pulled over to get fuel, when I got past the leader I saw he had a small baseball bat taped across his bars, nice. I moved on and headed to Cobar. I saw heaps of dead roo's on the road but not one dead goat, they must be smart, I saw heaps of goats but they soon trotted off when they heard the bike comming. Most of the wildlife were close to the water dams near the road. I got to Cobar and set up camp in the local caravan park.



Home sweet home.



While I had a couple of hours of light left I went sight seeing and checked out the lookout over the local mine.





Back to the van park for a good nights sleep and a hot shower.

Keep it coming! You had me with the first pic!

I packed up all my crap and started heading down the road to Wilcannia which was 260 klms away. A bit boring on the tar apart from a few flybye's at 160 kph past several grey nomads which I scared the shit out of while they were towing their caravans.
I got to Wilcannia and fuelled up and took a few photos around town, the old post office is a work of art, sandstone but barred up to keep the vandels out.



Some of the other buildings were, WELL.



Quite a few eyes started to stare me out from across the other side of the road from the pub so I slipped on my helmet and took off in a cloud of dust. I headed south west towards Menindee, what a great dirt road, I cruised on 130 kph and the bike behaved nicely.
As you can see in this photo I have got the UHF and IPOD going into a splitter box and then wired to my helmet. The UHF seemed to get really good reception on scan and the Ipod just kept my toes tappen.


Found this old woolshed along the way.



Further down the road i saw two Emu about 200m in front and 100m off to the left, I was sitting on 130 and i did a quick calculation and as they were running straight for the road I knew it would be close. I backed off and by the time we crossed paths my front mudgaurd just brushed past the ass of the second one. :eek1

I got into Menindee and it looks like someone had a baby.



I rode in to Kinchega National park to have a look around and find a camp site for the night, I followed a road which on the map said it was a loop road and it went for miles, great road, smooth and sandy with a contour hump every 500m's for a little jump, the road wound through the trees and then plains of low scrub, so dry and dusty, wild horses, was a bit spooky really. I pushed on as the light was fading and I made it to the Kinchega Shearing shed which was the biggest in the area at the time. When I got there some others in cars were there sight seeing as well. I got off my bike and saw that there was nothing in my LHS saddle bag, SHIT. The chain had come up and hit the stiching and opened it up like a zipper. I knew my gear was in there 30 km's ago so now in fading light I rode back the way I come standing on the pegs in 3rd gear stopping every 500 meters to pick up a chain link, wheel brearing, multimeter, muesli bar, packet of rice, chain lube. I found about 90% of it.



I made my way to the camping area's along the Darling river, I stopped at one camp spot and got talking to a couple in their 30's and they said your not going to camp alone are you, I looked puzzled at them and said Yer and the woman said it's not safe to camp alone around here. Well that really put the shits up me as snipets of Wolf Creek came flooding back to me. I said Thanks and rode on deeper into the bush until about 5 km's away I found a spot by the river with its own fireplace. I set up camp out from under the River Red Gums as huge branches have been known to take people out in tents before.



I had a feed and a cuppa and bunked down for the night, I awoke at about 12 oclock and thought I could hear something / someone outside, I was shitten, what was it an Emu, pig or Kangaroo? It got the better of me so I got out of the tent in my undies with my torch and ...........................Nothing, back to bed, this happened 3 times over the next hour. Until the last time when I heard footsteps around the tent and something tried to crawl under my tent and get in it with me. Well I was outta there in survival mode ready for battle, only to find out it was an Ecidna/ Anteater.

I woke up to an absolutely perfect morning, pancakes on the hot plate, pelicans catching fish in the river in front of me, it was great. Loaded up and wanted to get back to that big ass woolshed for a look. So I headed off through the great winding roads of the park.



I came across the wreck of this old paddle steamer that exploded when apparently it was stranded for 12 months in the darling river due to low water levels, the crew got the OK to fire up the boiler and start towing its barge up stream to get a load of wool. The crew were heavily drunk and to much pressure was allowed to build up in the boiler when BOOM it killed most of its crew and ended up on the bank. :eek1



In it's former glory



Got back to the shearing shed for a look, only half of it still stands and it was renovated by the NPWS. It used to be 100 stand. Here is a few pics, I spent quite a while haven a sticky.









I jumped back on the tar and made a run for Broken Hill, I battled a really bad cross wind all the way up and had to tailgate a car to try and stop getting blown off the bike. I had a quick quick look around town and found the local bike shop. I called in and asked if they could do a quick service for me. They were very helpfull, they took my saddle bags off and sent them around to a canvas mob who mended them straight away. Unfortunatly the apprentice that did the service failed to see that the air filter had split and put it back in, thats another story later, stay tuned.



I found a caravan park to camp in for the night where I found heaps of travellers coming back from Birdsville.

I woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs and I looked out the flyscreen to see about 30 swags laid out all around me, then I over heard one guy over at the BBQ say to a group of guys with him, "Did you hear that guy in that dome tent snoring, Fark me I don't know how his misses could sleep next to him" As I slincked out of the tent for a piss. My Dad was a big snorer and it makes me laugh at bike rallies when you wake up and you can hear about 20 guys snoring their heads off, it doesn't worry me. Any way I did some washing and got ready and had a look around town,


I went and had a look at a few art galleries then took a tour of the Royal flying doctors base.





I was told by the infomation centre not to miss the "Living desert sculptures" at sunset 20 km's out of town and I got some great shots.

Still in Broken Hill and for some reason I loved this town, there is a fair bit to see and do, I would like to bring my family back here one day, some of the old heritage buildings here are just magnificent.



I thought I'd go and check out Silverton where Mad Max 2 was made. Just 25 klms out the road and go through 39 big dips in the road which are a bit of a hoot. Got to the pub and checked it out and had a beer and snapped a pic of my bike next to the Mad Max beast.



And those bloody Emu's



Quite a few nice art galleries out this way as well. I didn't have a spare $6000 for an oil painting so I moved on, but I will say that the blonde girl behind the counter was hot.



On my way out of town I found this 1940 model Harley.



Further out the road there is a great lookout where you can see for miles.



I headed back in to Broken Hill for the night and got some gear organised to set off again and head north to Tibooburra in the morning. When I got back to the Van park I met up with these guys who were on thier way back from Birdsville, They left thier car and trailer at the Van park and rode up from there. Apparently they had an absolute shocker with the KLR as they couldn't keep the chain on the thing, they had a good go at fixing it at Cameron corner, packed the bikes and waved good bye to Fen, Cheryl and Bill from the pub and only got 50 metres down the road and the chain spat off again, old matey got off and went birko.





And the bike that turned thier trip into an adventure.

I left Broken Hill earlyish and blood hell, it was freezing last night, made tracks up the Silver City Hwy and it turned out to be a great road to scoot along on. It chops and changes from tar to dirt all the way and recomend it to anyone who likes to travel fast.



I pulled into Pack saddle to fuel up still wondering why girls live out here and work in these road houses, nothing for miles.


I continued on towards Milpirinka, the surface of the road was now sharp little triangle shaped rocks. I passed 5 4x4's changing tyres along the way, I stopped and offered help but they were all managing. Would you believe all the tyres that got flats were Coopers. I came across this XR8 ute out in the middle of nowhere.



This party bus must have gone off with a bang, check out the jerry can! :eek1



I kept motoring on and came to the Milpirinka turn off and said to myself, "What the Fark?"



I stopped in and had one quick beer at the pub and then checked out the old sandstone buildings in the area before making tracks to Tibooburra.



I arrived in Tibooburra later that afternoon and was looking for a place to camp out of the rocks, couldn't find one so I stopped in to the Family pub owned by Dan, Kathy and daugter Leonie. They made me feel very welcome and I had dinner there with them, the "Tbone " steak over hung the plate by about 2 inches each end. The beer started flowing then the bullshit, by midnight I was in no state to put up a tent in the rocks so I asked Leonie how much for a room, she said it's not all booked out so you can have one of the renovated rooms for $20, done deal, and you can put your bike around the back.


They called me MR Kawasaki all night, and when I thought I'd booked enough on my credit card I shuffled off to have a shower and go to bed, the rooms were freshly painted, new carpet, new mattress, new sheets and doona and pillows, I was in heaven. It was good to get into a proper bed for the night.

thats... quite a bash plate

I woke up and got my gear together, today was the day I had been waiting for, the start of the real desert country. I pushed my bike from the pub over to the servo so I didn't wake anyone, fuelled up and had a bacon and egg roll. After that I set off not knowing how I would go in the sand.


Got to the turn off to Cameron Corner hoping I could handle the bike with all this weight on it. I found the road to have deep sandy sections with bulldust holes in the claypans.



And closer to Cameron Corner was heavily corrogated from the traffic comming back from Birdsville the week before.



I passed several cars on this section they were all doing about 40 kph, I cruised past standing on the pegs doing 120 and couldn't feel it. A KLX650R hasn't got too much going for it in the way of an adventure bike, but the suspension is great, 300mm travel front and back with USD forks are billiant, I felt really in control and confident on the sand and the corrogations. When I arrived at the dingo gate a touched one of the front forks and it nearly burnt my hand, must have been doing a big job inside there.




I rode over to the Corner store which is the pub as well. Met the pub owner Bill and the couple operating it Fen and Cheryl. I grabed a beer and sat outside and got talking to the other travelers passing through. Quite a few hours later one of the cars I had passed which was a new 200 series Landcrusier pulled up and a lady about 65yrs old opened up the passenger door and fell out. When she got up and dusted herself off she said to us " That has got to be the roughest road I have ever been on in my life, I thought the dash was going to fall out of our new car." and she looked at me and said were you on that motorbike? I cant beleive how fast you were going. I tried to explain to her that the faster you go the smoother it feels, when your hubby wisked her off inside for a stiff scotch.


I got talking to an old guy who had been stuck there for a number of days, He had towed a caravan out there and the wooden frame just fell to pieces on the corrogations and the whole shell just fell over the chassis about 20 klm's from the Corner. He had to just skull drag the thing there and after talking to Fen they dragged it up to the tip, took some photos for insurance and was going to carry on his trip just in his ute.



We were settling down having a few beers and watching the sunset as two dingo fence workers turned up in a Landcrusier ute , they joined us with a beer and I started asking questions about the dingo fence and what they actually did.


And you know how you get those mirages in the desert, well I thought I was having one when a full size luxury coach pulled up and 40, year 12 school girls got off. They were from a girls school in Melbourne and they were on an excursion following the Burke and wills Route. :eek1
The coach made camp 150 metres away from the pub on the flat and once they got there huge big camp fire going Bill the Pub owner came up with a cunning plan, He said to the Dingo fence workers, how about we all go down and sit amoungest them all and tell them we have come down to give them a educational talk about the histrory and maintenance of the dingo fence. What a cunning rat, it worked and in no time I was getting an educational talk about a 6 foot fence I now didn't seem to give a fark about in amoungest as much 18 yr old eye candy as I could handle. :eek1:huh Did I tell you about the two blonde twin sisters. , good on ya Bill.

Did I mention the blonde twins!!!! Gggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Load of poo... as you worked out. I spent nearly three years out at Menindee. Nothing out there to bother you but echidna's!

Just off to the left of this photo is the old shearers quarters and an ammenities building. NPWS run the show, you can stay there or just have a shower. From memory the (HOT!) showers cost a gold coin donation? A sweaty & dusty ADV rider couldn't knock that back

Now, I'd appreciate it if you got on with the story. I like stories involving western NSW

Gee's your quick! I'm knocking this diatribe together and your knocking out another day's story! Love your work

My Bash plate is a 15 litre alloy water tank, you can see the filler cap on the front RHS and the drain tap on the bottom LHS rear.
Cheers Fogo..

Great ride report, great bike, I love home made mods like the spare fuel tank and water tank/bash plate.

Thanks for sharing.

Wish I was there for the Dingo Fence talk Photo,s of that please !!

great ride report, i look forward to reading more

The arvo before, I had ago at repairing a crack along one of the alloy welds on my under frame water tank, I had to drain a fair bit out to get it below the crack and I patched it up with some two part Devcon type epoxy. In the morning before I set off I asked Fen if I could get some fresh water out of his rain water tank and he refused as his family was very low as well due to the poor season. That left me in a bit of a panic, he said I can sell you a carton of piss to take with ya, . Imagine that, ADV rider found dead, eaten by dingos with 24 stubbies littered around him.
Anyway, one camper said go down and see the bus driver, they have huge water tanks under them. So I did and the bus driver gave me a 9 litre bucket of water, He knew I was a bit worried about travelling down the Old Strzelecki track alone and said the bus is going that way, you get going and if anything happens we'll be 1/2 hr behind you. sounded great. So I fired up the green machine and took off like a maniac, all the school girls were over near the survey post and they were waving madly at me so I lent the bike around the RH corner outter there and cracked it open, full powerslide, and due to just getting fuelled up, full tank of fuel over the back gaurd, I took my Left hand off the grip for a split second to wave back when the front reared up and the back stepped out. Got a bit messy from there, little tank slapper but managed to grab it by the neck and gain contol again. Not sure if the girls were doing the Loser sign on their head to me or they didn't like the bus driver.



The night before I was advised not to go down the Bore track as many bikes on the way home from Birdsville had crashed due to the sandy tracks being really chopped up from the 4x4's coming home.
So off down the Strez I went, and loved every minute of it. I was talking to the coach driver on the UHF and knew that they were coming up the rear if something went wrong, so I settled I and enjoyed the 213 sand dunes to ride over.



You think it would be boring riding out here but I was amazed how the color of my surroundings changed every 20 klm's or so


From red to white to brown to grey to purple and so on, it was spectacular.
I pulled over under a tree at the Merty Merty intersection and started to have a drink of water when the coach went past, I waved him on and got going again,

The road soon changed to deep soft sand and I radioed ahead to the coach that I wanted out of his dust and was it clear to make a flybye, He said bring her round your clear, if I was going to crash in front of a bus load of school girls I was going to do it in spectacular fashion, so I got a run up and passed the coach doing about 140 kph, no worries once I got beside the coach and could see what I needed to dodge. The group pulled over to check out one of the many gas wells in the area and I rode on.



I came out onto the main Strez for a bit before turning north back onto the final leg of the Old Strez.



The last leg of the journey was great, alot more corners and winding through scrub and trees. Then I came out the otherside and down into the Town of INNAMINCKA. I pulled up at the Pub /servo /general store and had a look around,

it was about 2pm and hot, I sat in the pub and had a couple of beers,


but it was still early and I wasn't expecting Mike and Travis until dark. So I went for a ride over the otherside of the river bank looking for a camp site, not much there so I came back. I was sitting outside the servo in the sun, there was nowhere to get out of it unless it cost you money and inside the pub it would. I didn't know but when I rode into town, On the LHS I actully passed the public camp ground which you can't see. I was sitting out the front of the shop and I started to have like an anxienty attack or some kinda melt down, I looked around and up hill from the shop towards the tip all you can see is rolling fields of golf ball sized rock, fucking billions of them, no grass, no trees, no animals, just red rocks, it was like being on Mars. And my brain said "Hey buddy your a fucking long way from home on that little green motorbike" and I started freaking out, my mobile didn't work so I called my wife on the pay phone and gave her a mouth full, why would your brother want to come out here, theres nothing here but rocks, and so on, she calmed me down and said go back in the pub and have a few more beers, my brother isn't far now. So I took her word for it and did what I was told. While I was in there the coach pulled up and one of the female teachers came into the pub and had quite a few Gin and tonics, she said to me I saw you passing us on that Motor bike, How can you ride so fast on the sand? After an hour she got up to join the rest of the group on the bus and she was smashed, she staggered out and boarded the bus. Here is a pic of the public showers and toilets across from the pub.



Then these Grey Nomads pulled in on bikes, apparently they struggled big time with heaps of stacks, trying to ride the soft sandy roads at 40 to 50 kph.



After a few more beers I was legless, then an old fella Joe from Coffs Harbour showed up on his KTM950 Adventure.



While Joe was getting off his bike I bought 2 schooners of beer ( well they were called some other stupid name but thats another story) and I ran outside with the beer and yelled out " What in the hell took ya so long?" he just laughed and took the beer off me and said " I followed your tracks up here all day, up the old Strez", yep that was me. Instant friends, well he had just met one that supplies free beer, he was laughing. I asked if he had seen a Brown Nissan Patrol with two bikes on a trailer, and he said he had passed them about an hour ago, they wont be long. One more pint, jug, handle or what ever the beers were called later, they arrived, and I was any ones for the night.



It was the first time I met Travis, and I introduced them to Joe. We all got a beer and told of our adventures. Mike wispered in my ear pointing at Joe and said that guy's a mad bastard, I said why, He told me that they were in the soft sand part of the Strez doing about 120 and joe came roaring past standing on the pegs doing at least 150 and waved at them as he went past. I said to Mike, yer he's bloody 61 yrs old. :eek1
While sitting outside we noticed that there was no rubbish bins ANYWHERE. The deal is if you buy something you deal with the rubbish. After a night on the piss ,YOU had to drive up to the tip and dump your rubbish, it was really weird. By the end of the a couple of days there I was like a walking garbage bin, my Dririder was stuffed with ice block wrapers, lollies, sauce containers. Couldn't get away from all the flies.
Anyway the night got messy and vaige, Pool table, Girls (where the hell they came from I don't know) 8:30pm dinner time before its to late, so we rushed up to the counter to order, I was at this stage having trouble getting my words out, but I ordered a Rump steak and vegies, " That will be $46 thanks", Farking what? You heard, "$46 thanks" I said I only want to buy a bit of steak not it's farking back leg.. He said well you can go and get a steak from the next town if you like, that got my thinking, while someone in the back of the line pokes me in the back and says "hurry up cock head" Whip whap credit thanks. I enjoyed every bit of that stinkin wild beast and licked the plate clean.
One of the Barmaids was trying to crack on to Trav and I was rooted so I jumped on my bike and pulled the helmet on and yelled out, "Seeya over the river boys" as the KLX roared into life and echoed down the road through the straight through Staintune. I crossed the river and found a camp spot. With the bike off and a torch in my mouth I started to remove my tent, I shone the torch around the out skirts of the area and three dingos were trotting towards me. I shone the torch at them and ran at them yelling. I carried on putting the tent up and thought, these bastards are gunna bloody well drag us away tonight and feed us to their pups. Then the other boys arrived and had a laugh, We all bunked down for the night ready for an early start.

nice work fogo

This is bloody fantastic

Love it

We all sleept well and had a bit of a laugh about last night and hassled out Trav about the chick that was trying to crack on to him, as we were all married we were on our best behavior. We had breaky and made some sandwiches for our days adventure. Travis was going to be our tour guide as he did his apprenticeship at Moomba for Santos when he was a young fella so he knew the place like the back of his hand.



Off with the bikes, Trav planned to take us around to see the Dig Tree and one of the graves of Burke or Wills, not sure which one we saw first.


The boys only had stock tanks and would need extra fuel to make the distance so I kept on my rear tank as all up my bike held 30 litres. We had organised for Joe to come with us but no time was organised, I heard a bike real early and thought that maybe he was an early riser and didn't want to wake us so we made tracks.
We turned right and headed down the loop road that went to the dig tree. We came up to a fence in the middle of nowhere and it had a stock grid on the road to get through and we spooked about 6 station horses and they started galloping up the fence line, we all stopped to let them go first and I was amazed at one, how fat the horses were with nothing to eat but red rocks and sand and two, how fast the horses could gallop with no shoes across a paddock covered in golf ball sized rocks.


It is very hard country out here. Not even a blade of grass.



We kept on towards the dig tree and it isn't hard to see why people perish out in this enviroment. We did come across this fella wandering around looking for love.



We had a hoot of a ride around to the Burke and Wills dig tree, very dry and dusty and hot. The Dig tree was amazing and I cant believe that some asshole hasn't destroyed it yet.



Here is the real dig tree giving Burke and Wills the instruction where to dig for supplies that were buried.



We headed around to one of the grave sites, I had ago on Travs WR and after 30 klm's we all swapped again now I was on the DR. By the time we got to the grave site Mike didn't want to give the KLX back, he said at first it felt at heavy as a tank, which it is, but it has the torque to make up the difference. Did I mention how hot it was? The grave site was next to the Coopers Creek and we stripped off to our undies and were in there.




We had run out of drinking water by this time so it was time to head back to camp. When we got there we moved all our gear across to the public camping ground on the other side of the river. I didn't know but there was about 10 families over there and great camping spots.



That night Travis had organised for some of his old work buddies from Moomba to come over and have a BBQ for dinner. Once it got dark 4 Santos vehicles turned up and about 10 guys jumped out with a couple of cartons, big BBQ plate and a big bag of scotch fillet steaks, they left at about 12 o clock and 4 guys that weren't drinking drove the others back, They had to radio back to their base and tell a control guy what their intensions were and what time they expect to be home. travis told me that all the Santos vehicles were speed limited to 80 kph due to past accidents.

We all bunked down for the night and I couldn't believe how many dingo's were snooping around, I would shine my torch through the flyscreen and you could see them walking around the camp, one walked right past my front door, I was fasinated and shitten myself at the same time, I had never seen dingo's before this trip. Everyone was nearly asleep and I would keep shaking the tent to scare them off. The other two guys were sleeping in swags unzipped. I kept laughing cause Travis was hanging out of his swag and I was fully zipped up. The other guys would wake up and say, "What are you doing" then bang, crash, a dingo was up on the bike trailer getting into the dirty plates.
All night they circled my tent and I didn't sleep real good at all.

I woke up at about 5:30am bustin for a piss, I'd been hanging on to it for some time, too scared to get up in the dark in case some preastoric canine beast dragged my corpse off into the bush like Azaria Chamberlain. I sat up and had a look out of the window and started to chuckle as I was watching a big male Dingo croutching down fully stretched forward sniffing Travis's head, just seeing if he was worth taking a little test bite of, I yelled out, "Trav lookout a dingo right behind ya". With his arms stretched out sideways and looking straight up to the sky he awoke from a deep sleep and opened one eye, then all hell broke loose as he sat up swingin, screaming "Fuck off ya little fucker" well that brought on a stampede, there were 4 other dingos in our camp that I had not seen and they made dust trails in all directions. I had sore ribs all day from laughin, one stage I was bustin to get a breath in. when we got up and assesed the damage we found that Travis's BBQ plate was sparkling clean. he reckons that he has never managed to get it that clean with steel wool. Bloody dingos must have been licking that plate all night.
While we were havin breaky there were these anoying crows hanging around, Mike was sitting on a chair having his cereal with the bowl between his legs when this crow flew into a branch above him and dropped the biggest shit which landed on his knee, splat, splashed in to his cereal. Trying not to laugh, but Mike I'm home now,.



Mike's back window in his Patrol got smashed on the way up, they reckon it's pretty common from the corrogations, I saw a few cars with cardboard taped to the back window, then I noticed that Joe had written his mobile number down on the cardboard, saying he slept in the other morning and was going to start heading east again. I put his mobile number into my phone just in case. Travis had an action packed day planned for us. He was going to take us up to Coongie lakes, but we had to carry more fuel so I went for a ride up to the local dump and found two cordial bottles, that was the best I could come up with, Travis worked out that we needed 51 litres and we had 50 so we took the chance. What a great ride up there, fast flowing sandy tracks which ended up in a big race once the boys got rid of their 2 L bottles, the track wound through scrub, trees big long clay pan straights and deep soft sandy corners.


We arrived safely at Coongie Lake and we had a bit of trouble getting over one dune to get to the water.
I had seen soft beach sand before but this red stuff was really fine and very difficult to ride on.
We didn't have to get up this, Trav just wanted a better view.




Water water everywhere, as far as the eye can see.


Mike milked all the fuel out of my back tank and topped the little bikes up for the return trip.



We raced most of the way home, I would let the guys get in front and when they got into a deep sandy corner I would knock the green machine back a cog and just cain it through leaving them for dead and then there was allways time for 160 kph flybye on the clay pan. Mike flagged me down and said get off it, so we swapped bikes and I rode the DRZ400 home. We pulled in and had a look at the camp ground called Policemans point and it was packed with travellers. Mike said it sure is 650 country out here, big CC's rule in the sand, he said that thing farkin hammers. We headed back and called in to have a look at the Innamincka race track, so Mike and I thought we better give it a go.



Back to the campsite for some R & R and an early night in the sack, we were knackerd.
Dingo's take what you want.