Day 2: Blackall to Mt. Isa (923 km. Total now 1,886 km)

Simply put; Day 2 makes Day 1 look like a ride to the neighbourhood grocery store!!!

A good start this morning. Weather was a bit chilly but the storm has cleared up and the sky looks clear. I was hoping it stays that way today. Anyway, I shouldn’t complain – it’s a Monday morning and I don’t have to go to work! While packing, I realized most of the stuffs I brought were untouched. Well, it’s only Day 2 and most of it are “just in case” stuffs anyway. My back started to ache a bit but nothing that a painkiller can’t fix. A group of guys in the next cabin were also packing up their 4WD and getting ready to depart. A customary “G’day” and “Hi, howya doin, mate” was all I can manage at this point.

First stop, I decided to check out some local historical place. Visited the “Black Stump”. Long story but basically this was the original place used by the surveyors in 1887 to locate their theodolite in mapping of Australia. At that time, anything to the west of the stump is known as “beyond the stump”. Fascinating story; for a surveyor, I think… At 5:30 am, I was obviously the only visitor around…

Then when I was about to make a head start I realized that the bike needs a fill up. And I also found out that the gas station in town is not open until 7:00 am! [Note to self: Fill up in the evening next time]. I asked an elderly gentleman who’s one of the town council cleaning crew (you got to admire these guys who started working while everyone is still in bed) and he told me there’s a BP station as I come into town yesterday and it’s already opened. He was right. I also managed to get myself the routine double espresso. For whatever reason, I decided to just sit there on a rock in front of the gas station and decided take it easy. It was my second “moment” in this trip. Yes, I’m going to do more pondering and less rushing. I’ll try…

Then off heading Northwest towards Barcaldine. The road was just as bumpy but not as bad as the Roma-Mitchell stretch. I stopped counting dead kangaroos though – it’s too depressing. The scenery is just all the same except this part the tarmac is red. I shot a video of it from the mounted camera. Perhaps one day when I’m bored, I can just watch it and pretend… Anyway, I still don’t see any life roos so I assumed that my shoo-roo is working. But there was this emu who just stood there by the road side watching me curiously. I thought the shoo-roo works for all animals? [Note to self: Look for a shoo-emu?]. At one time I also had to swerve to avoid a hawk who was just standing (do birds stand?) on a roo carcass. He was just staring at me in a very intimidating way. It was his neighbourhood, so I had to show some respect… 

Arrived Barcaldine still a bit too early, even on a Monday morning. Decided to visit their “Tree of Knowledge”. See what it’s all about. I stopped for a quick chat with an elderly couple who was setting up their stall for the pink ribbon charity then head off to Longreach. I noticed that the stretch in this part is getting longer and longer in between towns. I started a new habit of customary wave to passing highway buddies. I was wondering before why people do that; now I realized that it was so lonely, you’d be happy to see another fellow travellers passing by! I also did a survey; you will most likely get a wave back from people in caravan, closely followed by road trains drivers. You get less percentage of wave back from locals especially those in cars. I will do some more analysis later. I also noticed that all the towns here call themselves “Gateway to the Outback”. I was wondering how many gateways are there… Then it made sense to me. The towns are the gateways to the Outback on either sides of the road! I think…

I stumbled upon this funny place The Bottle House just between Barcaldine and Longreach. It has old car rims hung all over its fence! Hundreds of them! Weird. A must-stop for car rims fans! I decided against actually visiting inside the house for fear it could be even weirder! By the way, every now and then I get a “where are you now?” message. Someone at home is missing me, I know… :-)

The thing about riding a bike is that I couldn’t do anything else but ride. I couldn’t even eat or drink while riding. I had to memorize all my ideas and at the next stopping opportunity wrote them down in my little notebook. Maybe a Bluetooth voice recorder would be handy next time… At stops, this is typical. A working toilet (they are surprisingly clean – for a Malaysian like me - and even have toilet paper!). You would have to use a foot pump to flush. Maybe I should get a picture of it next time.

Another wonder of the Outback are the road trains. [Note to self: Get a pic. Maybe not all have seen a road train before]. Some are 3 trucks long and up to 50 meters! After a while you’d have a love/hate relationship with them. You’d hate them when they come towards you (they would shake the whole bike!) but after a while not seeing them, you kinda miss their presence. There’s only one thing worse than road train – road train carrying livestock! The smell!!! I couldn’t roll up my window though…

Hey, I had more to write than yesterday! Read on…

Here’s a pic at the Qantas Museum in Longreach. Nice patch work, huh? I read first that the birthplace of Qantas is Longreach, but then when I arrived in Winton, they also said they are the birthplace of Qantas. Need to check which one is correct.

In Winton, I decided to crank up the adventure a bit. I took a detour to the Australia Age of Dinosaurs Fossil Preparation Facility. Sounded great but it is what it is; a warehouse full of fossils. The best part was that it’s 11 km into the outback. See pics below. I even recorded a video as I climbed down the steep gravel path from the mountain top. Not easy on an RT! Now, THIS is Outback!

The journey to Cloncurry was really torturous. This would really define “ludicrous”. This is the part I meant in my opening statement. Even I am beginning to think that I’m crazy to make myself go through this. Long lonely stretch and the temperature is now up to 38°C! At every stop, even the tiniest shade is a blessing!

But I still have time to take out my tripod to capture my biker look…

One last event for the day was a quick stop for lunch at a roadhouse in Kynuna. It was attended by an elderly couple and their dog. They were very friendly. The dog was sleeping, thank god.

Finally made it to Mt. Isa just before dark. AND, another cabin night. Oh, come on; I deserve it after a long ride like this. The tent and the foam mat can wait. Besides, I’m already one day ahead of my plan. Tomorrow I’m staying here and will be touring the town. For some reason, the town’s tagline is “You’re not a real Aussie ‘till you’ve been to Isa”. I guess I’ll have to find out tomorrow why they say that…

Day 1: Brisbane to Blackall (963 km)

There; I made it! I guess it was just about making that first move. Once I was on the road, all the worries and nervousness just got swept away by the wind and I was able to enjoy every moment of the ride today...

Make this the "before" picture. We'll compare it to the "after" picture when I get back!

It started early this morning as planned. By 5:15 am, I already had all my gears loaded onto the bike. I had only one fan bidding me farewell as all the others were still in bed. It was an emotional moment nonetheless. As I hugged and kissed my wife goodbye, she whispered to me, "I hope you will find what you're looking for...". Yes, perhaps that is what this trip is all about - searching for myself. I don't mean to sound too philosophical or melodramatic about it all but one whole day on a bike, all by yourself with plenty of time to reflect on all sorts of things tends to make you a bit softy inside somehow.

Anyway, I'm refraining myself from writing too much on the first day for fear of getting the "journal" too long in the beginning and thinning towards the end. But all the way I had so many ideas and thoughts to write about, I think I wouldn't be sleeping tonight if I were to write them all!

It went exceptionally well in the morning. As I got onto the Ipswich Highway there were already few wrong setups that I spotted but hey, we can only plan every detail of the trip but we can't help missing a thing of two. First I noticed that the duffel bag that I strapped on the back seat blocked part of the view in my rear mirror. This means that I would have wider blind spot than usual. Anyway, that just need a bit of adjusting myself to the condition. Next, I realized that the camera mount that I fixed on the windshield is vibrating badly. I really should have attached it to the body of the bike but that's something I would have to figure out later. The other problem was when I wanted to switch on the camera on the move. I was struggling to push the tiny button while wearing my riding glove! I tried once taking off the glove while riding just to push the button then putting it on again but decided that it was too unsafe as it took my focus from the road. Looks like the camera mount could be the first redundant gadget on this trip after all...

I had such a nice ride I didn't realize that by the time I reach Dulacca (about 100 km from Roma) it was only 9:20 in the morning! I way underestimated my travelling time. I have not even had any breakfast yet but I feel like I can go another 200k easily! Had a short break eating dates (good energy source - I learnt that the hard way while mountain climbing once) then head off to Roma.

Note: Resting under this tree was one of the "moment" during this trip so far

As I approached Roma I noticed that the "Km to go..." was reducing quite rapidly. My plan was to fill up at Roma. I had always find that the bike can go minimum 500-550 km without filling but this time, it went down to 0 only after travelling for 450 km! It must be the weight of all those gears. I was almost literally holding my breath as I rode the last 16 km on "0". I was praying that when the manual says the bike has a 60km worth of tank capacity of reserve, it really has it. I made it to Roma finally and filled the tank to the brim!

One of the few things I was really glad I had was the windshield on the bike and the full face helmet I wore. That route is really a bug fest. By the time I got there, if I had not had the windshield or wear and open face helmet, I would have been full with all the exotic outback bugs! Thousands of them all splattered their guts on me. And am I glad also that I brought the handy "optical wet wipes"!.

The stretch from Roma to Mitchell was absolutely beautiful. In my my trial run back in April, I passed through there near dusk. Now in daylight and when the rain was forming in the horizon, it was such a brilliant scene. It felt like one of Monet's painting actually came to life... and I was right in it! I did stop and tried to capture the scenery but my cheapo camera didn't do justice to the scene (perhaps it is now justified to get the Canon EOS 550D after all, wink..wink..)

By the time I got to Mitchell again I found out I'm way ahead of time (how I wish those projects I worked on were like this!). I had to make an executive decision there and then. By the way, the storm was faithfully following me from behind. So, what's it gonna be; put it up in Mitchell as per plan (it was still noon at that time!) or try to outrun the storm to my next destination. I did call my "home office weather station reporting unit" seeking information but as it turns out, the "support team" was busy attending a knitting and craft convention! I decided to push on...

But I forgot; up till Mitchell, I was moving westward and so is the storm. After Mitchell, I was heading north and so the storm caught up with me in no time! I arrived in Blackall [edited] drenched. Found the caravan park just in time before another downpour and as I enquired about a camping spot, the owner of the park said, "Mate, a thunderstorm is heading this way. I don't think you gonna make it in your tent!". So, here it is; now I'm sitting comfortably in my (as luck turns out; the last one available) cabin and a very strong wind is forming outside. I guess, I do get to enjoy the luxury of writing like at home while on the road. I wonder how it's like writing from inside a tent... Oh, and for one of my sponsor, no mention yet as I did not get to use his sponsored foam mat! [edited: Shah, the answer is; cabin night!] hmmm...

All in all, it was a great day today. It was time to reflect and ponder, and even to come up with few great ideas. Over the mileage I put today, I have thought of a design patent, construct half a poem and thought of a very good comeback that I should have come up with on one previous occasion. I also spotted 26 roos who ended up as roadkill along the way... poor souls. One did try to cross my path but my "shoo-roo" must have deterred it! What's a shoo-roo? Google it...

Here's my bike resting peacefully under the porch... Heheh, who could say "no" to a biker...

So, good night all. We'll ride on tomorrow...!


p/s: most of the pics will be posted on Facebook instead of here - the blog will be too heavy with too many pics. So, for those who are yet to have an FB account... you know who you are!!!

All set and ready to go!

Just thought that I'd post a quick one before I retire early for the night.

I can gladly say that everything is done! All the stuffs are packed nicely on the bike. I spent the entire morning (not that early though... some of the guys - and one of my "sponsors" - came over last night to bid farewell and we ended up chatting until 2 am!) and afternoon going through my packing list again and ticking them off one by one. It was going on so well, until I had to packed everything into the bike - they won't fit!!! The worse and saddest part is reducing the load. I'm very sure all the things on the list that was the result of months of research are all important - but some of them have to go. Anyway, there was also a bit of small success here and there. Look at the two "before" and "after" pics below - Look closely and you can guess that the wife would have came along at some point and help out...

The other funny (but also a bit scary) moment was when the bike was fully loaded, while on its centre stand, the front wheel just rose by itself! Haha... imagine how rear-heavy it is now. Thanks to the Electronic Suspension Adjustment (ESA) system, one push of a button fixed the rear suspension pre-tension level. But imagine carrying a big pillion rider everywhere for every day for two weeks!

Below here will be part of my fixed view for 8 to 10 hours a day. My cockpit:

One could easily mistaken it for a cockpit of a fighter jet, haha! The middle screen is the GPS and the compact camera is fixed on a separate mount next to it (that's the Camzilla camera mount).

By the way, this is also a practice for quick blog entry. From now on, I can forget the luxury of writing from the desktop PC in my home office, sitting on a fluffy chair with a mug of tea writing through the night. Starting tomorrow night, I'd be lucky to be able to spare 1 hour.

Anyway, here goes, butterflies in stomach and all - I'm retiring for the night. Hope I can sleep easy. This was what I cook the family for dinner tonight - fillet steak accompanied with greek salad, garlic oyster mushroom, sauteed onion and red pepper... Just wanted to see that smiling face before I depart tomorrow...

Good night and good ride... :-)

This is it!

This is it - after many months of preparation and dreaming (more dreaming than preparing actually); the day finally has come! I'm extremely excited but a bit nervous at the same time. I know I have sort of a plan and I'm sort of packed. I guess I would just have to wake up on Sunday morning and ride off. It's a blessing to have all the best people in the field working for me otherwise I would have never been able to make this trip and leave the office for two weeks! I just hope I'd still have my job when I get back...

Here's the bike with the new topbox. This pic was taken just after the Safety Inspection at the BMW Motorrad workshop. The gave it a nice wash too!

And here's the pic during the practice setup of the tent few evenings ago. It's roomy but it's also light - and it will save me a lot of money that otherwise I would have had to be spent on motel bills! Come to think of it, the money that I spent for the tent vs. money I save from motel bills gave me a return on more than 1000%! How's that for IRR...

More pictures to come (I'm sure I can spare some time in between packing my stuff)...

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

As more and more people got to know about my planned adventure (I prefer this rather than "trip"; it sounded more uncertain and challenging and less prepared - which I am), I have been asked many kinds of questions. All are innocent questions and most are inquisitive in nature but there are also one or two annoying ones. Nevertheless I enjoy answering them all - or at least make a straight face at one of those annoying ones. So, here are the questions and their answers; in no particular order except maybe ranked by the number of times I heard them:

Q: Are you going alone?
A: Yes, alone. That's why I call it solo ride.

Q: Are you crazy???
A: Well, technically, no. But isn't everyone crazy about something somehow? I think going fishing in the rain in a small kayak is crazy but hey, who am I to criticize. 

Q: How long are you going for? When are you going? Which route are you going to take?
A: Please refer to my blog posting entitled The Plan Finalized (19 Sept)
(This is normally followed by the second question above again)

Q: What if something happens to your bike? 
A: I can mend a flat myself, thanks to my puncture repair kit that comes complete with CO2 canisters and all but anything more than that it has to be with the help from the BMW Motorrad Roadside Assist who promised that "Now you can travel the length and breadth of Australia, secure in the knowledge that BMW Motorcycle Roadside Assistance will be with you every step of the way.". I just hope they come when I call... And oh, I picked the bike that has been voted the most reliable tourer, made by one of the most widely known brand as being of highest reliability, insya'allah...

Q: Is it not dangerous being in the Outback all by yourself?
A: Not if you know what you're doing! Besides, I probably need a bit of that. I have been too comfortable lately. Watching "Dangerous Animals" from the comfort of the sofa in my living room doesn't do it anymore. A little element of danger and unknown will spike your senses and sharpen your instinct. Besides, I just like to ride and where else can you find space and distance other than the outback.
(This is normally followed by the second question above again)

Q: Is your family okay with this?
A: I have my wife's blessings; and even encouragement. It has been a trying year for me in many aspects so far so hopefully this trip can rejuvenate me and with a bit of soul searching (I will have plenty of thinking time to myself during all those daily rides) hopefully I come back a better person. [If not, I'll go one more round, until I become better...]

Q: Do you have to train for this?
A: Riding wise; see my blog posting Even pros need training (5 June). Health and fitness wise, yes, I have started running again and manage to lose a few pounds back to my Ramadhan weight. As they say, the bike is designed to stay upright when it's moving forward - I just need to make sure I stay on it! 

Q: What if it rains?
A: BANG! BANG! BANG! Don't you ever bring that up again, capisce???

Q: Where will you sleep?
A: Well, where I lay my head is home... ("Wherever I may roam" - Metallica). But seriously, 1st choice camping, 2nd choice, motel or hotel. Decision factor: (1) Cost, (2) Convenience, (3) My back. "What if it rrr....". BANG! BANG! BANG! I told you...

...and last but not least, a kind of question that left me perplexed...

Q: Why are you doing it?
A: Now, this is tough to answer. If only I knew the answer. Well, let's see... uummpphhh... well, I can't really answer this without sounding too philosophical about it but I guess, in no particular order:
1. I just like to ride
2. It's a calling
3. Don't you find the Red centre awesome? Do you know that geologically it is known as a "bornhardt" - a weather-resistant rock that was left standing when everything else around it was worn away over millions of years. Isn't that such a symbolic splendour by itself? God must have put it there for a reason. I just want to admire it and praise God for it.
4. I'll find out when I finally get there
5. And as the famous Harley Davidson saying goes; "If I have to explain to you, then you'd never understand..."

If you have anymore, please do not hesitate to ask. I will try to answer them in the friendliest manner...