Out of Darwin and into the northern Australian Outback. Home to the Gibb River Road, bushes, trees, kangaroos and very little else. One of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson, wrote a booked he titled "In a Sunburned Country," (and it should be noted for marketing purposes, it was called "Down Under" for the Australian release), and I fully understand where the title came from. There is just so much empty land out here, and 99 percent of it looks post apocalyptic. The only signs of life are the occasional kangaroo, road train, or scores of recreational vehicles, that too look like they were built for the apocalypse with their multiple tires on the roof, beefed up suspensions, and solar panels affixed to every available portion of their vehicles. To be quite honest, they are kinda cool looking.
There is no secret as to why there are so many camper vehicles running through the outback. The cost of a basic 1 to 2 star flea-bag hotel is $180 USD (which is oddly the price of a 3-4 star hotel too). The only food and gas available is at the roadhouses, and pricing reflects this lack of supply where there is an abundance of demand. Gas and food is about 2-4 times more expensive in the outback than anywhere else in the country (and possibly the planet), so these heavily modified RVs have kitchens, enormous fuel tanks, additional gerry cans of fuel attached to their roof racks, as well as water, and electrical making capabilities to avoid stopping at hotels or restaurants. An non-powered campsite is only about $13 USD, so that is where you will find these behemoths. And if you look closely, wedged in-between these vehicles, you may find a BMW 1200GS parked next to a small tent with me inside.
The highlight of the journey was to be the Gibb River Road, which is a dirt road, with a few river crossings, that runs through the Kimberly region of Australia, and is legendary in these parts. The road itself is unimpressive, but it leads back to dozens of gorges through side roads dirt trailsallywats that travesable by four-wheel drive vehicles. There is very little support on the Gibb as there is few gas stations, with distances in excess of 450km without unleaded fuel. My plan was to affix an additional 20 liters of fuel to the bike, and run the full Gibb River Road, That WAS the plan, but there was a problem. When I had my bike serviced in Darwin they informed me that the cylinders were running uneven, and they needed to remap the engine. Well they remapped it, and now the bike is getting about 35 percent less mileage out of the bike, and even with the extra fuel on board, there was not enough range to make the distances between stations, thus making running the full Gibb impossible. So I just did a small piece of the eastern end of the landmark trail. I was able to get to some gorges (Emma and El Questro) and a water crossing of the Pentecostal River, but unfortunately, the whole Gibb was not in my cards. Now I sit in Broome a little broken-hearted, but c'est la vie.
The Luck of the Ken: So far, during the entire trip I had just a single tire puncture. During some off road sections here in Australia (Northern Territory), I had a puncture and slice, thus loosing two tires in a 24 hour span. It was in the middle of the outback, near a small town named Kununurra, a town with a population of 7,500 people, and no other towns for hundreds of miles in every direction. So, what is the chance they would have a rear tire for BMW 1200GS? Luckily for me, pretty good. There is a small motorcycle (and weed whacker, chainsaw, leaf blower, etc.) shop in town that had maybe 12 tires in stock. Turns out they had both a front and rear tire tire to fit the bike. Odder still, I had my choice of a road or 50-50 tire. If they hadn't had these tires in stock, it would have taken about a week to get them shipped in, or four days for me to get on a bus and pick them up. So as unlucky as I was to loose two tires in 24 hours, I was quite lucky to find the tires.
Leg Distance: 1,233 mi (1.988 km)
There is no secret as to why there are so many camper vehicles running through the outback. The cost of a basic 1 to 2 star flea-bag hotel is $180 USD (which is oddly the price of a 3-4 star hotel too). The only food and gas available is at the roadhouses, and pricing reflects this lack of supply where there is an abundance of demand. Gas and food is about 2-4 times more expensive in the outback than anywhere else in the country (and possibly the planet), so these heavily modified RVs have kitchens, enormous fuel tanks, additional gerry cans of fuel attached to their roof racks, as well as water, and electrical making capabilities to avoid stopping at hotels or restaurants. An non-powered campsite is only about $13 USD, so that is where you will find these behemoths. And if you look closely, wedged in-between these vehicles, you may find a BMW 1200GS parked next to a small tent with me inside.
The highlight of the journey was to be the Gibb River Road, which is a dirt road, with a few river crossings, that runs through the Kimberly region of Australia, and is legendary in these parts. The road itself is unimpressive, but it leads back to dozens of gorges through side roads dirt trailsallywats that travesable by four-wheel drive vehicles. There is very little support on the Gibb as there is few gas stations, with distances in excess of 450km without unleaded fuel. My plan was to affix an additional 20 liters of fuel to the bike, and run the full Gibb River Road, That WAS the plan, but there was a problem. When I had my bike serviced in Darwin they informed me that the cylinders were running uneven, and they needed to remap the engine. Well they remapped it, and now the bike is getting about 35 percent less mileage out of the bike, and even with the extra fuel on board, there was not enough range to make the distances between stations, thus making running the full Gibb impossible. So I just did a small piece of the eastern end of the landmark trail. I was able to get to some gorges (Emma and El Questro) and a water crossing of the Pentecostal River, but unfortunately, the whole Gibb was not in my cards. Now I sit in Broome a little broken-hearted, but c'est la vie.
The Luck of the Ken: So far, during the entire trip I had just a single tire puncture. During some off road sections here in Australia (Northern Territory), I had a puncture and slice, thus loosing two tires in a 24 hour span. It was in the middle of the outback, near a small town named Kununurra, a town with a population of 7,500 people, and no other towns for hundreds of miles in every direction. So, what is the chance they would have a rear tire for BMW 1200GS? Luckily for me, pretty good. There is a small motorcycle (and weed whacker, chainsaw, leaf blower, etc.) shop in town that had maybe 12 tires in stock. Turns out they had both a front and rear tire tire to fit the bike. Odder still, I had my choice of a road or 50-50 tire. If they hadn't had these tires in stock, it would have taken about a week to get them shipped in, or four days for me to get on a bus and pick them up. So as unlucky as I was to loose two tires in 24 hours, I was quite lucky to find the tires.
Leg Distance: 1,233 mi (1.988 km)
Total Distance Traveled by Motorcycle: 44,034 mi (71,022 km)
Countries/Territories Visited: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China (for 20 seconds), India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Timor-Leste. Australia
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