Out of the discussion basically two plans were formed. Plan (A) We all ride to the start of the Strzelecki and wait until 10am when the road report comes through, in the slim chance that the road might be re-opened, in which case we could all proceed together to Innamincka and continue on to the Dig Tree - our original plan. If the road was still closed , then Plan(B) would come into affect. We would break into two groups. One group would attempt the Birdsville Track, while the other group would make it's way to Broken Hill, across the dirt of course. We would all join back up again at Lightning Ridge or Glen Innes, for the run to Coffs Harbour for the Ulysses Club AGM. As they say in the bush " Sounds good ay".
The next day confirmed what we suspected. Upon arrival at the Strzelecki we saw the convoy of heavy trucks and road trains that had already been waiting a few days for the track to open. Truckies sitting around playing cards to bide the time. They reckon they only had another week to wait. It was time for Plan (B) and everyone had to make their choice. I chose to give the Birdsville a go, so we waved each other good-bye and headed off in two different directions.
The town of Marree marks the start of the Birdsville Track. A pub, a petrol station, and a monument to the Afghan Cameleers who helped open up the region. We filled with fuel and a couple of Mars Bars and we were off. This was going to be a peace of piss. Blue skies, a dirt track that looked like an 8 lane highway, and the Birdsville Track sign showed green lights all the way. We'd be drinking "Pots" at the Mungeranie Roadhouse by mid afternoon. Although...that sheila at the petrol station said she wouldn't go if she was us .....argh ... what would she know ... probably lived here all her life and never seen a bit of rain .... the sign says its all right ... must be.
Well here's where it all gets interesting trend setters. 50 kilometres out from Marree we notice the first signs of, lets say, dampness on the road. At first it wasn't a problem. It actually kept the dust down, and the now overcast skies kept the temperature down too. I'm thinking " Gee, if it stays like this, it's perfect riding conditions", but I did notice actual rain on the horizon, and could see a fair bit of lightening too. But hey, you can see a long way out here, and the horizon must be a hundred miles away.. right? Wrong. Slowly but surely, the eight lane highway of dry hard dirt turned into a two lane highway of baby shit.
Ain't it amazing how even knobby tyres won't grip in wet clay, but wet clay will stick to your tyres like glue? What's that about?
Over the course of the afternoon the conditions just got worse and worse. Although rain never actually fell on us, it fell all around us, and the red iron oxide coloured clay was impossible to ride in at any speed faster than you could walk. I started having a lot of trouble trying to keep the bike upright, and was starting to think that I was still carrying too much weight, but it took me a while to realize that the weight of the clay building up underneath the bike and around the wheels slowly, but surely, weighed the bike down. It was about this time that things virtually came to a stop. A couple of the bikes had already gone down and stopping to pick them up was hard work. The road was so sloppy that you couldn't park the bike on the side stand because it would just sink into the mud and fall over. It was a real team effort just to pull up and help another rider because one rider would have to stay mounted while he held upright another rider's bike, who had dismounted t o help the fallen rider. Ever played dominos?? Things were starting to get ridiculous, and at one point it must have taken us several hours just to move half a kilometre. My front wheel actually locked solid from the build up of mud under the guard, and I rode for a few hundred metres with the front wheel locked till I found some ground that was solid enough to enable me to lay down on the ground next to the bike and remove the front guard altogether. I was starting, for the first time, to curse Mr Suzuki for putting the front guard so close to the tyre. Then I noticed a few hundred metres behind me, some BMW riders who were cursing Mr BMW for the same thing, only they had to remove the front wheel out of their bikes to get the front guards off! Not easy when there's nothing to jack the bike up on. In fact, even the KTM 990 Adventure wasn't looking so adventurous when the front guard of it's bike cracked and had to be removed as well.
By this time the sun was starting to go down, and we had travelled already 150 kms from Marree. The Mungaranie Roadhouse was ONLY 50 kms up the track. One of our party, Johann, had fallen awkwardly, only at walking pace, but had aggravated an old back injury, trying to hold the heavily laden BMW upright. These old back injuries can be crippling and Johann is a pretty tough guy. I could tell he was in a lot of pain. It's amazing how things can start to go bad very quickly. Just then, a stockman came past in a 4WD Toyota and seeing bikes scattered over the roadside with wheels off and guards out, he said to us, "You'll have to turn back. Don't even think about carrying on. You’ll never get through this - the road is totally submerged further up the track". Great, now we had to turn back, but that wasn't so easy either. We had 5 motorcycles with front guards missing, 1 rider injured and we had to ride back through the quagmire in the dark. It was going to be tough, especially for Johann, but also because there was a chance that we might not make it at all. You see, we didn't have enough fuel to get back. We never planned that we would have to turn around so close to the next town. We had no food left and no water.
Don't get me wrong, at no time did I think we were going to die out there, but we were seriously looking at laying the bikes down in the mud, turning the fuel off and sleeping next to the bikes, but I was keen to push on and so were a couple of the others, so we undertook to keep going back to Marree until it was impossible to go any further. Dave said " The KTM will never make it - it's using too much fuel" and he was right. Rob's BMW kept turning the lights off when it felt like it and with front guard missing, I was extremely worried about all the rocks and mud that was flying off the front tyre and getting flung straight at the radiator. One small pin hole in the radiator would have meant I was going nowhere; so I rode along at a fast walking pace while the others went on ahead. 150kilonetres at that speed was going to take all night, and so I found myself on my own. It's marvellous what comes into your mind when you are all alone at night in the outback, and lucky for me, I had one of those rare good ideas. I stopped in the darkness, whipped out the trusty pocket knife and cut both sides out of a discarded plastic 4 litre oil drum. I figured that would be just about big enough to completely cover the radiator and stop all the rocks and mud from hitting it. Great idea, even if I do say so myself! So using some duct tape, I improvised a radiator guard. It worked perfectly. The water temperature never got above the normal, and I was back to doing 50kph with the rest of the boys. Magiuver would have been proud! The KTM was the first bike to stop, but fortunately the VStrom was the most economical bike on the trip. It's interesting to note that when Dave's KTM ran completely dry, I had still had half a tank of fuel. That's pretty amazing I reckon. We cut the hose from Dave's now dry camelback, and siphoned 8 litres of fuel out of my tank to put into Dave's KTM and Robert's BMW.
When we finally made it back to Marree that night, we all arrived with less than 1 litre of fuel each.
We were all pretty shagged, but all very satisfied in a way. We had done something that really was an adventure and came through it unscathed. We were a bit lucky though. By the time we got back to Marree I had been without water for 6 hours and so had the other guys. Picking up fallen bikes in wet mud sapped a lot of energy and luckily, nothing really serious injury wise occurred. We did learn a few lessons.
Lesson 1 - if the sign says Road Closed - believe it, but if the sign says Road Open - don't believe it!
The locals do know best.
Lesson 2 - carry more water.
Lesson 3 - carry enough fuel to get to your planned destination AND BACK AGAIN.
To Be Continued...
