ARKAROOLA (
A-r-k-a-r-o-o-l-a _ _ A-r-k-a-r-o-o-l-a. It has a real outback sound, hasn’t it? Must be somewhere way out west: back-o-beyond. And you’d be right, too.
Flick over the road map pages until you
come to
An advertisement had caught my eye while reading ‘Cycle Torque’ motorcycle magazine. “Dirt Riders Outback Rally.” This sort of event is generally passed on by word of mouth or on the Web. But here it was, large as life, in print. Hmm… interesting, interesting.
After a quick peruse, I came up with two problems. Problem No.1: It was organised by some people from the Ulysses Club. Hell; I don’t drink enough café latté to even qualify as a potential Ulyssien. Problem No.2: The rally was scheduled for July 28-30. Stone the flamin’ crows. Have they got any idea how cold the nights are at that time of year? Last time I camped at Arkaroola, it was minus 4° C. Brrr…
Well… problems that are not insurmountable. I won’t bother to register. I won’t bother to ring the bloke from NSW who’s doing the organising. Just front up and pretend I was passing through if I don’t like it.
Don’t know what to do about the cold. My sleeping bag is about 16 years old. It needs replacing… might not get full value out of a new one.
Did a little research with a map and calculator… distance one way 1250 kilometres. Distance of dirt, sand and gravel… about 700 kilometres. That’s why I like Arkaroola. It took me years to find the short-cuts across country. The Suzuki 400… always ready; a proven weapon in tough country like this. OK. I’ll go!
Wednesday: With an overcast winter sky, I point the front wheel of the DRZ in a north-westerly direction and head out through the gates of the caravan park. Those of you not familiar with my bike, it is a 398 cc single cylinder chook chaser built by Suzuki. Since my trip to Toowoomba, it has been given the freshen-up which all singles need. I chose 50,000 kms as a nice round number to provide new rings, a piston and a handful of gaskets. The valves were cleaned up with the lid off, and it was back to “as new” status. The running gear received wheel bearings out of courtesy, and that was it. Next stop in another 50,000 kms.
The first transport section is quite a
pretty run. Over the dam wall at Eppalock, across
Travelling in the middle of winter and in
West of Marong the temperature drops about
4° and I curse people from
St Arnaud is my first fuel stop, and I
witness an unusual incident at a BP servo. A bloke in a late model
Commodore pulls in and tells the servo lady to “fill ‘er
up” and to check the oil!! Doesn’t even bother to get out of
the driver’s seat. Male chauvinism is alive and well in rural
Next destination is a lunch stop at Minyip. This is one off my favourite townships. Two cross-streets with a few shops and almost no people in sight whenever I go there. Believe me… nothing is happening. But blow me down, this time a bloke pulls up on a Ducati ST3. And he’s a local farmer. Had a Suzuki V-Strom before the Duke and lots of trail bikes over the years.
Further west I pass through Dimboola, Nhill
(home town of the Lowan, or Mallee Fowl to peasants like us) and on to Yanac.
This is the lead-in to the Murrayville Track and 85 kilometres of sand and dirt
track through to the
The tent goes up as the winter sun is setting; there is not a breath of wind and I am the only person on the planet. Bliss.
Thursday: Word had reached me before I left home that the Registration list for the Ulysses gathering had passed the cut-off of 250 riders. Holy white man! These old Baby Boomers must have nothing better to do. Then again, I suppose they’ve all spent $25,000 on a 1200 BMW GS Adventure and are desperate for somewhere to show it off. Sad isn’t it?
I’m not into registering to travel this wide brown land. But as Arkaroola is a private set-up they may in fact have a limit. This means I am slowing down my ride a little to arrive on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. I’m not sure that I’d want to share a 4 cubicle shower block with 250 geriatric bikers anyway.
This morning, the water in the Broken Bucket tank exit pipe is frozen, which makes the air temperature about minus 2° C. I pack, let the tyre pressures down and get going on the Murrayville Track. There are quite a few bog holes and trucks have cut the track up, but not too bad if you are a single–track vehicle.
It’s a brilliant day, but the air is still
as cold as ice. Murrayville, Pinnaroo and on to Loxton.
This is the second most boring road in
From Renmark onward, I’m in new territory.
Without signs, I manage to pick up the road to Cooltong and this dirt road
eventually leads around the north side of the
This is my first long dirt section of 315 kms, and I have filled a 5 litre jerry-can with fuel at Renmark and a 1 litre bottle with water for me. With this combination in the back-pack, I can do 360 kms plus. I have given up on big fuel tanks for the present. On small bikes they can create more problems than they solve.
The Danggali
track is a cracker. Corrugations, bog holes, loose sand, hard pack, the lot.
The Suzuki is soaking it all up. At about the halfway mark, I pull into the
scrub as the sun is very low on the horizon and it’s time to make camp. This is
‘Morgan Vale’ ruins and a faded old sign tells me that Yunta, on the mail road,
is to the north. This is my next destination on the
Friday: Finally the temperature is becoming a little warmer as I load up and get going through Quondon station. Great scrub tracks and the usual skirmishes with emus darting out at me. But I’m a wake-up to them today and they fail to score a direct hit. Soon I’m passing wonderfully remote farmhouses. Lilydale, Sturt Vale, Manunda. Occasionally the dirt road goes right through a property, the farmhouse a couple of metres to one side and its sheds a couple of metres to the other side. I feel like some sort of noisy, alien intruder, as I flash through, scattering chooks from my path.
Soon, two riders on big trailies ever so gradually catch me and then fall-in behind. They’ve come through from Wentworth and we have a bit of a chat at Yunta. Yunta is windy, freezing cold and dust everywhere. There is a big storm way off to the east and the inclement weather is coming from there.
The Mobil servo is warm and out of the dust, so I have a sit-down meal. I’m only running on one meal a day, and don’t seem to be suffering because of it. There is also a sign at round at the toilet block indicating that showers are $3 and can be paid at the servo counter. Best investment I ever made. I reappear from the shower with my body temperature restored and feeling a great deal more positive about the 300 km run from Yunta to Arkaroola, my final destination.
With the mandatory five litres of extra fuel for the bike and one litre of water for Leslie, I head out on what can only be described as the Hume Freeway without bitumen. It is disgusting! Only a South Australian bureaucrat with unlimited federal funds could design a road like this. It is totally unsympathetic to its environment.
After 200 kms I pull off the road and into a road works earth scrape, which puts me two metres below the surrounding plain and out of the wind. The second reason for the bare earth camping spot is that any location vaguely close to a shrub, bush or any vegetation will have three-cornered jacks and killer prickles all through the ground. You can’t see ’em and then bingo, two hundred bucks worth of Therma-rest down the drain.
It is a magical sunset with a sliver of a new moon simultaneously in the night sky.
Saturday: I’ve got a hundred kilometres to go this morning, so I cruise along in the brilliant sunshine. Pity about the road. Soon the stunning Gammon ranges hove into view and I’m almost there.
Never believe any information you find on the World Wide Web. ‘250 riders’. What a load of codswallop! 80 riders had arrived at Arkaroola by last night and maybe another 30 today. And a lot of these were ensconced in the Resort’s motel.
I have pitched my tent up along the ‘dry creek’ camping ground rather than on the ‘rock-pile’ on the ridge. My neighbour is none other than Nev Borgelt, former long time stalwart of the Motor Scooter and Cycle Association of Vic. (aka MSTCV).
During the afternoon a few more bikes arrive and mill around. Old bikes rather than new ones. Perhaps an indication of the financial status of these outback veteran rallyists. A bloke pulls up right in front of me, as I sit writing with a chook chaser attached to a tiny motocross side car. The driving force is a Yamaha XT500 single and this is the first model. I know ’cos I owned one; and that was in 1976 for goodness sake! Some of these riders must never throw anything away.
On the other hand, about 60 Ulyssiens would sit down to an expensive 3 course meal in the Resort dining room that evening. An interesting socio-economic comparison.
Saturday night is also Club meeting time to discuss the location of next year’s venue, announce the winners of the raffles etc., etc. M-m-m-m. Maybe I’ll leave it another ten years before I join the Ulysses Club. Still a bit too young.
Sunday: We are quite high up in the ranges at Arkaroola, so there is frost all over the tent and bike seat this morning. My mate, Nippy Ned, who carries everything including a digital thermometer, informs me that it was minus 2° C. Paradoxically, by 9:30 am, I am peeling off the layers that I put on only a few hours previously.
By late morning the bike is packed. The five litres plus one litre ritual is complete and I depart in superb sunshine. The lightweight waterproof over-jacket is packed in the bag and I’m riding wearing my summer gloves. Yahoo! Two hours later the jacket goes back on, and out come the winter gloves, as a cold wind begins to blow down from the north-west.
But it’s a great ride. I refuse to go back through Yunta and instead take the road via Chambers Gorge and Wilpena. The dirt roads are narrower and twist through the landscape following the contours. This is more like it! And best of all, there are heaps of wash-away dry creek beds where the Suzuki nails it through in fifth gear.
By mid afternoon, I am rolling into Hawker
(gateway to the
Her other customers are two Indian movie
directors with their Aussie location advisor. Yes, Bollywood
has come to Hawker,
The sun is disappearing into the west, so I push on towards Orroroo and top up the essential litre of water at Carrieton. Soon I pull off the road some distance, and pitch camp in rather more agricultural environs than my last three nights. The tent is located on green grass. Sheer luxury!
Monday: At birdsong, I hear the soft pitter, patter of intermittent rain on the tent. Shit! Oh well, it is the middle of winter after all. Packing up in the wet is not one of motorcycling’s joys, but you have to take the bad with the good. After an hour or two of light rain, it lifts, and then comes the freezing cold head-wind. God these roads are boring… “but it’s a transport section”, I say to myself.
By Morgan, my body-heat is totally stuffed. I quietly raise my thermal capacity with some food but not feeling much better, I take the liberty of declaring today a half-day ride only. Yippee!
Morgan on the
During the night, the last of the river ferries trundles backwards and forwards on demand from late travellers. Ah… the sounds of an old river town. In the late 1800’s Morgan was the busiest inland port in the world. Can you believe that? Tonight it’s just me and the river ferry with its red and green location lights.
Tuesday: On my half-day off I gave the Suzuki a quick once over. I thought the chain was a tad loose, but no, the next click on the snail cam adjuster is too tight. No engine oil is required. No other maintenance necessary.
This morning, I nose the 21 inch front wheel
onto the vehicular ferry and I’m on my way to Waikerie. What a way to start
today’s journey. This Riverland triangle
of Berri, Morgan, Loxton is an amazingly complex
corner of
Having been robbed of my return journey on
dirt roads right through to the
Pinaroo is the sort of dreary little SA township that I normally dismiss with a quick gear-shift from 4th to 5th. But, it being time for my daily meal, I point the bike to what passes for a “Town Centre”.
There is a bakery (hot food/ lunch stop) and not much more. As I approach the premises, it is quite late for lunch. Like maybe 1.45 pm. Inside, there are no fewer than four ladies (including the owner) behind the counter. I know it’s the owner because a few minutes before, she was out the front with a broom, picking up any litter from around her outside tables. Good owners are like that. Anyway, there is a constant stream of customers, and who am I to criticise the business for being a tad over-staffed? The proprietor is a tall woman, about six foot (in the old currency) and around fortyish in age. I sit down at a table with a big bowl of potato wedges, sour cream and chilli sauce. I need the carbohydrates, you see.
I’m seated right up front near the glass windows to keep an eye on my bike and gear, as one does. An intermittent stream of customers keep the shop ticking over. Soon, I am quite aware that a full-size but quite ordinary looking bus has pulled up a little way down the street. The contents, 50 blokes wearing hand-written name tags, suddenly burst out of the bus and with something akin of “Charge of the Light Brigade”, head straight for me. Well, not me in particular, but for the shop in which I am sitting. I nearly choke on a potato wedge, but figure that if anyone is going to cope with this potential catastrophe, it will be the “Fearless Four” behind the counter.
This, dear reader, is a ‘Farm Tour’ of badly dressed farmers intent on enriching their agricultural knowledge. And so help me, within ten minutes, 50 farmers have been served, done and dusted, and are back on the bus.
Having finished my meal, in disbelief, I amble across to the counter and engage the six footer in conversation. “Duh… duh… duh… does that happen often?” I enquire incredulously. “Oh yeah”, the owner responds off-handedly, as if the incident had required nothing more than knocking out another salad sandwich.
I wander back to my bike; my respect for Pinnaroo ladies having gone up dramatically on the Richter Scale of life.
My original plan of return was to include
three great name places of
Ten kilometres short of the night’s destination, the light fades and I pull in to a large triangle of Mallee scrub. This is low-lying salt pans and I figure that a little elevation might help with the frost temperatures, so I punt the bike up a two metre hard-packed red sand dune and park it. The tent goes up and I settle back to view a few semi-trailers trundling along the highway some 300 metres away. Soon it dawns on me that a semi per minute every minute is rolling past. I seem to have discovered some clandestine illegal cargo route for trucking companies.
This evening the slice of moon is larger again and I take a walk to see the night reflections in nearby brackish lagoons.
Wednesday: Mmm… can’t believe it. No dew on the tent and no ice on the bike seat. I have a fresh breeze to thank for this. But later I won’t thank it for the ambient wind-chill factor. I pack the gear for the very last day and trundle in to Manangatang. The township that time forgot, has not changed in the last ten years since last I saw it.
From here, there is no direct route to Quambatook, so I hit odometer ‘B’ and get down to business on the dirt back –roads. Fortunately, I do a better job of it than yesterday, and soon roll into Quambatook, the town that time should have forgotten, but didn’t. It has been given a quick (government money) once over that looks rather tacky. The one lonely petrol bowser tells the real story.
On the way to Boort, I round a sweeper to be confronted by a catastrophe at the nearby railway siding. Some empty railway trucks, for transporting wheat, have run amok and torn up the rail lines. There are rail trucks on their sides everywhere. Lots of people are standing around in the famous Steve Waugh ‘teapot’ stance with hands on hips, but they already have the world’s largest crane on site, so I keep rolling.
Just before Durham Ox, (Geez, I hate that name.) a semi-trailer rounds me up in no uncertain manner. On the tray he has several sets of railway bogey-wheels. The rims have wads of red sand still attached. No prize for guessing from where they’ve just come.
With 50 kilometres to go to
No more stops. The bike just bolts through
A final word… in appreciation of my SDG after-market seat. This thing is no more than 15 centimetres at it’s widest and I’ve sat on this black vinyl-covered strip of bugger-all for eight days with no ill effect. Incredible.
Les Leahy