6th August - Start of Tanami Road at Yuendumu

Up early this morning to try and get away at a reasonable hour. I was still trying to work out how to load my bike whilst Colin lounged around waiting. We bought our extra 15 litres of fuel at Alice springs because we thought it would be best to get premium. I am carrying 10 litres and Colin 5 (for me) which is very generous of him.

We're ready to roll on Part 2

We had breakfast in Alice at Hungry Jacks … not recommended ugh. Left on the Stuart Highway heading north at 9.30am; right on schedule.

The turn off for the Tanami Road is just 18 kms out of Alice. The road is single track sealed all the way to Tilmouth Roadhouse (180kms). There is quite a bit of dual track and it looks as though they plan to seal the whole of the Tanami some day.
We met up with this American, Noah, at Tilmouth Roadhouse. He was on his way north to a big motorcycle get together at Drysdale Station off the Gibb River road. He is riding a KTM 690 and has covered 42 countries so far!!!

Noah who rides all over the world

We headed north from Tilmouth and hit the gravel almost immediately. There was a fair bit of sand on the road which made riding exciting!!! There were a number of sealed sections along the way with various signs from the federal government saying it was part of a big project.  Colin started off on the dirt at only 40 kph which was a difficult speed for me to cope with on my much heavier BMW.  But as he got used to the conditions he speeded up to 60 –70 kph which was a much better.  In contrast Noah blasted past us at 100kph plus!

This is Colin outside the fast food outlet in Yuendumu called the Big Shop. We arrived there at about 2.30pm. We had a late lunch of chicken and chips followed by a Magnum ice cream!!  We fell into conversation with a local aboriginal man who claimed to be a “weather man” and he was predicting rain tomorrow – not the news we wanted to hear.  The BoM predicts it will be cloudy but dry.  The big story the locals wanted to talk about was the BMW that had crashed the week before and put the rider in Alice Springs Hospital ICU with a broken neck!  The bike was still in a trailer in the depot and we saw the remains.  The front forks had snapped completely!

Smashed BWM F650 at Yuendumu

 By chance the rider came into Mick Hone's motorcycle shop a couple of months later and after Mick had told him my story he said that he was the rider!  He hadn't broken his neck but he was trying to pass a road train when he came un-stuck and can't remember anything after that.

The Art Gallery was closed because the manager and all the artists had gone to Darwin for a big festival, so Colin missed out on his painting.

 

This our salubrious accommodation. They have just had a big sports week-end and not a lot of  the dongas were operational. They managed to find a couple as they are single rooms with a bed, mattress and not much else.

The gent is Frank Barda, who runs the Yuendumu Mining Company and has been here since 1969. He is a geologist from Holland and his mining company has been chasing gold with other people’s money without striking it rich.  There are a couple of very successful gold mines in the area and the deposits were first identified in 1900.  He had visited Ireland years ago and showed us pictures of the Long Hall in Trinity College Dublin were the Book of Kells is kept. We are off to the wilds of the Tanami tomorrow, camping on the side of the road for the next four days.