This particular leg of the trip began in the Metropolis that is Carnarvon. Leaving that wonderful town – so good
they named it once – I passed a large sign which read, ‘Danger, Turn Back. No Water for the Next 600 Miles’, or words to that effect.
They’d lied. There was rainwater in Gascoyne Junction – and beer.
In the road house that night, after a brief trip up into the Kennedy Ranges, I was discussing an off-bitumen 1000k route to Kalgoorlie over a couple of beers with a guy I’d met called Rob Walton. He was riding a BMW 650 and had been for about the last year and a half, solidly. He looked it.
He was persuading me the trip was do-able if I could only carry an 
extra 17 litres of fuel. To put this in perspective the tank of the TTR holds only eight litres of unleaded. A local came and stood next to us at the bar. I said “G’day, mate”, as is the custom. “Where ya gaawin’?”, he drawled. It transpired that his name was Tim. He had piercing blue eyes and a bush-hat that was at least as old as me. He looked really odd. Madness tinged with menace. Too long on his own in the bush.
I traced the route on the map with my index finger and asked if he knew the state of the tracks. He informed us that most of roads were washed out and had been since the flood of 2010, that there probably wasn’t any fuel in Sandstone – a town in the bush that we’d have to pass through – and that I’d need a good 4WD vehicle carrying at least three spares. “What rig yer running?”, he asked. I pointed through the window to the TTR 250 motorcycle in the car park. He raised the stubby to his lips, downing the ice-cold amber fluid in five or six gulps. Catching the eye of the Barmaid as the empty hit the bar he said, quite matter-of-factly, “Yer gunna’ die!”
Anvil Springstien.
The Yamaha TTR – Big thanks to Steve & Lorraine Kirk who made the whole trip possible.
Rob Walton on the Meeka’ Road. He swore blind we could save water by drinking hydraulic fluid.
meVolution 