Thought I would let you all know how Nathan is doing since returning home. We have been to the GP and had x-rays. He has a grade 3 AC joint separation which should heal completely in time (we hope) and a chip off the right thumb base joint, which is now starting to be a right pain in the arse. He went to the physio today and she see’s him having a full recovery. We believe she wanted to test his pain threshold and stuck her finger in his thumb joint and bent it around lots. His movement in the shoulder has increased since the accident and the pain has eased. No more pain killers. He has an appointment with a surgeon in 2 weeks and then we will know if he will be having surgery for the AC joint or a conservative treatment. We are hoping for the latter.

Final Day – Sunday, 15 April 2012

Km’s done: 350

Mick: Freezing cold ride from Dubbo through to the Blue Mountains, we had a few mornings like this as all our riding clothes were geared up for hot desert riding. With frozen butts coming down the Lapstone hill on the M4, Buckets exited first taking the Northern road exit, I was out a few minutes later on the Mamre road leaving Nathan to trek down a bit further heading for home. I arrived home to a very happy family, my super smiley daughter, loving wife who was very quick to offer up a cold beer and even got a smile and bit of a hug from my teenage son.

Give me a couple of days for the bruising to heel up and pack some stuff away and I am sure by next Friday night and a few beers we will start planning the next one, I can see this stuff getting addictive. Buckets son recently got his motorbike Learners permit and my boy intends on getting his early next year so it already looks like we will have a couple of extras along for the ride.

5046 kms in 10 days, what a ride, what an adventure, when can we do it again??????

Saturday, 14 April 2012

Km’s done: 753

Mick: We got to Dubbo for our last night before making it home, this was a massive 11 hrs in the saddle and going dark, with about 50km to go the bloody roos started coming out of the wood work. Headlights and helmet visors covered in splattered bugs seriously impairing vision made this last stint very nerve racking and it was great to finally make it, grab a motel room, 6 pack of VB then order a pizza for dinner.

Friday, 13 April 2012

Km’s done:  approx. 600

Nath: It was a nice ride this morning even with a sore arm and the three of us enjoyed coming through the Flinders Rangers. Big sweeping bends and a few dips through creek beds. Arriving in Hawker for our morning coffee, we swapped stories with 4 worldly travellers; 2 Canadian, 1 English and 1 German, who had managed to roll their Britz hire Toyota Landcruiser twice and land on their wheels to drive it back to town and were awaiting their replacement vehicle. Note in the photo you will see blood all down the front door as he cut his arm up and needed a fair few stitches.

Mick: Got to Broken Hill late in the arvo after a long day in the saddle, with the plan to camp at a rest stop another 121km down the road. Nathan went to rest up in Macca’s while Buckets and I headed 30km out of town to check out the Silverton Hotel where the Mad Max films and several other Aussie flicks have been set. A quick beer then back into Broken Hill where we met up with Nathan and hit the highway. About 25km out I realise I no longer had my backpack on as I have left it at the pub in Silverton. Ooops. By the time I had it back in hand and met back up with the boys now at the rest stop about 5km out of Broken Hill, I had done an extra 100km without going anywhere. After a full day in the saddle it was the last thing I was looking forward to.

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Km’s done: 387

Mick: Phil had rung through to Marree another 200kms down the track asking the nurse to hang around for an extra couple of hours to have a look and Nathan’s shoulder while I lazed around in the hot spring. Then I went and got a photo with Bucket’s shirt that we stuck on the ceiling of the bar last night with ‘Failed’ written across it.

We headed down to Marree for Sister Jane to say they might need to X-ray it, another 120km down the road at Leigh Creek. The doc poked and prodded him and said no need for an X-ray as nothing is broken; suck it up princess and on your bike. We got a bit further down the road to spend the night at Parachilna, now with the full realisation that we just had to get home via the blacktop meaning we near ended up in Adelaide with near on 2000kms to cover theoretically bringing the adventure to an end. We broke this into a few goals to cover the ground over three days.

Nath: I struggled to do my normal pack up today, Mick had to assist me with straps, etc. I missed out on the hot springs as it was too hard to get undressed and redressed. Bummer. I consumed a whole swag of pain killers to get me down the road and I was always glad when Mick pulled over for a break, as was he as watching his line and my line was wearing him down twice as much. I am thankful for Buckets lending me his shoulder brace as I probably wouldn’t have been able to ride anywhere near as well without it. Upon arrival at Parachilna I noticed that Mick had lost his number plate. Oh well, he won’t be getting any fines on the way home.

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Km’s done: 315

Mick: Up early and back into Birdsville feeling like a bunch of failures, first stop into the info centre to hand our sat phone back to where we hired it from rather than Mt Dare on the western edge. Not feeling bad enough when I walk through the door, there stands this tiny little 51 year old woman, Jane Trumper, who just ran across the bloody thing. She was in very high spirits and says to me “I saw you guys ride past me yesterday and thought ’what the hell do you think you’re doing’, you should have stopped and asked me, I would have told you, you guys are crazy”. Apart from raising money for Bear Cottage, Trumper wanted to show women that they were never too old to do anything! To sponsor Jane Trumper on the Simpson Desert MultiMarathon, go to everyday.hero.com and search for her name.

Then back to the Birdsville bakery for a super good lamb shank pie and coffee before setting off down the Birdsville track. We got talking with a bloke by the name of Adrian working in the bakery who had crossed the desert on his DR650 in a day and a half but had drove out in the days leading up to it doing fuel and water drops and only carrying a small bivy bag to sleep the night in, got a few more riding stories out of him to our enjoyment and amazement as this included riding 170kms with his lower left leg shattered to get picked up by the flying doctors down at Mungerannie Station. He also advised us to go get on the piss with Phil at Mungerannie Pub on the track.

The Birdsville Track is a very well maintained dirt road these days, a far cry from the old stock route it once was. A single headlight in the distance signalled a fellow motorbike adventurer coming the other way, so we stopped to have a bit of a yack with this bloke on a 6 week round trip from Tasmania, he said the road was all good except for a small patch of very soft sand. About half an hour later I popped over a crest at about 110km/hr and found that patch of sand, on the skids hard and ploughed into it coming to a stop a few metres into it standing up and waving my arms about to warn Bucket coming up behind me. Buckets hits the skids and bogs into the sand a bit quicker than me coming to a halt not much further in, I then tried radioing Nathan and waving my arms about but being tail end “Charlie” and I think zoned into just following for so many straight road hours Nathan came over the crest doing about 120 with no time to brake hitting the sand in a spectacular display of acrobatics and an instant dust storm narrowly being missed by his upside down flying motorcycle. Very dazed and confused for several minutes we finally got a few blurry words out of him saying I don’t think my shoulder is good, we got his jacket and shirt off to see very visible evidence that he had dislocated his collar bone as this is something Buckets had done a few months ago riding his wife’s little TTR230 around in the backyard. A very nice bloke by the name of Rob stopped to help on his way from home in Orroroo in SA to work up near Birdsville offering his sat phone and anything else he could do. The rest of us said “suck it up princess” and got him back on the bike for another 130km run down to Mungerannie Station Hotel, where we got him a room with a big comfy bed a few beers, big feed and some pain relief tablets offered by another couple who were part of Jane’s support crew on here desert run, then off to bed for a rough night’s sleep.

Buckets and I proceeded to get on it with a bit of help from Phil the owner of Mungerannie Hotel along with a couple of the other boys that work there, Wazza and Roger. Had a good crack on the cans then attempted to drink Phil’s supply of Jack Daniels dry having a top night and would recommend anyone heading down the Birdsville track to stop in for the night for plenty of beers, bullshit and booze.

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

77km done

Nath and Mick: Windy as in Birdsville this morning. We had an easy start to the day with a bit of a sleep in then blew over to the famous Birdsville bakery for a curry camel pie and coffee for breaky “well Buckets had bacon and eggs”. Then over to the information building to hire our sat phone for 4 days at $140 between us and grab our extremely expensive SA desert parks pass at $125 each, regardless of being one man on a little motorbike for 2 days or a troop carrier full of people for a whole year.

With water bottles and fuel filled to the brim, the jerry cans took an extra litre or so giving us 11 litres each plus our main tanks and around 10 litres each of water. Bikes loaded to the hilt we set off toward BIG RED right on midday all feeling very nervous. We had heard there was a woman from Sydney running across the desert for charity and we passed her not far out of town as she was on her last few kms of a successful crossing. Mick was up in front and feeling pretty tense hitting his first dune, up and over he goes and BANG a 4WD coming at him; out of the wheel track and off the bike he goes for our first of many stacks. We had only got about 65km from Birdsville and we had all come off numerous times and our confidence levels had dropped. After 30ish kms of desert track we had unanimously decided to turn back realising our bikes were way to heavy with a fortnights worth of camping gear making us bog down and go through more fuel than we planned to the point we doubted we could make it. Turning back just made things worse due to the recent winds, when going west we had been getting to the top of the dune then dropping off the very soft sand ledge, we were now east bound and trying to ride up what we’d considered a near vertical wall of talcum powder burying the back wheels to the point the bike just sat on the bash plate with front wheel stuck in the air sometimes taking all three of us to get each bike up the last few metres of each dune sapping our strength and patience. Finally made it back to Big Red on sundown and made camp for the night to settle in and watch a few guys attempt it in their 4WD’s, utterly spent and feeling pretty sore and sorry for ourselves.

Realising after one afternoon all 3 of us had ploughed through our daily intake of water and the amount of times we had our bikes fall on top of us unable to move until one of the others came to lift the bikes off pinned limbs it was not hard to comprehend the risk was way too high for three guys with families relying on them at home to complete the crossing.

Nath: PS. What really happened…

Mick an buckets stacked heaps and only got 30KM in while Nathan did wheelie all the way across to Mount Dare then turned around and endo’d all the way back to ocky strap Mick, Buckets and their bikes on the back and wheelie all the way back to the Birdsville pub were Nathan unstrapped them and assisted them to the bar for another beer.  🙂