GONE OUTBACK
I
have just returned from a ride to
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I’ve been there. Each time I’ve got to
Port Augusta, I’ve just kept heading
west instead of chucking a right.
More fool me.
Here I was expecting loads of
nothing. What I got was one of the
best rides of my life and some of the
most vividly jaw-dropping scenery
Australia can provide.
And I have several confessions
to make.
I was riding pretty quickly for
almost the whole way. This proved
to be problematical between
Glendambo roadhouse and
Coober Pedy, a distance of 254km.
Ordinarily, that kind of range is
easily doable on a Victory Magnum
or an Indian Classic. But you need
to be cruising.
I was not cruising. I was engaged
in a throttle-pinning exercise of
epic proportions with three
other worthies. So it was a
question of honour.
And there was a kangaroo involved
earlier in the day. So I was sore and
smelly, and viewed variously by my
companions as either a dead-man
riding, some kind of
undead zombie, or
the risen Christ.
You see, 160km
out of Port
Augusta I
hit a hopping shit-rat at 180km/h
and I did not die. No, I do not know
why I did not die. I certainly should
have died, or at the very least have
been maimed and on life-support for
the rest of my life. But it did not
happen like that. Instead, the beast
literally exploded when the Victory
Magnum centre-punched it. The bike
shook itself like a bison, and then I
just rolled majestically to a halt some
400metres after the impact with
the mangled roo carcass draped,
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front mudguard.
I was covered in shit. I was also
covered in gore. And both my
thighs and the middle of my back
(they have a long and thick tail
those things) are still bruised a
fortnight later.
But the bike stopped upright
and I did not die, and that is
the main thing.
It would serve no good purpose
for me to die in such a way in the
Outback. Sure, there’s the insurance
money, but an ignominious Death by
Bounding Marsupial is a crappy way
to go. What glory is there in that?
Happily I was able to continue,
because there happened to be a spare
bike in the back of a truck
that was following us. This
was, after all, the fabled
Ian Moss Back to Darwin
ride put on by Polaris.
So I got on that and
on I rode.
And I was very pleased I
did, because the Outback
needs to be done on a bike.
I could have climbed onto
the tour bus, or into one
of the support cars, and
nursed my battered body with
cold beer and soft lounges for the
remaining 900km to Darwin.
But that’s no way to see the
Outback, is it?
On a bike you’re an integral part of
that vast and amazing space. You are
washed by the same wind that blowsover the endless plains and ancient
rock formations. You are in it and
part of it – a fast-moving speck in
an ancient immensity bounded only
by the curve of the horizon and your
fuel range – which, I might add goes
from some 260-plus-km (either on
the Victory or the Indian) per tank,
to about 180km when you’ve wound
the speedo all the way to the other
side of the dial.
The only chance you have of
getting from Glendambo to Coober
Pedy is to slow down. Or you could
carry a can of petrol. Or you could
try slip-streaming your mate – which
is lots of fun, but I found the
constant adrenalin dump rather
tiring. The other alternative is to
hold your throttle to the stop until
the fuel light comes on and then
back off, which is what I decided
was best practice.
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was done at about 80km. The fuel
light came on about 60km out and I
literally halved my speed.
The road rises as you near Coober
Pedy. You know you’re getting close
because the land around you starts
to look like a million groundhogs
have been making conical piles of
dirt. It’s all rather surreal – a man-
made redesign of the Outback, if you
will. It didn’t really bother me on an
environmental level. There is a lot of
Outback out there. It’s OK if we dig
up some of it in search of riches with
which to buy whores and alcohol.
As I hit that long rise, I started to
imagine the Indian was beginning to
miss in its search for fuel. It wasn’t,
but how could it have any juice left?
Surely there was nothing in that
beautiful black tank but the vapours
of long-dead dinosaurs?
I put 20.5 litres into a 20.8 litre
tank a few minutes later. If the servo
had been at the other end of town I
would have had to push the Indian.
And I was in no state to do that.
Do the Outback. Just mind
the ’roos.BORIS