Melbourne to the Outback

I leave Melbourne in the bright Victoria sunshine on Good Friday and head towards the Great Ocean Road and within an hour its pissing down. Now I expect the GOR to be busy, it's Easter after all, however what I have not counted on is the enormous amount of Chinese, either on buses or behind the wheel of rental cars, there are fucking thousands of them, like some kind of Asia plague. Now the sun has come out and the views over the ocean, at times are great, but given the proximity of the road to an urban sprawl, where a tourist can get buses in for the day, frankly I find the experience flat. The road is ok, but not the motorcycle me a I have been lead to believe and certainly not worthy of a large detour to see. It might be one of Australia's great roads, but it's not one of the worlds great roads. As for the Twelve Apostles, they are OK in isolation, but given the clamor and swam or hundreds of people vying for the best selfie spot........I could have left this one.

With a certain amount of relief I head away from the coast, not just relief to be away from the hoard, but I like to plough my own furrow, I like the road less travelled, not the already well beaten one. I ride north through the lush countryside towards the town of Hamilton. I pull in to a campsite around 5.30pm, put up the tent then cross the road to order fish and chips.

I break camp the following day at 7.30am and head to the town of Horsham, where I grab a coffee and get a Telstra SIM card, as Vodaphone has zero coverage outside of Sydney it would appear. I have a long hot ride to the country town of Mildura on the banks of the Murray River. It's a balmy evening at the towns folk and weekenders are strolling the rivers promenade as the sun sinks over the horizon. I dine of BBQ sausages washed down  with a fine local Shiraz.

Again out of camp early I travel the 300km to Broken Hill and I really feel the heat start to build as I reach the real outback. Broken Hill is a silver town, the mining still continues, but it's glory days have passed and it's a rather run down fly blown place. I ride out 25km to the small settlement of Silverton, where not only is there the legendary Silverton Hotel, but also the Mad Max Muesum, where I met the owner and founder Adrian, a lad form Birmingham.

After a visit the the aforesaid Muesum, I ride out a futher 5 km to the Mundi Mundi lookout, where not only can you see the curvature of the arth, but it's where they filmed Mad Max 2!!! I camp in Silverton and have dinner and a beer to the hotel, it is now feeling like the outback.

The following day I ride the 440km to Hawker, the jump off point for the Flinders Range and the Oodnadatta Track. Hawker is on the map, but there is little to it other than a gas station and a campsite. I pitch up eat  and bed down. Up before dawn, I'm packed and ready to go be daylight which is about 7am. I ride through the Finders, which are ok and it's an interesting rock formation, but I'm not too taken. I arrive at the tiny town of Blinman where amazingly I have a Cornish pasty, who would have thunk it. 

I take the dirt road through the Parachilna Gorge, which is a great 30km stretch of dirt road through some lovely rock formations that millions of years of tectonic movements and weather have created. I reach Parachilna on the B83 and can't resist an emu burger, "feral" meat is their specialty, you can also have camel or kangaroo. It's now hot, fucking hot and dry to be honest. The ride up to Marree is both hot and dusty, a little of what's to come...............?