Port Hedland, Broom, through the Northern Territories and to the eastcoast of Queensland

It's strange how friendships start, but highly unusual that they start over a turd! But that is the case with Edi and his wife to be Debbie. I met Edi while photographing Weano Gorge and discovering that some twat had done a huge crap in one of the pools that you have to walk through. What the fuck goes through people's minds, if anything.

Edi and his wife to be Debbie where camped in the same camp sight and being a fellow Brit he invited me to join them for sundowners. Both Deb and Edi work in Port Hedland for the Royal Flying Doctors Service. Now PH is on the coast, but it's not exactly a dream destination, for work or play. It's Australia's largest iron ore port, where's the billions of tons pulled out of WA are shipped off, mainly to China for steel production. Because of this, the town is blanketed in red dust, almost permanently, giving it a rusty glow.

Edi and Debs where heading home the following day and PH was going to be a ride through destination for me, however the offer of a bed with real sheets and a hot home cooked meal was simple too good to refuse. It is one of the great things about travel, random offers of hospitality from strangers, it's such a generous thing to do, especially when they are great company. So thanks Edi and Debs, I hope we meet again on the path of life, beers and wine are on me.

Recharged I head off in to the heat of northern WA in the direction of Broome. Once famous for its natural pearls and still a large producer of them, though mainly farmed ear drinks on Cable Beach I get some back ground on the place.  It's a 400 mile windy, hot ride, with nothing to break the monotony other than two road houses for fuel and coffee. I reach the one turn I have to do that day at approx 6pm, just as the sun sets. I stop at the road house park my bike , quickly jump in to my swimmers and dive in to the poll, which feels like absolute bliss

In the morning I dine on the biggest breakfast I have had placed in front of me for many a month, then ride to Broome and find a camp site on the beach. I do very little today other than chill in the shade and let the day pass by. At sunset I meet up with a friend from the UKs daughter, who now lives here and I get some back ground on the place. The bar we are drinking at is part of the .........Hotel, which was set up for some unexplainable reason by Sir Robert McAlpine, the founder on one of the UKs largest building companies.

I leave Broome and head towards Fitzroy Crossing on the Great Northern Hwy ( Australia loves to call things great; Great Ocean Road, Great Central Road. Perhaps it was Aussies that first called Britain, Great Britain. Oh the irony). It's now that I stat to encounter greater numbers of aboriginal people, however I'm sad to say the people you find in the towns are normally inebriated on either booze, glue or some other substance. In these regions they sell a special petrol called Opal, it has low aromatic properties, ie you can't get high on it, how sad. 

I stop the night at Lamarah Station, which is a small farm between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek it's a basic place, but there is a shower and somewhere to cook and eat, plus the best star show I have seen to date.

My next stop is Purnululu NP which is home to the famous Bungle Bungle rock formations. I take a 4x4 tour out to the rock as the 53 km entrance rock is not suitable to my bike. The photos don't back up my statement here, but this has to be the biggest disappointment of the trip. In part to the fact that I've heard the place raved about both on TV and be people I have met, so my expectations are running high. Now this statement can be misinterpreted as perhaps travel fatigue or blasé words. But I was genuinely disappointed, they are pretty and unusual, but frankly not worth the effort, which I have to say is a lot of Australia. This will offend many, but it's how I feel. It has it places, but so much of the country is just not world class scenery, perhaps it's the lack of mountains!

From the Bungles I head to Kununurra and to lake Argyle, which in fact is not a lake, but a reservoir on the Ord river. It's volume still makes it Australia's second largest 'lake', so it's a large body of water. I relax at my campsite, which has an out of place, but very enjoyable infinity pool. There are worse ways to end the day.

The following day I take the Victoria Hwy to Katherine and to the Nitmiluk NP and home of the Katherine Gorge. The following morning I walk for five hours taking in the gorge at its Verizon's viewing spots, it's a hot exposed walk and once back in camp it's time foe a dip in the pool and put my sore feet up and watch the wallabies nibbling at the grass and the fruit bats flap their wings as they hang in the trees, endeavouring to stay cool.   

I leave Katherine at around 7.30 am and pass through the town of Mataranka which is famous for its hot springs. Now forgive me here , but I'm here in the winter and its 33 degrees, so why the fuck do I want to get in a hot spring? On a damp cold day in Iceland I see the appeal, but in roasting hot outback Australia, you're having a fucking laugh.

Therefore I don't stop at Mataranka and carry on to the road house at Daly Waters, which has to be the most eclectic RH I have stopped at and even though it's only 12.30, I seriously consider pitching the tent and enjoy a cold one or two with the already half cut locals. But instead I make do with a Bara Burger ( Barramundi, it's a fish). The other great piece of history  there have here is the Stuart Tree, so name because the explorer.......... Stuart supposedly carved his name in to it on finding this place. Clearly BS as the tree truck is still standing and there is bugger all on it.  

I turn east off the Stuart Hwy, named after said explorer, and take the Carpentaria Hwy, which is mainly single track and arrive after 267km at the RH of Cape Crawford. Now this sounds like a place on the sea, it is not, it's just scrub and bush, but there have fuel and cold beer.

The following day I head south on the Tablelands Hwy, 378km with absolutely nothing, no stopping points, no fuel. It's again mainly single track and with everything around here, road trains have priority, other vehicles with put two wheels on the dirt, but for a RT, you get of the road totally and frankly you don't want one of those half on half off the road, they would throw up all sorts of shite. By 3pm I'm at the RH of Barkly Station, which is surprisingly modern, with a good bar and a better swimming pool, where I head for a dip.  

My destination for the next day is Mount Isa, which is a mining town and very industrial, but a good place to stock up on food and break the journey. But mid way there I change my mind, as I often do and turn north on the dirt road towards Gregory Downs. It's 222km of the best dirt road I have ridden in Australia and an absolute pleasure to ride. This is helped by the fact that there is scenery, scenery that is rolling and not just flat, there are hills, not big ones, but I've almost forgotten what there are.

 Gregory Downs is not what you can call a town, there is a pub that sells fuel and there is a bloke called Morris who sells tinned food from a 20ft container that has been converted in to a shop, which also boasts the 'best Coffee in town' by the virtue that it is the only coffee in town! He does also allow people to camp in his back yard for free, why I don't really understand, as he has gone to the trouble of putting in toilets and showers.

I head to the Gregory Downs pub which is quintessential outback Australia. Made of timber with a lino floor covering, slightly ramshackle and not sitting straight on its foundations, but then I doubt it actually has any. I enjoy a great steak with pepper sauce, followed by an entertaining conversation with the landlady, who at first has the broadest of Australian ancients, however as we chat this starts to slip and it turns out she is originally for the uk, coming over 50'years ago and to prove its a small world, her sister now lives in Chelmsford.

As I amble back to my tent I enjoy the light show of a distant thunder storm, the clods are simply filled with light. I can't hear any thunder as its so distant, but at 2am the storm is over head and the ensuing down pour swamps my tent and I really fear that it will collapse in the fierce wind. Within twenty minutes it's blown past, but I'm left with two inches of water outside my tent and it's slowing getting through the holes that have been put in the ground sheet from camping on stoney ground in WA.

I have no choice but to more to slightly higher ground, or just get out of the tent. At first I try to sleep on a near by table, but the rain has brought out the mozzies and there are veracious in their blood lust. I pull the tent out of the water and find a piece of soil that is at least higher. It's a grim damp nights sleep.

By 7am the sun is up and shinning bright and I can start to dry everything out and while I'm doing so I enjoy a cup of the best coffee in town and a good chat with my host. There is always something fascinating about people who desire to make a life in such remote places and I have true admiration for them. You have to be so self sufficient, admittedly not as much as you used to have to be, you don't have to hunt, you can have a generator and you can use a car not a horse. But you still have to take yourself way from the so called trappings of the 'civilised ' world.

Due to the rain I take the sealed road to Kurumba which is on the Gulf of Carpentaria and such a disappointment, in fact it's simply awful. The first sign of this is the song song going on at the campsite and the staff dressed in Hawaiian shirts. I turn around and head back down the road a bit to a camp away from the sea, make some food and hit the hay, with a very early start in mind.

From Karumba I ride through to the ex gold mining town of Croydon, which in its hay day used to be Queensland's largest and richest town, sporting no less than  30 pubs and streets with gas lighting. It's a lovely sunny day and the temperature is just right for riding, or relaxing. As I'm feeling bushed from the lack of sleep lost in the night of the floating tent and I quite fancy a day in an outback town, I decide to stay, it's only 11.30 , so it's an opportunity to put my feet up in the sun, swing in the pool and have a cheeky sundown beer.

Duly exercised and relaxed I head to the Club Hotel,that was established in 1887 and sit on the veranda as the sun slips over the horizon. I have a chat with the locals about outback living and working on the cattle stations that are the main employment around these parts. Plus living with the heat and the torrential rain that can come through here. I thought I had it bad two nights prior with two inches, the same night they had six!

My next port of call is Endurance , which has some larva tubes, but these can only be visited on a tour and I'm really not in the mood to be talked to like a numpty, which I'm  afraid tour guide have an ability to do, or perhaps that's just their way of dealing with the public who are mainly stupid. On route I have picked up some sausage for the bbq, by the time I get there they are not fully defrosted, so I leave them on the bike while I have a swim; mistake! By the time I get back the crows and the Hawks have demolished the lot, there is just the wrapping floating around the floor, tuna and couscous it is tonight then :(

Today Monday 22nd of May will be six weeks since I left Sydney and I will again reach the east coast of Australia. I ride up towards Mission Beach and as I reach the Great Dividing Range (note great again!) and gain altitude, at last I again to see greenery and real trees, not those scrawny almost green things that cover the majority of Australia, and grass, real green grass and proper black and white diary cows, not the floppy eared Bramahas   that originate in India and are ideally suited to the harshness of the barren outback. 

The air is cool, almost cold and fresh to the nose. The roads have bends and corners and the hills, there are views, not just straight roads lined with knackered old trees, or worse, absolutely fuck all, just flat, flat, flat. Australia has been a strange place to ride around, it really is not a motorcycle destination, but I will come back to that. For now I will just drink in the pleasure of this ride.

Mission Beach is a long stretch of sand that faces out towards the barrier reef in the far distance and lined with coconut palms, so it's fitting that I camp right on the beach and cook up some prawns on the bbq, scrumptious! Paradise does not last for ever though and I walk to rain, not heavy but the cloud says it's not going away fast. My best option is to pack up quickly and head to my next destination for some R&R, Magnetic Island here I come........