Day 23, Home Valley Station to Windjana Gorge Campsite..

Sunday 21th August, 2011 Day 23…

Odo start, 11,386 K's

Odo end,  11,895 K's

Distance Travelled.  509 K's

Accommodation, Windjana Campground, $11.00 for a one night permit…

I woke at 5:45 to try and catch sunrise over the Cockburn Ranges. I almost slept in as i had woken at 2:30am due to the moon rising. I opened one eye to see some colour starting to appear behind the range, i quickly dressed and grabbed my camera and tripod..

Sunrise…

My campsite…

Home Valley Main Campsite and Bar…

I was packed and on the road at 7:00am, the riding was great, the corrugations were small enough that if you kept your speed up at about 80-90 Kph, the bike skimmed along the top.

The Durack River crossing was easy, though it did catch me by surprise, you come up to it after cresting a rise, there is a slow down sign, but it doesn't mention why, i crested the rise at 90kph and was confronted with a relatively steep sandy entry into the river!! I braked hard and pulled up. I got off the bike, and walked half way through, the bottom was relatively smooth and it was about 300mm deep.

I had a great morning riding, some nice twisty sealed bits as  you rode over the Jump Ups, then back to fast hard packed gravel. 

My day changed when i hit the Kalumburu Turn off at 10am. The road became sandy and covered in thick scree, about 5 K's down the road, this scree formed the worst corrugations i had ever riden on!! 

About an hour after hitting this section of the road, i hit a bull dust hole about 100 metres before a creek crossing, i lost my right hand side pannier. After getting the bike back together, i rode through the creek crossing and then got a flat front tyre!

When i got off the bike i noticed this..

When the rim was damaged a bit of air must have escaped, i assume that when the rim got wet doing the creek crossing, the tyre must have spun on the rim, causing the flat.

I parked the bike up and dug out my compressor, after about 30 seconds the tyre wasn't inflating, i had to try and get all the weight off the front end. I left the bike on the side stand and heaved the front end backwards using the stand as a leverage point, i was able to just clear the ground. Luckily the tyre started to inflate, then my compressor died…

A young family pulled up as i was trying to sort out the problem, they had a big compressor and offered to help, they also handed me a cool drink as they could see i was a little hot, Thanks Rod and Jacinta, you really helped, cheers.

I rode on to Mt Barnett Roadhouse. The road conditions got even worse, the corrugations and scree were 5 and 6 inches high, it was absolute murder to ride on. I couldn't ride at 80K's to get on top of the corrugations as the depth of the scree had me constantly loosing the front end, so i backed off to as little as 20kph in places and rattled my way on. I arrived at 12:15pm I filled the bike, she took 14.956 Ltrs @ $2.06/Ltr $30.81. I grabbed a pie and drink and decided to have a short break and figure out where to head to…

Windjana Gorge looked like a good place to camp, it would be a long day, but i just wanted to get through this awful road. I arrived at the campground at 4:30, just in time for a sunset. I grabbed a few shots and rolled into my tent and collapsed, every bone in my body was sore, i didn't even use my mattress, i curled up on the tent floor and slept…. I still have to figure out what my feelings of the Gibb are, in a few days when i have had time to reflect, hopefully i'll have an answer.

Windjana at Sunset...