Скиппи And The Waiting Game 8-)

At 24242km and time on my hands, I did some Скиппи work and got my writing up to date, I checked the valves, left side needed adjusting a smidge and the right hand side perfectly in spec, checked my pre-filter which was pretty dirty with red dust…dunno where that came from.

The K&N filter still very very clean the pre-filter is doing its job very well.

Checked the alignment and made some a small adjustment and just checked the tightness of bolts etc, our Avon tyres not lasting very well at all, the pusher tyre evaporating quickly, at this point it would appear the Heidenau knobs will last longer so will have a swap around at Darwin.

Our left hand sidecar indicator had stopped working so a quick inspection of that revealed a broken wire so an easy fix.

All other visuals looking good, at some stage will give Скиппи a wash.

Now waiting one more day for the team sidecar monkey to grace the chair and we are off like a robbers dog.

 

Barn Hill To Broome To Dampier Pennisula

Barn Hill, the camp site was pretty nice and they had a café so Ellen scoffed an iced coffee and scoffed a vanilla milkshake with icecream which was a godsend from the moto gods.

For a change we could swim here as crocs lined the rest of the coastline, given the temps were very nice even I got in several times thoroughly enjoying it.

We did have a wee visitor on the beach...not welcoming

The pinnacle rock formations were very cool.

Two nights here before making it into Broome, the tourist trap, we had booked a site and the Broome Bird Observatory for two nights, tanking up, fooding up and grogging up in Broome we headed out, the road pretty corrugated and making skippy work for her money.

On arrival we realized we had stepped on a gem, the place was excellent and secure and so quiet.

We managed to squeeze an extra night so we didn’t have to go back to town before Ellens flight out, being very accommodating the camp hosts were excellent, something of a common theme here.

Time to drop Ellen to the airport as she had to take care of some family business then I was home alone with a Ural Sidecar, some gin, fud and wine so I could cry myself to sleep.

We yet again, we had met others along the way including Brittany from Perth, Francois and Christine from Brisbane, Mark and then met Steve an ex Kiwi with all the others that had past us…then me along the way.

A very social group of travellers so I was in good hands, never a dull moment and plenty of fishing (no catching tho) and social chats, coffees and drinkies, even tho I met a whole lot of new faces they ALL knew me as “the Kiwi on the sidecar”.

I started near the top of the Dampier Peninsula with the view of working my way back but camp jumping every second night (ish), I spent the time pretty quick and before I knew it I was running short, I literally had no internet/4G for most of it until I got to Lambodina where I managed to squeeze out 3 ride reports as loading pics was still very slow.

All the people that had come from the south of the Dampier had bitterly complained of bad mozzies, sandflies and midges so I am not sure if I missed something based on that.

Fishing, drinking, sunsets, coffees, mates …and cold can of Coke I have managed to exist my way through Ellens absence.

Time to say goodbye to said friends on this leg and head back to the Bird Sanctuary, my mission here is to volunteer for a couple of days around the sanctuary and Скиппиs valves are due a check.

South Hedland And Enormous

Getting out of South Hedland with our supplies it was a ginless wineless trip as we were done by 9.00am and the grog shops do not open till 12 noon due to alcohol laws here in WA, couldn’t be bothered waiting for that.

With only two days dry it was no worries, we decided to make tracks a bit so we bolted to Eighty Mile camp as there is nothing much in between.

Eighty mile camp was awesome, a little more spendie than std but very very well worth it and they had $5 buck icecreams which kept Ellen quiet in the heat.

With fishing on the agenda again I was desperate to break my 007 status (0 fish, 0 talent, 7 hours) and have my status revoked.

On the beach we walked out into the crowd, the beach was busy with fisherman, I went down and talked to a despondent looking guy and another despondent guy, both said pile in and welcome to fish….good luck.

With a bit of a yarn, larfs and chats 15 minutes of trying suddenly my line went tight, the handbrake on my reel started fizzing backwards, as I only have a $30 5 foot telescopic rod it bent very sharply very quickly so I very quickly lowered it down to inline with the line and kept the tension on, ol mate on my left saw this going on and reeled in straight away...good bloke.

I walked past two more guys under and over then back towards where I came from, walking backwards up the beach to keep tension on the line, handbrake fizzing flat stick then relaxing I kept the line as tort as possible to avoid a shock on the line and snapping.

This had a good feel to it and I was only about 10 minutes into it, the guy beside me giving big advice, my arms were tiring despite my improved strength from riding the sidecar.

Still tight lined and still the reel was fizzing out then relaxing, repeat, I kept my mind on the job expecting the line to go limp any second as I lost my nearly catch.

Ellen had gone for a walk along the beach so was nowhere in sight for the big moment unfortunately.

By this time the focus from the beach was on me..or more to the point watch I was trying to reel in…no pressure eh, I continued walking backwards, reeling in, walking backwards reeling in then suddenly it appeared on the surf scooting along the top on the edge of the waves which gave me the advantage as it had lost traction however now more than ever my line could just snap.

I was flat stick reeling in all the time trying to keep the line tort, ol mate next to me said keep it going mate so I picked up my pace walking backwards and reeling in….gezz I didn’t have a lot left then and it was about 30 degrees so getting a sweat on.

He walked in nearly to his nuts (lucky he was tall) when it got in close enough and he grabbed it dragging/lifting it from the water, again I am still reeling in with the catch landed, ol mate walking towards with my blue whale with a massive grin.

First thing I asked, is it edible?, he just looked at me and said fuck yeah!!   

It was a Threadfin King Salmon, 10 kg or 22lb and a little over 1200 mm long.

Could not believe it…nor could either of the guys either side of me.

I was absolutely fizzed, about a 15 minute fight to land it and my arms quite tired.

Taking my blue whale back to fish cleaning area I was asked “what bait did you use”?, me..some shit a guy gave us yesterday…

What size line do you have?, me..blue stuff

What rod are you using?, me..this one, 5 foot telescopic

What …that one?, me…yeah…

Dude..”fuckoff”.. sounding surprised, my apparent lack of skill and inadequate/inappropriate gear apparently not up to spec for the big boys.

Another fisherman who was worthy was laughing saying you don’t need exy stuff to land a hungry fish.

Now, he said do you have a knife?, me yeah pulling out my pocket knife, laughing at me he said nah, then he said have you filleted one of these before, me…nup never caught one before.

OK, he said, I will be back in a minute with a friend and some gear, they returned and filleted the fish and cut in into the portions, as we did not have a fridge so we gave him the other half of the fish which he wouldn’t accept till we said we have no way of keeping it chilled, he accepted with a huge grin on his face and extremely thankful.

The evening drew in and we took all the trimmings, tail, fins, back of the head meat which covered the entire bar b q which was about 1200 long x 600 wide and everyone who came past had a feed and we still had all our fillets which we froze overnight.

In between hauling in the blue whale we had met other travellers, Francois and Christine, they had a leaking water tank which helped him seal, ultimately he got it sorted but we swapped numbers as we are all headed in the same direction.

The stunning beach making a perfect sunset viewing platform.

Heading north again after having my 007 status revoked in style Barn Hill station was next on the list, it was a very warm trip nudging 37 degrees, we were stopping every 60-70km to re-hydrate with me just about drinking more than Скиппи per 100 km.

Marble Bar And Welding

Off out into the outback Marble Bar was our next point of interest claimed to be the hottest place in Oz, was certainly warm enough and dry which was very nice for me, not so much for my dedicated sidecar monkey who prefer cool.

Our trip was uneventful with only 70km of good nic gravel and some epic hills looking like mid Argentinian altiplano.

A few points of interest including a coolas pub to nail a G&T.

Skippy had cracked her sidecar guard and broken the bracket completely off so while at camp I asked the people if they knew where I could get a welding job done, she said follow me and takes me to a caravan …an elderly dude comes out and yells “yeah I got one just use mine”

He pulls out an awesome wee Caddy welder and some 2.5mm sticks, a brand new helmet but no gloves…he yells again “can ya do stick”, me hell yeah no worries….I think he was slightly deaf.

Job was on, I took the sidecar wheel off and got into it, some other people pulled in to the camp and the guy interested in what I am doing comes over and says, you need a gusset in there, I replied yeah I do but nothing to cut it with, within a minute he was back with a cordless grinder with 1mm cutting disc….couldn’t believe it, then the camp owner comes over to clean the kitchen where we were working and said no stress I will come back after to clean up.

So with full workshop facilities I custom built new brackets, gussets etc and made a larger long plate to spread the load a bit.

We did actually see the make believe marble which led to the towns name.

Our next mission was to go to Port Hedland to see if we could get our cooker sorta fixed.

It has been pretty good but has now failed, can’t get anything up this way but we managed to get it soldered together to work but the unintended brutalizing of one of the legs was a side effect of the success, no stress the flames go so coffee is on again.

As we ran late in the day we were forced to stay at a shithouse campground for the cost of an exquisite apartment…them’s the breaks.