Hi all,

Last september I rode a road bike (bmw r1150r) for a couple of weeks and went from sydney to broken hill, flinders range, wilpena pond, mungo nationa park, adelaide, kangaroo island + back to sydney.

This year I would like to take an off road bike on a 2/3 weeks trip (e.g. Honda XR600L, etc...) in september.

Would anyone has any idea of where I could go? I was considering shipping my bike to adelaide and do a desert track up north and then veer east to get back to sydney via north nsw (e.g. armindale) or lower qld.

Given the bike I will be riding, I want to avoid all the long straight bitumen roads. I also want to avoid the birsdville races (that was the reason for my trip in the area last year until the race got cancelled).

I heard of fire tracks, how do i find out about these?

Apologies for the long wingding post...Any suggestion welcome...

Cheers

Eric

Hi Eric, If you have the confidence in your riding I would consider heading up to the OCR in August, a bit earlier than you had anticipated - check out the ADV riders site and the local forum ie: Australia

Fire trails are intended for the control of bush fires. In general they don't go far.

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Sydney to Brioken Hill can be done .. with about 50% dirt or more if you take a little more time to wind your way around ... If you are in a hurry but still want dirt then through Parkes, Hillstone, Ivanhoe, Mindee has some dirt but keeps to a fairly straigh path.

Basicly get a good detailed map and start looking for the dirt bits... connecting them is the challenge.

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Regards Frank Warner
motorcycles BMW R80 G/S 1981, BMW K11LT 1993, BMW K75 G/S

Eric,

I'm new to bikes but took several 4wd trips to the South Australian deserts, so here are a couple of ideas and must-sees (in my opinion anyway) to add to your planning.

We always had limited time and wanted to spend most of our time in the desert regions, so allowed for a couple of long, boring days on the bitumen at each end of the trip to quickly get out to the far west of NSW. We would leave after work and get to Dubbo first night, then a long day to White Cliffs, then you're basically in the "destination area" already.

Make sure you visit the opal mining town of White Cliffs either coming or going, and stay at PJ's Underground B&B. A real experience! We used it as our last night of "luxury" before going bush.

Most visitors to the area stop at Innamincka and Birdsville, but far fewer visit Coongie Lakes to the northwest of Innamincka. The lakes are well worth the effort - wild and isolated and tons of birdlife. Note you need a Desert Pass for much of this area and there are no fires allowed at Coongie Lakes, but don't let that put you off!

We also preferred the Walkers Crossing track between Innamincka and the Birdsville Track to the more normal northern route. The track has a wide variety of scenery including a gibber plain (watch your tires!)

Caveat: at time of writing both Coongie Lakes and the Walkers Crossing track are shown as closed on the ExplorOz maps.

The Birdsville Working Museum is a must-see (not that there's all that many things to do in Birdsville anyway ), and even if you're not planning to cross the Simpson Desert take a drive out to "Big Red", the first (or last, depending on your direction of travel) big sand dune of the Simpson.

See some pics from our trip (bikes next time!).

Enjoy!

How about Adelaide-Wilpena Pound - up the Ooandaata (I know this isn't spelt correctly!), then across the French Line thru the Simpon desert to Birdville, and back down the Birsville track to Cameron Corner...then across NSW>

French Line is serious desert riding (about 3 days). I have done, but in a 4WD.