Mortality

I cannot see anything, my ears are ringing and I cannot move.

My eyes are streaming from a mixture of petrol,sweat and rancid mud that has forced its way past my shattered goggles.From what I can gather in my groggy state, I am lying facedown in very deep mud and immobilised with a heavy weight across my back and a rather potent mix of blood and fuel seems to be scenting the air.

Several minutes of gradually gaining my bearings seems to come up with the conclusion that my lower body is trapped under my bike, my right arm is not responding to any instructions to move from where it is beneath my chest and apart from being able to lift my head up and spit out a mouthful of blood/mud/petrol...all I can do is flail my left arm around.

The temperature is just below 40 celcius, I am on the Oodnadatta trail in Australia about 150km from the nearest habitation and have not see a single living soul on the track in the last 8 days apart from the trail ' Servo's ' fuel stations.

Instead of trying to get some use out my years of military training and coming up with a solution..... a single thought creeps into my head, maybe I should scrawl some last....deep meaningful message into the mud, for when somebody finally finds me....something like...

Bollocks!







Australia

I would love to say that this trip that I did back in 2008 to 2009 was something that originated from some noble ideal to interact with people,travel and immerse myself in foreign culture or even some charity driven event to help others.....but I would be lying.

It was simply a ' great ' idea that sprung into my head when I was looking for a solution to ' where the heck can I go for 6 months ' , so I did not get hammered by the British tax system after returning sooner than expected from working in Iraq and Kuwait.It eventually turned into one of those cliched " life changing trips " but that was not the original aim....just a very welcome side effect.

Planning

This consisted of no more than the following checklist, done within a week.

1) Get Visa.

2) Pack rucksack with summer bike gear ( Australia never gets cold ! )

3) Wear the bulk of my motocross gear on the plane, to save luggage weight/cost and to also live out my robo-cop fantasy.

4) Book one way ticket to Melbourne.

5) Hire a Suzuki DR650 for 6 months, pickup at Melbourne.

6) Shave my head bald, so that I can ride faster and save weight.

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I left the Uk at the end of October 2008, a bit of a tearful goodbye at Gatwick from my dear old Mum and Dad..( .having only seen me for a week since working overseas ).

The absolute shambles of the British airport security system was then my first hurdle of the trip, 3 hours before the flight is the time to report.About and hour and a half, the airport checkin decided to open and then it was an absolute delight trying to get all my gear on board.

" why is there body armour in the bag "........checkin girl. ( motocross armour )

" I am a nervous flyer "...... me.

" why have you got big boots and stuff on "........checkin ( wearing bike gear )

" I'm Batman " ....... me.

Finally got onto the flight and with out a doubt it was the best I have ever flown in terms of looking after the customer...Cathay Pacific..I salute you.

Even better, they had the entire series of Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls.....which I watched back to back the entire trip and constituted my entire research on Australia and found that they have very big and dangerous spiders which is awesome as I hate spiders and apparently you can drink your own urine 3 times before you die from toxic shock....who says you can never learn anything from TV.

Finally landed at Melbourne late at night after a pleasent stop over in Hong Kong where I stretched my legs and have a very nice egg and bacon sandwich for a few hours....and more hilarity setting off all the alarms with my robo-cop suit.

Claudia was waiting for me at melbourne, nice girl who works for the company who I hired the bike off. Picked me up at the airport and put me up for the night, to be ready for the morning for all the documents and bits and bobs that need signing before I dissapeared into the outback with one of their bikes for half a year.....I didnt get too much sleep due to my obsessive hunting around for camel spiders....a habit that I picked up in the middle east.

They may not have camel spiders in Australia, but they do have camels and that was good enough for me....if you have ever seen a camel spider up close, you will understand the horror that these abominations of nature inspire in most people.

The start of the mis-adventure

First thing in the morning I took a stroll into town and put my well researched travel plan into action.

One of the service stations had a Australia Atlas that would prove to be my navigation aid until I found something better.....in truth actually riding down roads at random proved better as it was a tourist map that consisted of nothing more than big arrows saying ' Here be dragons ' and ' big desert ' and other intricate detail.

Then it was time for collecting the bike.

I had been told so many stories and advice off people that it would be an absolute nightmare to fly my own bike out ( BMWR 100GSPD ) and clear customs with it/insurance etc, that I just gave up on that idea and took the easy route and hired the Suzuki DR650.

The little fella was sat waiting for me, a new and low mileage Special Edition DR650 fitted with Hepco and Becker panniers and a smattering of tools and items laid out on the floor around it.Suggested routes for touring and contacts and sundry other items were all ready and the paperwork proved painless. A lot of the items I decided to leave behind that proved too bulky or of no obvious use and pretty much said my farewells and heading south....the plan being to head for Melbourne and find a spot for the night in my tent.

Suzuki DR650 Seats

Suzuki DR650 seats are designed by a masochistic git who must have spent years of travel to find materials that in no way or form offer comfort to the backside of a rider...70kms is all it took for agony to set in and then a constant acrobatic display of riding on one bum cheek and then another and standing up to stop the pain....DR650 seats are hideous, a granite slab would be an improvement.

In the morning, the decision that dictated the entire course of the trip was settled by nothing more than a flip of the coin, Heads and I would head west along the Great Ocean Road or tails and I would head east towards Brisbane.

Heads!

In hindsight this proved to be a rather nice play by the hand of fate as no more than 4 days later Brisbane was hit by the biggest storm in living memory, with vast swathes of the area under water and several fatalities.....and also an omen for the weather that I was going to face ahead.

Australia is never cold

Somewhere in my extensive peperation and planning I seemed to recall that Australia never gets cold and I would require nothing more than lightweight gear....the sort of gear that would be ideal to wear in Spain in summer for example, in fact the only riding gear that I had with me.

After a lazy week of milling about about places like Anglesea, Torquay and Barwon Heads, equipping the bike with a rather spiffing homemade GPS navigation system...that consisted of a $99 car navman hardwired onto the bike battery..a clear sandwhich box to mount it in...foam and several tie wraps I was faced with the rather uncertain challenge of high winds and snow falling horizonal across the road....Snow in Australia?....- 5 celcius ?....absolutley no warm riding gear ?

If these pictures work...

Homemade GPS....worked without fault and was 100% accurate, cost $99.

Great Ocean Road...bloody freezing.

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more of the great ocean road.

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