THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES ( the DJ's in Ozzi)

**Taz** · 25th September 2009, 22:32

Bass has just gone to bed. We be tackling the 42nd tomorrow. a few more tui's and I'll be off to bed too. Have fun Ducatijim

**ducatijim** · 27th September 2009, 23:23

I think I made the wrong choice of saturday ride this weekend. We left Darwin just after 7 and it was stinking humidity and hot- the humidity maxes early in the morning and burns off later in the day,not so bad when riding thou( for now!).
The roads and tracks are quite now, the nomads have all headed south for the summer, like bloody geese eh, and all thats left are a few locals and some bloody slack-packers making everywhere untidy.
But the nomads have left their mark(s) well and truely- our first bit of dirt road into Litchfield is just slaughtered with corogations. Oh and now....its bloody hot!
Jumped into the pool at Wangi falls, along with 50 other bloody tourists in 'wicked' shit heaps...they came in the sealed way I guess....like most sane folk would( did I give them a compliment there?). From there the real adventure was to begin- poked my nose down the 4x4 track we were going to take down to Daly river- it was just 2 sand filled wheel ruts sunk about 8-10" lower than the surrounding terrain. We bailed on that 1.
Slunk off to some other tourist spots, termite mounds you know, that kinda stuff, oh and some more falls, before saying lets find a camp.
Found the shittiest spot in NT I tell you, stunk of bat shit from the colony we discovered nearby as it got dark....thats why all the flys were around in every oriface and your food too. What a dump. Slunk outta there about 6ish next morning, oh right, today I mean.
Did about 180km of tracks and dirt roads today, all fan-bloody-tastic, and while it was hotter, 38', the humidity is much lower out in Kakadu than around Darwin...thank goodness, and we found a really nice campground in Jabiru so that altogeather made up for a shit start yesterday I think.
I didn't feel PEAKY at all today either, so I must be getting over it, thanks for the thoughts and kind wishes!!!!
Tomorrow? well I am off to soak in some radioactivity, I think?

Pix coming as soon as I get the camera charged!
J

**Triwi** · 28th September 2009, 18:56

DJ
how do you rate the front suspension of the 990 on the corrugations? My utmost respect to your wife.
cheers
triwi

**drbandit** · 28th September 2009, 19:34

Originally Posted by ducatijim

I think I made the wrong choice of saturday ride this weekend. We left Darwin just after 7 and it was stinking humidity and hot- the humidity maxes early in the morning and burns off later in the day,not so bad when riding thou( for now!).
The roads and tracks are quite now, the nomads have all headed south for the summer, like bloody geese eh, and all thats left are a few locals and some bloody slack-packers making everywhere untidy.
But the nomads have left their mark(s) well and truely- our first bit of dirt road into Litchfield is just slaughtered with corogations. Oh and now....its bloody hot!
Jumped into the pool at Wangi falls, along with 50 other bloody tourists in 'wicked' shit heaps...they came in the sealed way I guess....like most sane folk would( did I give them a compliment there?). From there the real adventure was to begin- poked my nose down the 4x4 track we were going to take down to Daly river- it was just 2 sand filled wheel ruts sunk about 8-10" lower than the surrounding terrain. We bailed on that 1.
Slunk off to some other tourist spots, termite mounds you know, that kinda stuff, oh and some more falls, before saying lets find a camp.
Found the shittiest spot in NT I tell you, stunk of bat shit from the colony we discovered nearby as it got dark....thats why all the flys were around in every oriface and your food too. What a dump. Slunk outta there about 6ish next morning, oh right, today I mean.
Did about 180km of tracks and dirt roads today, all fan-bloody-tastic, and while it was hotter, 38', the humidity is much lower out in Kakadu than around Darwin...thank goodness, and we found a really nice campground in Jabiru so that altogeather made up for a shit start yesterday I think.
I didn't feel PEAKY at all today either, so I must be getting over it, thanks for the thoughts and kind wishes!!!!
Tomorrow? well I am off to soak in some radioactivity, I think?

Pix coming as soon as I get the camera charged!
J

So this is how you are getting in more practice for down south! Weather here bad.. Who needs a DR.
Have a great time.......

**ducatijim** · 28th September 2009, 22:34

Originally Posted by Triwi

DJ
how do you rate the front suspension of the 990 on the corrugations? My utmost respect to your wife.
cheers
triwi

I dunno m8, have never done well setting front suspensions, just don't seem to get it!
I have the rear so that even with 450kg approx auw, she will glide over most coros afrom about 60kph+. The front gives more 'feedback' than I would like at these speeds but I really have no idea(?) what adjustments to make so I leave it alone....wife would go ballistic if I was to be stopping and playing with the suspenders with any frequency as it is just too damn hot to be stationary( actually too damn hot even to be riding-we have seen low 40's today and saturday)
Yeah, wifey needs a medal, or she should have made a more careful choice of husband when she had the chance! I am getting a bit tired of folk looking at what we are doing and you can see sympathy in their eyes when they talk to DJoolz, and loathing when they talk to me!!!

Just had a 'seal' day today; Ubirr to Katherine-about 380km-but didn't get underway till after midday as I had to go and get irradiated first, then we rode from Jabiru out to Ubirr to see the wetlands from on top of the rock there.

Next 2 days are 'transport' stages- tomorrow to Tennant creek then wednesday on to the Alice for a couple of days. Will be later in the week before we go 'bush' again with trips out to both the East MacDonnell ranges and the West MacDonnell ranges and on to Ulurru. I guess we will shake off the humidity down there and the temps should be below the 40's, just!!

Oh well, bed calls and who am I to refuse? Nightynite NZ.

j

**Bass** · 29th September 2009, 07:31

Originally Posted by ducatijim

I had to go and get irradiated first,

I'd be interested to know more about whatever primary processing they do at the Ranger, when you get back

Originally Posted by ducatijim

to Tennant creek then wednesday j

Say hi to Keith for us

**ducatijim** · 29th September 2009, 19:55

Originally Posted by Bass

Say hi to Keith for us

Just back from a beer with him, you should have heard what he had to say about the NZ Rugby football union..........

**Bass** · 1st October 2009, 10:41

Jamie sent this and asked me to post it wiith the following:

Red Lily Billabong track.
60 km following South Alligator River and billabongs across flood plain and through wooded gulleys.

**Bass** · 2nd October 2009, 08:25

Jamie tells me that he put 2 new tyres on the bike in Alice Springs yesterday - Desert on the back and ED 11 on the front.

Paid AUS$ 560!

Ouch

**NordieBoy** · 2nd October 2009, 12:20

Originally Posted by Bass

Jamie tells me that he put 2 new tyres on the bike in Alice Springs yesterday - Desert on the back and ED 11 on the front.

Paid AUS$ 560!

Ouch

He needs a DR650 he does

**ducatijim** · 3rd October 2009, 23:20

Can't remember when last I caught up? Jabiru I think, just proir to my irradiation right?
Well you see, we mortals get more rad exposure changing the batteries as we do, each year in our smoke detectors than the workers get in a YEAR at Ranger! WTF? I thought I was going to get sommit I could keep in credit against a future cancer! Was a very interesting tour and now I have known, for a short while, just how uranium is removed from a bit of rock.
The ride up there was fantastic, my fone pix of the track that Bass posted for me was shit, I take full responsibility for that, much as I would dearly love to be able to blame that man, but no, we did about 160km of remote tracks that day and they were all very good riding. I didn't see a buff but. Bloody dissapointed too I am, there are still some around but I guess it was still too dry that far south for them at the moment.

The next 3 days were just transport stages, as one has to do over here, you just harden up and get them done; 1 day from Jabiru to Katherine, the next Kath to Tennant creek and a final day on to Alice. Checked out some stuff along the way but nothing really earth moving( outside of the mines!); a few rocks here and an old building or 2 there.

**ducatijim** · 3rd October 2009, 23:52

The boys at Race M/C's, the KTM dealers here did a great job of enhancing the already stream like heamorage from my wallet- $22 each tyre just for DISPOSAL!! And they thought, rather kindly I think, that $100 worth of seamless H/D tubes would be the go for my trip( musta seen the wife eh!!), so I could have gotten a heart bypass and some change for wot I paid these leaches!
Still, its the 'territory', as they say!

While they did that we did the tourist thing and did nothing whatsoever to stem the outward flow of coin from my wallet( tight, who...ME?), but did, I suppose, get a better picture of what has happened in this area( pstt...wot was it again Joolz??).
Next day we decided that as Alice was so good at this cash heamorage, we should only do day trips away and so present ourselves at night for another flow, thus the scheme was born that we would do a day trip out into East MacDonnell ranges land. Up early, can't bloody sleep here still on NZ time, and out into the cold at 0600, 12' it was but no dust storm like yesterday!
Bloody froze all morning as we struggled out along something called 'Binns track'......after about 50km of worsening punishment, the track degenerated to 2 sandy wheel tracks into the distance, we said enough. Bloody new tyres were punishing us something aweful so about turn and back the 50km again and take the seal option further east. Short of fuel now with a 100km detour to knowhere, Joolz sees that Ross River station advertises fuel( this is where the mozzies bring the Ross river virus from), so out there we go to be bleed again;$2-35/L.....I didn't want to buy the whole station...

1 lousey coffee and empty pockets later, we head off to the Arltunga road out to the old mining settlement. Great road now but still a shit ride. Ok, time for action.....out comes the leatherman and 3 clix off ALL the suspenders- take that you bitch!
Did our nosey round the old shit, as is polite, and I get this brain fart that says....too much air in tyres m8! I trusted 'mafia and sons' to have set me up right( no, really, I am just a lazy bastard) so while my guage is back at 'hq', I am more than competent to do the 'squeeze/kick/wiggle test in the field!
And I let some wind escape from said guilty partys. Now, that will be better.
Its ok, and we get home just before 'beeroclock'...great, now I can be bleed again.
This morning I decide a little science would not go astray in this matter so set about measuring the remaining wind......18 in the front.....great guess. And.....14, yes 14 in the rear! 150km 2 up with 14psi....go on shoot me

So that was a day of mixed blessings, good roads, bad roads,can't say I enjoyed it much but did learn that Michelin Desert tyres have one hell of a strong carcase.
Heres a pic;

**ducatijim** · 4th October 2009, 00:04

The observant amongst you will have noticed pic 3 bears no part in the above story, right?
Well sort of, you see this fine tribute to who was prolly an equally fine man was just on the roadside near Ross rvr stn.
Fish was his moniker, no points for guessing how he came by such a handle here near the town that boasts its the CLOSEST town in orstralia to every BEACH!
So between you and I, it is a no brainer to see that said fish scuttled his Harley one day whilst scooting along at in excess of every limit

His mates were so impressed they built a fine concrete and steel BURN OUT PAD beside his memorial. Someones even used it.
I wonder if my mates would do that for me?
Would I be such a legend?
Fish was only 44, a victim of the 'territory'.
RIP.

**ducatijim** · 4th October 2009, 00:17

Time for a laff>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Woke a bit before daylite in our motel room the other morning( NO, thats NOT where this is going) with a sensation of a fly on my bare gut!
I gives it a swat.
Peace again.......but nagging thought that I did/do not HEAR any fly?
Then, a tickle( No,no,no) along my side.....
Better check, roll over quietly so as not to wake Djlz, there is a huge cockroach crawling along beside me...
As big as our Houhou beetle this mother is.........
Better grab it before it crawls onto you know who...ooops......................

Too late..........

Wot the f***'s that she hollers as she is now standing beside the bed, so fast I did not see the transition!
( If only I could get the opposite reaction that fast from the girls...............)

Just a cockroach dear, won't bite, nothing to wori about, come back to bed?

Must have scared the roach more, we didn't see it again for 2 days, until that is this morning when Djlz is putting on her riding jacket and finds 'roachie' snug in a pocket!
I was away when this happened, but returned to a very flat roach in the carpark and some rather amused looking neighbours!!

**ducatijim** · 6th October 2009, 20:14

We shared Alice with about 400 Thrisickle drivers, you see there was a thing called 'trikefeast' being held there for a week!
It didn't cause us any hassles as they were predominantly way too old to cause any problems about town-some had only 1 leg, most behaved as if they only had 1 leg. Several had a dog on the back, some had better taste in pillion but they were really an ugly lot

I guess that is nothing new; we see the same sorta sights in NZ on a smaller scale!
At Hermansberg, an Aborigional historic community out in the west Macdonnells, we had the misfortune of pulling up for smoko at the same place( the only place!) as about 100 of these things. That was ok, I have a pass mark in arrogance so fitted in with attitude well, but they ate out all the scones! When in Centralia what else do you pull up for at smoko but a genuine 'devonshire tea'? We went there especially( on our way elsewhere) and had to compete with 200 or so thrikers!
Needless to say I did not get my scone. After 40mins, Djoolz said enough and thumped the counter, as only she can do, and we got our money back and went on our way, unrefreshed.
As we set about remounting, amoungst a sea of trainer wheels, we were cornered by a kiwi bloke, who wanted to share his whole weeks worth of following around behind these thawats....I'd rather watch a goanna fry on hot bitumin, really

Anyway, we headed for the gravel and bade farewell to that lot. For a while!
Back on thread, the ride around the Larrapinta/Hermansberg/Namatjura loop, about 400km, was truely some of the best mix of riding Ive done in a day over here.The scenery is up there with NZ, and the roads from very rough adventure trail to top class 'carving' seal....yes....with CORNERS!
We could spend a lot longer based in the Alice; there is so much to do and so many good rides to be had, wether you want sealed or bloody rough, its all here in spades. I'll be baack.