Disclaimer - To my eternal regret I didn't take many photos during this trip and the ones I took with my shitty 10$ camera turned out, well shit. So I have added some pics from my other trips and a couple stolen from the internet to give more flavour to the narrative.
To me, Australia was the beaches and the outback. The Sydney Opera House was cool, as was all this foresty stuff along the coast but that was not what I’d been dreaming about. I’d been dreaming about white sand beaches and red sand deserts. And that’s what I wanted to explore. So once I got comfortable with the XJ, I started planning a trip into the outback. The first stage of the plan was to acquire an appropriate map. This was accomplished during my lunch break one day, via sleight of hand at the NRMA shop on George Street while no-one was looking (OK OK I stole it. One map for fucks sake, it wasn’t exactly shop lifting though I probably would get tasered for doing it today). I barely had enough money for food so I definitely wasn’t going to spend 10 bucks on a map. While all the other Indian software programmers spread out their greasy tiffins in the kitchen at lunch time, I unfurled my map while chomping on a chocolate stolen from the charity basket at work. To most of my Indian colleagues at work, I was an anomaly. A weird young punk who had no interest in saving money, eating curry and staying under the radar, like all good Indian software developers on overseas deployments were supposed to do. And to the white folk, I was just another darkie who had his eye on their job. So I didn’t quite fit in either block and kept mainly to myself. Not that I cared, I was too busy planning solo adventures to worry about what people were thinking of me.
I pored over the map, searching for desert. Didn’t need to look for long, it was the large orange blob that started not too far west of Sydney and filled up the map all the way to Perth! The quickest way to get there seemed to be towards Broken Hill and the distance from Sydney to Broken Hill didn’t look too far. A few hours easy, I thought. And I’ll go onwards from there. I hatched a plan to do a 5 day trip and take in as much of the outback as possible. It was February and there wasn’t a public holiday for months so I’d have to take 3 days off from work. Now I’d only been in my job for 3 weeks and my manager wasn’t very impressed with my proposal. But I was young, naïve and bursting at the seams for exploration. I didn’t give a shit and went anyway. Over the course of the next few months, I had several run-ins with this particular slave-driving manager and the cunt got me back finally by not extending my contract but I had explored the shit out of Australia by then, besides leaving a trail of fatherless, half-caste children in my wake. I think I won.
To me, Australia was the beaches and the outback. The Sydney Opera House was cool, as was all this foresty stuff along the coast but that was not what I’d been dreaming about. I’d been dreaming about white sand beaches and red sand deserts. And that’s what I wanted to explore. So once I got comfortable with the XJ, I started planning a trip into the outback. The first stage of the plan was to acquire an appropriate map. This was accomplished during my lunch break one day, via sleight of hand at the NRMA shop on George Street while no-one was looking (OK OK I stole it. One map for fucks sake, it wasn’t exactly shop lifting though I probably would get tasered for doing it today). I barely had enough money for food so I definitely wasn’t going to spend 10 bucks on a map. While all the other Indian software programmers spread out their greasy tiffins in the kitchen at lunch time, I unfurled my map while chomping on a chocolate stolen from the charity basket at work. To most of my Indian colleagues at work, I was an anomaly. A weird young punk who had no interest in saving money, eating curry and staying under the radar, like all good Indian software developers on overseas deployments were supposed to do. And to the white folk, I was just another darkie who had his eye on their job. So I didn’t quite fit in either block and kept mainly to myself. Not that I cared, I was too busy planning solo adventures to worry about what people were thinking of me.
I pored over the map, searching for desert. Didn’t need to look for long, it was the large orange blob that started not too far west of Sydney and filled up the map all the way to Perth! The quickest way to get there seemed to be towards Broken Hill and the distance from Sydney to Broken Hill didn’t look too far. A few hours easy, I thought. And I’ll go onwards from there. I hatched a plan to do a 5 day trip and take in as much of the outback as possible. It was February and there wasn’t a public holiday for months so I’d have to take 3 days off from work. Now I’d only been in my job for 3 weeks and my manager wasn’t very impressed with my proposal. But I was young, naïve and bursting at the seams for exploration. I didn’t give a shit and went anyway. Over the course of the next few months, I had several run-ins with this particular slave-driving manager and the cunt got me back finally by not extending my contract but I had explored the shit out of Australia by then, besides leaving a trail of fatherless, half-caste children in my wake. I think I won.
So one fine summer morning, I strapped my rucksack to the back of the ventura rack on the XJ600 and headed west. Now the trouble with getting an overview of regional distances by glancing at a map of Australia is that it can give you the wrong impression. Sydney-Broken Hill is over a thousand kilometres. I could’ve sworn it looked less than 500 on the map. By the time I got to Dubbo, much of the day was gone and my arse felt like a fresh new arsehole had been pummelled into it. The desert was still nowhere in sight and looking at the map again, I seemed less than halfway to Broken Hill. Welcome to Straya matey! She’s a bloody big’un innt she?
But I wasn’t fazed, having done a few big motorcycle trips in India, I was ready for more. At Nyngan, my dreams of red Australian dirt starting coming true. The landscape turned deserty and everything was covered with the fine red sand of the desert. I pulled over next to a muddy river to eat a sandwich and ruminate on how far I’d come. For the past 3 years I’d been in a tumultuous relationship with a superhot but unhinged Russian girl and I’d broken up with her just before leaving for Australia. The Australian trip couldn’t have come for me at a better time emotionally. I had needed to get out of that relationship and sitting here at the edge of the desert, staring into nothingness, becoming nothing, was exactly what I needed.
And the nothingness was so real. I’d never seen or even imagined so much space, such endless horizons. Riding dead straight for an hour between Nyngan and Cobar froze me to the bike and when I tried to get off at the fuel station, I fell over with the bike on top of me. I sat in a corner there for a long time as darkness descended wondering why this fast, straight line riding without traffic was harder than it first appeared. I’d done long days in the saddle in India but I wasn’t used to the consistently high speeds. And I was only doing the speed limit. In India, there is a constant barrage of obstacles and kamikaze road-users you have to dodge. Dogs and buffaloes will run out on the road, you will travel through the middle of a village with ladies drying their washing inches from you, tractors and bullock-carts will block your way on a single lane road, you’re constantly slowing down and accelerating, weaving and swerving. The level of focus required is easy to maintain because you know you will die within minutes if you don’t. But the average speed over a 100KM stretch rarely exceeds 60 kmph, even on highways. You did big days but only covered 300KMs at the end of it. This outback riding was very different. No obstacles, nothing obvious trying to kill you. But holding a bike wide open for 1 minute, let alone 1 hour is something I had never done before and there was a different kind of concentration and endurance required.
But I wasn’t fazed, having done a few big motorcycle trips in India, I was ready for more. At Nyngan, my dreams of red Australian dirt starting coming true. The landscape turned deserty and everything was covered with the fine red sand of the desert. I pulled over next to a muddy river to eat a sandwich and ruminate on how far I’d come. For the past 3 years I’d been in a tumultuous relationship with a superhot but unhinged Russian girl and I’d broken up with her just before leaving for Australia. The Australian trip couldn’t have come for me at a better time emotionally. I had needed to get out of that relationship and sitting here at the edge of the desert, staring into nothingness, becoming nothing, was exactly what I needed.
And the nothingness was so real. I’d never seen or even imagined so much space, such endless horizons. Riding dead straight for an hour between Nyngan and Cobar froze me to the bike and when I tried to get off at the fuel station, I fell over with the bike on top of me. I sat in a corner there for a long time as darkness descended wondering why this fast, straight line riding without traffic was harder than it first appeared. I’d done long days in the saddle in India but I wasn’t used to the consistently high speeds. And I was only doing the speed limit. In India, there is a constant barrage of obstacles and kamikaze road-users you have to dodge. Dogs and buffaloes will run out on the road, you will travel through the middle of a village with ladies drying their washing inches from you, tractors and bullock-carts will block your way on a single lane road, you’re constantly slowing down and accelerating, weaving and swerving. The level of focus required is easy to maintain because you know you will die within minutes if you don’t. But the average speed over a 100KM stretch rarely exceeds 60 kmph, even on highways. You did big days but only covered 300KMs at the end of it. This outback riding was very different. No obstacles, nothing obvious trying to kill you. But holding a bike wide open for 1 minute, let alone 1 hour is something I had never done before and there was a different kind of concentration and endurance required.
But I prided myself on my endurance so I gathered myself and headed further west from Cobar as dusk turned to night. I didn’t know that this was the most dangerous time of day to be out on a motorcycle in the outback. We don’t have wild animals running across our roads at night in India you see and all I really knew about Australia was gleaned by closely scrutinising that beach poster I’d grown up with. As Kangaroos starting popping onto the road in front of me with alarming regularity, I freaked out and crawled along at 60 almost popping my eyeballs trying to pick them in the dim headlight. A road train went thundering past me blaring his horn, scaring the beShiva out of me. And then, like magic, some lights twinkled up ahead and Emmdale Roadhouse emerged from the gloom. It looked like a deserted haunted-house but I could’ve hugged the building, I was so relieved to find some respite from the road. I walked in and bought the cheapest sandwich in the place and asked if they was anywhere to sleep. The old moll pointed out the door. I looked around in case I’d missed some secret cabins coming in. there were none. I looked back at her, quizzically. She looked at me like I had asked her a dumb question and was keeping her from important business. “Go on, there’s no accommodation here”. This was a culture shock. Having travelled extensively on shoestring budgets in India, I’d never been rejected out of any place so rudely. You rock up at a highway joint in India regardless of the time of day or night and the people will always try to serve you as best as they can, especially if you’re a tired, solo traveller on a motorcycle. If there is no accommodation available, people have let me sleep in their personal shacks, on patio floors, or terraces or fields but I’ve always been looked after. And if there is literally no place available, they will try to call around or give suggestions on what I could do. A traveller or a guest is treated with respect and care in India and I just assumed that’s how it was around the world. I was shocked that this didn’t seem to be the case in Australia. I walked out Emmdale road house, ate my sandwich and rode on till I found a spot in the bush to spread out my sleeping mat under the stars. I wasn’t carrying a tent and was dead scared of snakes (that’s something I did know about Australia). I lay awake to visions of a slithering serpent crawling across me as I slept. But the sky was clear, millions of stars shone brightly down at me and I couldn’t help but marvel at the majesty of it.
After an eventful sleep I woke to a beautiful cloudless day. I did my first open-air shit in Australia. Light and liberated, I embraced the day. As I headed west towards Wilcannia a most wonderful thing happened, the memory of which stays crystal clear in my head till today. A big, orangish Kangaroo suddenly appeared in the low scrub on my left and starting sprinting along the road. I was doing about 80KMPH and slowed down to 60 and this guy was keeping pace. It was the first Kangaroo I’d seen in the day time and I was just blown away at the speed and grace of that big animal. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, I was all alone on this endless road in the Australian outback and a Kangaroo was heralding my arrival to his people. I felt welcome. And blessed. As I stopped to take a picture to remember the moment, a 4WD pulled up and I feared the worst. Some racist is probably going to abuse me or worse, kill me and bury me in the nothingness. But the old man just asked me if I was OK and needed any help. I was stunned and thanked him profusely for asking. He winked at me and drove off, leaving me confused about his intentions. I didn't know, then, that the great australian wink was as ubiquitous and harmless as "she'll be right".
At Wilcannia I filled up and was pleasantly surprised to see my first aborigines. For my 12th birthday, Dad had gifted me a map of Australia drawn on a cloth and it had aboriginal symbols and instruments like a Dingo, Boomerang on different parts of the map. I’d always been intrigued by Aboriginals and had hoped to interact and get to know them in Australia. The black kids hanging around outside the servo hassling me for “smokes, Mista!” weren’t exactly what I had imagined my first contact with Australian aborigines would be like. I had expected a more romantic first meeting “HarryD, I presume”, I’d expected some wizened blackfella with a spear to say when he saw me emerge from the desert dust. The kids pressed money in my hands and asked me to get them smokes from the servo. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get them themselves but in the spirit of trying to strike up a conversation, I bought them the smokes. They took ‘em and ran off, leaving me looking like a fool in the glare of the servo attendant. This episode left me very confused and my romantic notion of the aborigines (based on how they were portrayed overseas) were somewhat shaken.
At Wilcannia I filled up and was pleasantly surprised to see my first aborigines. For my 12th birthday, Dad had gifted me a map of Australia drawn on a cloth and it had aboriginal symbols and instruments like a Dingo, Boomerang on different parts of the map. I’d always been intrigued by Aboriginals and had hoped to interact and get to know them in Australia. The black kids hanging around outside the servo hassling me for “smokes, Mista!” weren’t exactly what I had imagined my first contact with Australian aborigines would be like. I had expected a more romantic first meeting “HarryD, I presume”, I’d expected some wizened blackfella with a spear to say when he saw me emerge from the desert dust. The kids pressed money in my hands and asked me to get them smokes from the servo. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get them themselves but in the spirit of trying to strike up a conversation, I bought them the smokes. They took ‘em and ran off, leaving me looking like a fool in the glare of the servo attendant. This episode left me very confused and my romantic notion of the aborigines (based on how they were portrayed overseas) were somewhat shaken.
From Wilcannia, I made for Lake Menindee. It looked fascinating on the map, 2 bulbous blobs of blue in an ocean of orange. The dusty dirt track was the stuff my Australian outback dreams were made of. Empty, scrubby, parched land with the occasional shady tree and me on my motorcycle raising dust through it. I felt like the explorer I’d always wanted to be. At Menindee town I fuelled up at the station where a chirpy young girl started chatting to me from behind the counter. She had light brown skin with golden hair, probably part aboriginal. As I paid her the money she said “Ta”. I said “What?”. She said “What?”. I said “what did you mean by “Ta”? She laughed and explained what it meant. Oh, I said I thought it was some exotic aboriginal word meaning “peace be upon you” or “travel well stranger”. She laughed again.
I asked her how to get to the lake and she said, I’ll take you if you give me a ride on your motorbike. I said cool but I don’t have another helmet. She said “no worries” and hopped on anyway. That’s the first time I’d heard that expression “no worries”. It sounded Buddhist and I didn’t quite grasp what it meant but I liked it immediately. Anyway, Kate took us on a dirt track that crossed a train line then went over a little sandy hill where I nearly dropped the bike. This only made Kate hug me tightly so was clearly a clever strategy. I fumbled a bit more before reaching the top of the hill where I suddenly beheld a vast expanse of blue water in stark contrast to the dun coloured desert around it. It was breathtaking, Lake Menindee, the deep blue waters created a huge oasis that extended beyond the western horizon. There were dead trees of all shapes and sizes poking out of the water along the shoreline and thousands of birds swarmed around. We sat there in silence for a while before I announced I was going to camp at the lake. Kate had to go back into town so I dropped her back promising to catch up with her later. She suggested “8PM”, I suggested “sunset” because this was way before I begrudgingly accepted that clocks and mobile phones were necessary to live a satisfying life.
I asked her how to get to the lake and she said, I’ll take you if you give me a ride on your motorbike. I said cool but I don’t have another helmet. She said “no worries” and hopped on anyway. That’s the first time I’d heard that expression “no worries”. It sounded Buddhist and I didn’t quite grasp what it meant but I liked it immediately. Anyway, Kate took us on a dirt track that crossed a train line then went over a little sandy hill where I nearly dropped the bike. This only made Kate hug me tightly so was clearly a clever strategy. I fumbled a bit more before reaching the top of the hill where I suddenly beheld a vast expanse of blue water in stark contrast to the dun coloured desert around it. It was breathtaking, Lake Menindee, the deep blue waters created a huge oasis that extended beyond the western horizon. There were dead trees of all shapes and sizes poking out of the water along the shoreline and thousands of birds swarmed around. We sat there in silence for a while before I announced I was going to camp at the lake. Kate had to go back into town so I dropped her back promising to catch up with her later. She suggested “8PM”, I suggested “sunset” because this was way before I begrudgingly accepted that clocks and mobile phones were necessary to live a satisfying life.
I chose a big tree at the shore line, collected heaps of large bird feathers, which were strewn all along the shoreline and spread out my sleeping mat. I then dug the biggest feathers I could find into the sand to demarcate the boundaries of my little patch of the world. It was corny but fuck it, it was mine and I was proud of it. I went back to get Kate at the first hint of sundown but she was nowehere to be found. So i wheeled it back to my million star hotel.
My morning slumber was interrupted by loud mechanical noises very close to me. I woke up in a panic, looked around me but couldn’t see anything. Then suddenly 1, 2, 3 dirt bikes came storming out of the tree line and onto the sandy lake shore. They were roosting each other and pulling wheelies. I’d never seen a proper dirtbike ever before and they looked like they were having the time of their life. But I was also annoyed because their loud shenanigans were so in contrast to the peaceful natural surroundings and they seemed like intruders.
My morning slumber was interrupted by loud mechanical noises very close to me. I woke up in a panic, looked around me but couldn’t see anything. Then suddenly 1, 2, 3 dirt bikes came storming out of the tree line and onto the sandy lake shore. They were roosting each other and pulling wheelies. I’d never seen a proper dirtbike ever before and they looked like they were having the time of their life. But I was also annoyed because their loud shenanigans were so in contrast to the peaceful natural surroundings and they seemed like intruders.
Packing up camp, I headed west through the Kinchega National Park. The track skirted the lake and was very sandy. It was hard going on my bike and I dropped it at least 10 times before the track veered away from the lake and hardened up (the track, not me!). The track came out eventually on a metalled road with a sign saying “< Wentworth | Broken Hill >”. I went right and into Broken Hill. It’s a weird town, Broken Hill with wide roads and grand old buildings but hardly any people. It has the air of a once bustling town trying to hold onto its glamorous past. Street names like Sulphide Road and Carbide Street cracked me up. I had no interest in towns or mining so I headed out to the Desert Sculpture Park outside town. This had rock sculptures parked on the top of a hill which were pretty amazing and full of interesting information about the area. Then I headed west to South Australia. The state borders of Australia have always been a source of curiosity and amusement to me. Arbitrarily drawn lines across no-man’s land, unlike the ones in India where the borders are drawn on complex criteria like ethnicity, language, culture and geography. When you cross over a state border in India, it immediately obvious from people's dresses, the language of the signs and geography. Crossing over to SA at Cockburn was interesting though neither the language nor the countryside changed much! I spent the night near Yunta, under a bridge, next to a little stream, like a Hobo. I was a little less scared of snakes after my 2 nights in the open and slept peacefully.
I would’ve liked to visit Adelaide but having used up 3 out of my 5 days and being 1500 KMs from Sydney, I needed to start making my way back. Heading back the way I came held no appeal to me so looking at the map, I decided to head to Mildura and make my way from there. The South Australian countryside got greener around Peterborough and there were huge farms. I remember wondering where they got enough water to irrigate the farms. It was a bit of a slog to Mildura but it was worth it. A picturesque town on the banks of the Murray river, I enjoyed dawdling while watching an ancient paddle steamer go up and down the river. Thinking I’d like to come back and spend some time in this town, I went back to my bike and hit the starter. Nothing! All my worst fears started screaming in my head. Bloody shitbox is gonna leave me stranded 1500KM from home! That motorcycle salesman looked dodgy for sure, it’s probably never been serviced in its life. Since my mechanical knowledge was even less than my knowledge of Australia, I just kneeled and prayed and cursed for a while then hit the starter again. It fired up! Before it could change its mind, I jumped on and crossed into NSW. At some point before Mildura, I’d entered Victoria, only briefly but still, I checked it off my list! The bike played up again a couple of times and I worked out it didn't like to be started when it was hot so I timed my breaks to allow it to cool down. Mechanical analysis is over rated.
Nearing Balranald around dusk, I was bombarded by the biggest swarm of insects I’d ever seen. It was like the biblical plague of locusts. My helmet, an open face thing with a visor was covered in them and some of them got inside the visor up my nose and into my eyes and ears. I didn’t wear any gloves or boots so a few of them went up my jacket and jeans. I danced a funny dance on the bike trying to squash them as best as I could. I stopped a couple of times but it was the same whenever I got back on so I just limped into Balranald and collapsed in a fast food joint. I sat there till the young attendant girl looked like she might call the cops on me. I emerged and found a beautiful spot to camp under some huge trees next to the Murrumbidgee river. I walked around town at 9PM and it was a ghost town, kinda cool though. Sleeping under a huge gum tree I was woken by a loud crack in the middle of the night, then a thump. In my dim torchlight I couldn’t see what had happened and all looked the same as I’d left it. In the morning I discovered a massive tree branch on the ground about 10 feet away from my head. It had obviously spontaneously fallen off at night.
Nearing Balranald around dusk, I was bombarded by the biggest swarm of insects I’d ever seen. It was like the biblical plague of locusts. My helmet, an open face thing with a visor was covered in them and some of them got inside the visor up my nose and into my eyes and ears. I didn’t wear any gloves or boots so a few of them went up my jacket and jeans. I danced a funny dance on the bike trying to squash them as best as I could. I stopped a couple of times but it was the same whenever I got back on so I just limped into Balranald and collapsed in a fast food joint. I sat there till the young attendant girl looked like she might call the cops on me. I emerged and found a beautiful spot to camp under some huge trees next to the Murrumbidgee river. I walked around town at 9PM and it was a ghost town, kinda cool though. Sleeping under a huge gum tree I was woken by a loud crack in the middle of the night, then a thump. In my dim torchlight I couldn’t see what had happened and all looked the same as I’d left it. In the morning I discovered a massive tree branch on the ground about 10 feet away from my head. It had obviously spontaneously fallen off at night.
The next day was a slog. I don’t remember the exact way I came back but I do remember the endless Hay plains and arriving in Cowra. The road finally got some nice bends after Cowra and I was enjoying myself when I came around a sweeper doing 120 and saw a big black snake lying across my entire lane. I had nowhere to go and cut him in half. Now, in India, it’s really bad luck to kill a snake and all sorts of legends are associated with killing snakes. One says that if you kill a snake, their mate will come after you to take revenge, another one goes if you cut a snake in half, the portion with the head will continue to live and come after you. I wasn’t really concerned about the snake’s sweetheart coming to look for me in suburban Sydney but the second myth concerned me enough to go back to make sure that both pieces of snake were plastered on the road and incapable of revenge.
Civilisation shocked me after 5 days in the outback and Sydney seemed to have gotten larger and busier in my absence. This is why I like travelling by land though rather than by air. As you approach your destination from ground level, at an organic pace, you have time to get a feel for its surroundings, its history, its context, its place in the world. Air travel provides no context or time to adjust to your destination and I find it incredibly disorienting.
It was a big day that last one, over 12 hours on the bike but I was nowhere near as tired as I was on Day 1 as I pulled into Emmdale roadhouse. I guess my body was getting used to the Australian motorcycling experience. There were more trips to come but this first trip remains my favourite for the rich memories and the greatest personal growth.
Read about my next adventure - Australia - Abode of snow
Civilisation shocked me after 5 days in the outback and Sydney seemed to have gotten larger and busier in my absence. This is why I like travelling by land though rather than by air. As you approach your destination from ground level, at an organic pace, you have time to get a feel for its surroundings, its history, its context, its place in the world. Air travel provides no context or time to adjust to your destination and I find it incredibly disorienting.
It was a big day that last one, over 12 hours on the bike but I was nowhere near as tired as I was on Day 1 as I pulled into Emmdale roadhouse. I guess my body was getting used to the Australian motorcycling experience. There were more trips to come but this first trip remains my favourite for the rich memories and the greatest personal growth.
Read about my next adventure - Australia - Abode of snow
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