Some days are just perfect
Some days you get on the bike and you’re all thumbs. You make stupid mistakes and lose confidence, which leads to more stupid mistakes, and the day nose dives from there. But there are other days where you’re just golden, and the world is golden around you. This was one of those days.
Leaving Pimba before dawn, we watched sunrise together from the motorcycle — me in post-espresso bliss, Moon sleepy and quiet behind me. We hit dirt out of Roxby Downs for the first time this trip. The bike was predictably unsteady, but didn’t throw us off.
Today belonged to wedgetails. They were everywhere —eagles the size of kelpies, tearing roadkill on the shoulder of the road. Or catching shifting planes of wind, turning slow circles overhead. We passed a coolibah tree where five wedgetails were perched, branches drooping down under their weight. I’ve never seen more than two wedgetails together. They’re usually very solitary birds. One flew beside us for a while, early sun streaming through its wings, highlighting the tribal markings, in bronze and black, beneath its flight feathers. The desert is greener now than I’ve ever seen it before. Parts of the Painted Desert appeared to have lawn…like gigantic inhospitable golf courses. Mightn’t be a bad idea to send the golf course set out into the painted desert for a spell… just saying.
At Coober Pedy I found a message on my phone from my mate, well known Suzuki-whisperer Vince Strang- so I rang him back. He told me Dunlop 606 tyres are notoriously terrifying on the front of a DR650 and he’s 99% sure that’s caused my wobble problem. And because he’s a wonderful person, he arranged for a fellow Suzuki guru in Alice Springs to look at the bike when I arrive! It’s a relief to not have to expect another reception like the one I received in Dubbo! On the Stuart Highway after Coober Pedy the bike was wobble-free to around 110kph. Every day things improve a little.
Arriving at Marla I met Eloise the parrot who, like me, had decided to take her pet into the desert during the February heat. Here she is with her human.
It was getting hot today — over 40 degrees and we’re heading for a heat wave on Monday and Tuesday. I’ll reach Alice Springs tomorrow and stay for a day or so with my friend Dira. I can’t change the tyre until Monday so I’ll lose a day no matter what. But pulling into Marla today, with a sunburned face (yes, I did wear sunscreen!) and a burned strip of skin across my back where the MX armour had ridden up, I felt barbequed. Moon, who was wearing fur all day, was equally cooked. I’ll look for a canvas craftsman in Alice Springs to make a shade canopy for him before we hit the Tanami.
All in all, though, Moon loves camping. He loves falling into a shady, cool tent at the end of a day on the bike and starfishing — legs straight out in all directions. We had the tent up today by 6pm so he spent the evening experimenting with different kinds of stretching and farting, while I made the first plant pressings of this trip. We’re still in South Australia, but the central desert plants are starting to appear now.
Tomorrow or the next day I’ll see my dear Warlpiri friend Ned “Outlaw” Jampijinpa in Alice Springs before heading toward Lajamanu. The Tanami track is closed from flooding and there’s a chance they’ll close Buchanen too. If that happens I’ll have to reach Lajamanu via Katherine, then south to Lajamanu road. Either on the way to Lajamanu or the way back, I’ll interview my friend Henry Cook for the National Library. He’s the oldest living man in Australia despite never being acknowledged as such — at well over 110 years old — and the last surviving witness to the Coniston massacre. He’s been put into an old folks home against his will… If not for the additional scrutiny because of covid, I’d have tried to break him out. Souls like Henry’s do not belong in captivity.
Here we are together in happier times.
When the soil turns red and the spinifex appears, I know I’m on the way home to the Tanami. Just waiting for Namatjira’s ghost gums to appear against the stone-capped mountains now. For twelve long months covid has kept me from these people and this place. I can’t tell you how much joy it gives me to be here again… and to be here on a motorcycle!
18 months ago I was told I’d need surgery on my spine or I’d be in a wheelchair. I didn’t have the surgery. Now I’m on a dirt bike in the middle of the goddamned central desert! Don’t always listen to surgeons. Sometimes the hippy shit works — it really does :)
