Ghost who rides wrote:    Got as far as Cooktown before looking south and sketching out the return journey.

June of 2010 on a solo 50th birthday ride on my K100RS, I was stopped in the motel at the end of Cooktown's main street. I'd eaten dinner and so wandered up the street in search of a drink, and drawn in by the noise of music being thrashed out, I entered this very pub. The classic OZ white paddy wagon with blue cop checkers parked right out the front door should've been my first hint, but a man gets a thirst. The sight of a pair of burly cops hauling a young local girl, herself wailing and kicking and hurling obscenities, should've been my second clue. In I went.

Five minutes later while shouldering my way to a clearer view of the garage band at the outdoor stage to the left of the main building, all hell broke loose. I didn't see a single, cheeky, lovable Croc Dundee type in the crowd, restoring order in an efficient manner. Instead, filthy drunken mouths and sloppily thrown punches abounded. So I bounded. 

The two coppers had grown to eight and they were filling that wagon out front with locals. It's a good thing they're plastic and easy to hose out of blood and beer-spew.

Sometimes you're proud of your heritage, and other times...

I crossed the wide street to the other side to look back in relative safety. The noise and lights grew dimmer and faded as I walked back to my motel room a coupla hundred metres east. Next day upon leaving town the mess was cleared up and an otherwise charming country town maintained its charm.

The few roads getting there and departing there are sublime. A good reason to return.

Out the end of Cooktown near the Captain Cook Cairn up on the bluff. The weather was moving in.

I wonder if this sweet little Cooktown coffee shop survived...?

From coffee to Thai in 14 years. 

According to my odometer 5035kms have been consumed to reach Cooktown. Decided that accompanying Rhonda home to Kangaroo Island was the better option for me than "deserting" her and completing "the lap" Kimberley etc. Besides we are a unit now and i honestly feel doing that extra 10,000 alone would be beyond me.
Caught up with the 21st century with a new jacket all singing and dancing, haven't worked out how it makes a cuppa yet.

Black Mountains, weird granitic outcrop, kinda haunting feeling there.

Thanks so much Daz for adding colour to my thread when I was starting to flag with the issues I've had re the second biggest service provider in Australia, YES that one. I admire your ability to paint like that always inspiring.
Some beauty here, a masterpiece despite being past its best. Bird of paradise, the flora not fauna, hard to say which most beautiful, varieties of of both so numerous , I call it a draw.

Hey Ghosty - that new jacket looks the goods. You'll enjoy the meander south just as much as the run north.

The paddle steamer evening on the Thompson River at Longreach is a good way to relax after a few days on the road.

Cheers

Thanks Gaz,will check it out. Hughenden to Winton easy 214ks, motelled and touristed up for a whole arvo then nostalgia'd up in The Royal open air theatre, warm night dry heat, spectacular sunset, tell me I'm in the outback again after 20 years away. Tomorrow I'll see the Diamantina river for the first time, I've romanticised the name and the Cooper for 50 years and water or not I'm gunna swim in my memory of the lake Eyre connection.  
   Cop this out of nowhere Big Sky Country.

   Porcupine Gorge, north of Hughenden.

Sun setting outback style, it's here I feel a spiritual connection with the land in the sense indigenous peoples explain it. Mine goes back to the '70s and has never wained despite living in the least outbackie state of Australia for 40yrs. Warning motorcycle content!

And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit Plains extended
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars
AB (Banjo) Paterson

Appropriately from Winton, outback Qld

Ghosty paddles like a Wally through this crossing for the third time

I got there, all the trepidation of taking the inland route has worked out in Spades, it's not desert but
"In the desert, you can remember your name "
Never seen this country before but similar, the variation in Australia is astounding and belies my claim to immediately "get" it , yet I live in Tasmania, go figure.

Should have got a photo of a "jump up" but this one from a jump up shows jump ups on the horizon. I've been to Austria and know mountains yet when you approach jump ups (it takes a while) I still feel awe.

I bought this K75C about 17 years ago with 150,000kms, one owner. Today the odometer turned 212,000. I've done virtually nothing to this machine maintenance wise cept change the oil, occasionally!!!! I'm actually ashamed to admit to not doing Major stuff. I have done numerous minor eg speedo (add 20,000kms, my guess)and I'm convinced DeOxit has been my friend.
Anyway, yesterday Wed or day before I changed down for a floodway or randy Brahmin bull and, you guessed it, about 100kms in 4th! If anything it was so much sweeter at those revs, the vibration in the bars in top at 100 or 110 is present and annoying, seriously that's my only excuse for such a fundamental flaw in my supposedly vast experience.
What a motor this is. What a motorcycle this is. With MINIMAL upkeep and all those runs on the board, I hardly believe it myself.
Prizes by the way for naming a maintenance item I have NOT performed, I will be honest and fess up to every correct, yes I said every meaning there are plenty to choose from so chances are in you favour.

Thanks for allowing us to travel with you. Old Optus mustn't be playing up as much out beyond. In 2010, I had days on my 'lap' round the big island where I never had a whisper of a signal from them. I know things've changed in the past 14 years.

Not much change TWB, about every second town has Optus so 5-600km between, accommodation has WiFi but can't do calls or txt/mms. Rhonda has Telstra so all good even though they are universally hated too.
After 200ks of flatness and changing vegetation, low grasslands, small shrubs sparsely dotted, small trees ditto then quite dense, suddenly this beauty

U turn, 100m cross country the light just so. When I was young I thought Australian trees were messy, untidy somehow. Not the chocolate box cone of fir or pine, the mushroom oak etc. Now I love the Croc Dundee slouched at the bar with fag in one hand and XXXX can in the other of our eucalyptus species. Not that this beauty is one of those, more Miss Universe entrant. Am I right or been smoking funny things?
Or both?

It's funny: whenever I go on holiday (by bike, plane or other) I resent taking any form of technology with me and that includes my mobile/cell phone. Yes, I know it can reasonably be classified as a safety item and I do carry it, but I'd actually rather not. The couple of times I've had to carry a laptop with me, I've felt like I was carrying something really dirty and nasty. Holidays is for getting away from it all.

Thank you for the updates and pictures. I'm jealous that you have such a big country to explore.

Hey Mr Ghost

Good to hear from you again - thought you'd gone walkabout...

Hope the return journey is as interesting!

Ps - you need to update your forum signature soon!

Ghosty, What about a spark plug change?

Cheers

Oh Gaz, no cigar, so so close, just a whisker off. Only 2 months ago I had a misfire which turned into K50C.
However racking both brain cells there was a time I took the plugs out and looked at them, that would count as maintenance, wouldn't it?

From the vast Plains, a feature rises above the norm. In this landscape the smallest change hits like a crescendo. Saw 3 Brolgas today, a first in wild for me. No pic, worth googling, stunning birds.

G'Day Ghosty,
Great to hear from you again and sharing your travels with us. I think I first met you at the FCR at Tottenham a few years ago.
I have been to most places you have come across and has brought back some fond memories.
Stay safe and keep up the good work.
Cheers Tom

Great to hear from you Tom, it was Tottenham we met for the second time, you will recall Araluen as the first when I Ghosted the meeting.
Easy day today after 600ish Saturday. Cunnamulla to Bourke. Paddle boat ride on the Darling, I'm still connecting dots on my Murray Darling basin "research" and not forgetting the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee, to name just 4 of many mighty watercourses in this system.
New and old. 1883 lift centre, hand cranked made in England decommissioned not long ago. Tomorrow on to the familiar Barrier Hwy and nearly home which is a strange reality to face. This trip has kick-started me into a close semblance of my former self, great medicine.

212,000 minus 150,000 kms, even with the miscellaneous speedometre gear changes, only adds up to less than 40,000 miles/67,000 kms in those years of use, and perhaps of idleness, too. It goes to show how much they'll take and still roll along. 

No doubt she's in need of spline check & lube, & fuel & air filter replacement. A valve clearance check & some fresh sparkies, steering head bearing lube & adjust wouldn't hurt, either.
 

Are you two braving the Broken Hill run? I guess that would be the shortest way back to Kangaroo Island - it will also make sure your rear tyres are nice and flat on the bottom  .

Cheers

Seems a week now we've been braving the wildlife roulette of the outback, the only ones we haven't seen are camels and drop bears (very few trees and only small ones around here).This is how they roll up here.

    This is the most extreme I've seen. Today is Broken Hill for 2 nights, been a couple of weeks since a rest day and I'm not ashamed to admit needing it. Rhonda has a friend here to catch up with and speaking of Rhonda, she continues to upstage me on what is supposed to be MY trip. A family of emus just off the tar and one young one decided to go back across the road, in my mirror I only saw one object, swerved to see past a continuing R and sure enough an inert object could be seen. A sore right leg, bent brake pedal and buggered brake switch the only damage to us, family now 5 not 6. Honda dealer didn't have front brake lever (another upstage) but rang his mate a "backyard" dirt bike guy who had one, $20 and insisted on fitting it and straighten the pedal, top guy, right out west end of city. Did I tell you I'm travelling with one tough cookie?