I left Longreach at 7:30am. The day started out warm but it seemed to get cooler the closer I got to Charleville. Charleville is my next stop.
I headed back to Ilfracombe as it was suggested to me not to take the original route I was going to take, which included a section of unsealed road. They’ve had rain out here recently and general consensus was to go back to Ilfracombe. So back I went. It was only 27kms back down the road so no harm done.
The wind picked up early and I was riding into a cross-head-wind. Once I turned south it became a tail wind of sorts so the ride smoothed out considerably.

From Ilfracombe I headed to Isisford. I was intending to fill-up there and there was a moment of concern when I couldn’t find the servo. It’s on a back street for future reference. There is an ad on TV that talks about the Barcoo bridge at Isisford so I had to go see what all the hoo-haa was about.

The next leg of the journey heads out to Blackall. This is a tourist route and I was rather early, so I waited in Isisford for 40mins or so to make sure there were at least a couple of Caravans to take the same road. It’s a long lonely road if something goes wrong. Having ascertained my backup, I took off. The country is flat, flatter than flat. I was hoping to see some Emus but the only animals I could see were cows, horses, sheep and goats. I did see a few Brolgas but there were too far away to get a photo...again.

I grabbed a bite to eat in Blackall and headed toward Tambo, a much nicer place if you ask me. I filled up at Tambo and spent a good half an hour by the man-made lake near the BP. Lovely cool breeze coming off the water, which I needed as I helped a lady put air in her tyres. Damned pressure hose wasn’t working properly so I had to send her off to Blackall with only 28psi in one of the front tyres. She was happy enough.

The road from Tambo to Augathela was very nice. The road was lined with purple, blue, white and yellow wild flowers all the way. I took to standing up on the bike doing 100kms, a good way to see the country and you can almost believe you’re flying.

All in all the country is very flat and featureless. So much space, I love it!
I took barely a handful of photos today, I’m getting rather picky about what I get the camera out for.
I stopped in Augathela for a Mango Weis bar. I’m not sure why I suddenly had a craving for one of these, but the last time I was through here I remember the BP having them... so, I grabbled one. Also a good excuse to get off the bike for a bit. On the way into town I decided to go down one of the dirt tracks that lead off the main road. I followed this for a couple of KM’s before turning around. Bike handled it fairly well, but I should have let some of the air out of the tyres.
The road from Augathela to Charleville was more of the same featureless landscape. I did the Cylon scanning thing just in case there was something interesting to take a photo of. There wasn’t.

Tonight I decided to check out the local Charleville Chinese. Very nice, I was the only one in the restaurant so I was a captured audience. Chop-sticks are a novelty out here, they had to go find some when I asked, eyebrows raised and everything.

Very short distance to Roma tomorrow, but there should be lots of side-tracks to follow. I plan on stopping in to have a look at the artesian spa at Mitchell. I only gave the one as Ilfracombe a cursory glance.

I should also say that riding a bike through these places is rather cool. Kids wave and people come up and ask where I’m heading and where I’ve come from, I’m certainly a hit with the “grey nomads”. You don’t get that with a car.

Note to self: wash the bug-guts off the bike, it’s attracting flies.

Tags: motorcycles, travel