A Long way to Reach - 1138km

First day and I was up early without an alarm at 5am. Smooch bye bye to Charleen until next week and I was under way.

Brisbane to Longreach. What can I say. It is just a long way. 1138km for me. Ian was departing a bit later as he has to have a new tyre fitted this morning. We will meet up at the motel.

I made it past our accident spot from back in May without incident. Lots of different factors. Different tyre, daylight, not raining, no debris on road, they have patched the smooth spot. Several patches on the road now where there were several smooth places. Don't know if our crash had anything to do with it.

Not long after there was a small truck doing 90 with two cars staying behind. I saw a chance and overtook all three. Now I have no idea what speed I was doing as looking at the speedo whilst overtaking would be just silly. But it was faster than them. As I got alongside the second vehicle, there, parked on the side of the road, was a bright red HP car. With a radar hanging off the side. Oh well, nothing to do now but keep going. I kept checking the rear vision mirror for a while but they didn't follow. Phew!! Good to have a quiet bike.

Through Dalby there was a silver van with a big sign telling what it was. No troubles there.

I was practicing my fuel stops, cutting the time down to as little as possible. So it was have everything ready prior to pulling up. Switch engine off to ACC so the GPS kept running. Open fuel with spare key, reset odometer and enter distance and fuel price into the log while the fuel is running in. Click off, ad fuel used. In, grab a drink from the shelf and pay. Back on the bike

and get going in under four minutes. Reset GPS fuel usage after moving.

The second stop at Roma I also needed to clean the windscreen but still managed to keep it under four minutes.

At Augathella a young bloke in a ute pulled in behind me. We nodded and said hi but it was obvious he was in a hurry too so the race was on. I needed less fuel, he had his girlfriend to clean his screen. I managed to get in to pay first, but still had to put on helmet and gloves. He didn't. But his girl was a bit slow getting in so I got away first. Yessss.

A little later on after Tambo I was happily riding all alone, road to myself, and noticed a sideways T sign - an intersection. A quick glance I saw a Toyota ute approaching from the left. No worries, I'm on his right on the main road. He'll stop. Hang on - he's still coming fast not going to stop - bastard. Right lane was clear so I moved over to give him room to turn. But he took up both lanes, tyres howling and I was now under full braking. I felt the ABS kick in as he cut me off completely.

He managed to get back on to the correct side of the road and I powered past. The bugger was waving at me!! Was that supposed to mean sorry? A wave? Why is it that people can almost kill me and then think all is forgiven if they wave?

As I went past his open window I only had time to yell three words. But they were choice.

It took me a while to calm down. Lucky for him I wasn't a road train as he never even looked my way. Fool.

Next stop was Barcaldine for fuel but this time I did not do so well in the time department. Fuelled up OK and quickly, but as I walked inside the young girl attendant was shutting down one register and opening another and there were eight customers waiting. This was not going to be a four minute stop.

She slowly worked her way to me and then confusion took over.

"Pump 4 please."

"No, that's been done. Which was yours?"

"4. Where my bike is parked. See?"

"That was paid for."

"Not yet I haven't."

Turns out one of the eight previous customers had nominated and paid for pump 4 ($29.94) when hers was actually pump 7 (over $60.00).

So after calling over the supervisor who looked me up and down like I'd done something wrong, she got the youngster to take my correct money for pump 4 and treat pump 7 as a drive-off. The car was long gone. Cheeky bugger.

So after a half hour stop I was on my way again.

Another hour up the road and I pulled in to Longreach with plenty of time to clean up the bike before Ian arrived and we went down to the local truckstop for a feed.

The rest of the evening was spent going over maps and spreadsheets putting the final touches to planning Ian's Ride. But more on that later.

Here's a couple of pics. Not much as it is mostly all the same out this way.

Lots of this

and lots of green countryside