Maroochydore is an urban centre on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. At the 2011 Australian Census the urban area recorded a population of 47,645. Wikipedia 

Rockhampton is a city and local government area in Queensland, Australia. The city lies on the Fitzroy River, approximately 45 kilometres from the river mouth, and some 600 kilometres north of the state capital, Brisbane. Wikipedia It is considered to be the fourth largest regional city in the state outside of the cities of South East Queensland

Winton Folk Museum. Queensland

Rockhampton to Mt Isa had us stopping at a few places along the way, visiting the birthplace of QANTAS etc. We travelled through Blackwater, Emerald, Alpha, Barcaldine, Ilfracombe, Longreach, Winton and Cloncurry before reaching Mt Isa. 

Mt Isa to Northern Territory was eventful. The advisory for the road was "do not use" but being young and fool hardy we went anyway. The road was very slippery after heavy rain and the going was slow. After the wet disappeared large tracts of bulldust were encountered. I can remember one event where the suspension bottomed out and the pannier frame was caught under the rear axle. That is one way of lowering the bike in a hurry! Another time, at about 70 miles per hour, we hit bulldust and it slowed us almost immediatley to a stop.

Somewhere before Tennant Creek

We had a stop over at Three Ways / Tennant Creek before spending a few days in Alice Springs playing tourist and generally regenerating our weary bodies.

John Flynn Memorial - Flynn of the Inland

The monument commemorates pioneer churchman and founder of the Flying Doctor Service.
John Flynn OBE (25 November 1880 – 5 May 1951) was an Australian Presbyterian minister who founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the world's first air ambulance.

Alice to Ayers Rock, now maybe better known as Uluru, was speedy until we hit the dirt just after turning off the highway that continued onto Adelaide. From memory it took about 8 hours to ride the road to the Rock and coming back it only took 3 hours. Re-grading the road in-between the two trips worked wonders. Before grading the corrugations were so bad that if you dropped below 50 miles per hour (80km/h) you had to reduce your speed to a crawling pace until you could once again get above the corrugations. After grading the road the corrugations had gone and it was just piles of sand, dirt and gravel that you had to worry about.

19 kms from Kulgera

Rejoining the Stuart Highway, we stopped for a quick photo shoot 19 kilometres from Kulgera close to the Northern Territory / South Australia border.  We then made Coober Pedy in very quick time enjoying the bitumen and what it had to offer.

Coober Pedy camp site - note the tent peg barely in the stony ground.

At Coober Pedy it was virtually impossible to get a tent peg to puncture the rock surface of the camping ground. We spent two days there and all of them spent in the air conditioned road house. It was too hot for anything else except for a tour of one of the underground houses. The temperature dropped instantly by many degrees as soon as you went underground. Wish the caravan park had underground camp sites!

The trip from Coober Pedy to Melbourne was a blur. Stops were for petrol and food.

Even with the many high speed trips at the Northern Territory speed limited and the crawling through the mud and bulldust the bike managed a healthy 51 mile per gallon (that is UK miles per gallon although on the return trip from Ayers Rock to the main road it managed 81 miles per gallon mainly due to the lower speed through the gravel and sand).

The whole trip was planned using road maps, telephones and posted letters.  No mobile phones, GPS Satellite Navigation route mapping.  All the caravan parks / accommodation was booked and if required a deposit sent through the snail mail system using cheques or money orders / postal notes.  How much easier is it today with email, GPS and instantaneous money transfers?  Even motorcycle technology has marched forward in many ways.