** 1976 NSW / QLD and NT **

Motorcycle Trips

In 1976 a trip to Alice Springs was mooted with a stop over at Maroochydore on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. Not many photo remain of that trip and the ones that do have been ravaged by time.Here is one showing the two bikes that made the trip.

Honda Gold Wing and BMW R60/5 - packed and ready to go.

The trip to Maroochydore was fairly uneventful with filling up for petrol the main objective of the day's travel.

A few days was spent in a flat at Maroochydore so the tents were put away and some fishing and general touring eventuated. Even in 1976 the Sunshine Coast had plenty of touristy things to see and do.

The next main was at Rockhampton and the crossing into the tropics. (Tropic of Capricorn).

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 Flyn 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 to 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 worked wonders. Before grading the corrugations were so bad that if you dropped below 50 miles per hour you had to reduce your speed to a crawling 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 highway quick time was made to Coober Pedy. We stopped for a quick photo shoot 19 kilometres from Kulgera close to the Northern Territory / South Australia border.

Coober Pedy camp site - note the tent peg barely in the stoney 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 mainly for petrol. Even with the many high speed trips at the Northern Territopry speed limited and the crawwling through the mud and bulldust the bike managed a helathy 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 due mainly to the lower speed through the gravel)