8

We were in Adelaide, we had to decide what to do:
the goal is Perth, Jan has to take a flight from there to go back to his job in Czech Republic.
He already delayed one week his flight when we were in Sydney, it's the maximum he can do (8 weeks with this one more).
But which way to go?
We can go through the Nullarbor plain, in Italian the word is explicit of what the region offers: nothing... it's an arid region, and there's a boring straight highway, going west, for a couple of thousands of km.
But our original plan is to go to Uluru, then head west through the Outback Way...
It took a couple of days to take the decision: we looked at the weather forecast, we asked to people, we searched for offroad tyres...
eventually we decided to go, and take the risk (weather, maybe hot maybe wet, the cyclone coming west from Queensland, and all the difficulties that a desert road can bring).
So we bought the tyres, made a plan, charged the satellite phone, and started our way: first north for many many km in the rain (Port Augusta, Coober Pedy, Erldunda), then west, to Yulara, where we camped for 2 days (3 nights).
First day dedicated to Uluru, as already described. Second day to prepare ourselves for the desert: I shipped some of my stuff to Perth, to Jan's friend, then we had to change the tyres, bought in Adelaide (we could not put new knobby tyres before starting for 2000 km of tarmac...it would be a real shame...)
Somebody told us that there's a mechanic shop in Yulara, and we trusted. There is, but it's only a car shop... they said in the morning that they had no time, try to go back in the afternoon. Ok. Hopefully within the day we will have the tyres changed, we said...
But in the afternoon they refused to change our tyres... They had no time, and they did not want to take any responsibility for working on motorbikes...
So, what to do? We have to change them by ourselves!
That was a long long afternoon...
it was very hot, we had a small shade from the barn of the camping, they gently offered it to us.
Jan's back tyre did not want to go out of the rim, it was there since 2002, it made itself comfortable there... it was really stuck. It was a hard job to take it out. But we did it.
Then my big fault: a great problem of my fork... I have 4 screws keeping on position a small plate, to fix the front wheel axis. I tightened them quite a lot...too much for one of them...it did yeld...
Fuck! and what to do now?
I immediately called one, two, three friends in Italy, all of them reassured me that I can go on even with three screws only. They have not to be fixed too much. My fault.
So, apart from all the fears I already had for the outback way, there was also that one more scaring me...

Anyway, the morning after we started, already and still tired by the previous day (we finished late, it was already dark, we had a shower, cooked something and slept)
We went again to Uluru, then Kata Tjuta, then the beginning of the dirt road. I stopped many times to check my front fork screws. The road was not easy, because sandy. Jan was slow, because fairly careful: it was his first time offroad. I am not an expert, but Tajikistan and Mongolia are anyhow a background.
Time was passing, it seemed more and more impossible to reach Docker River within the day...
when all of a sudden it started to rain...hard rain...
the road became muddy, but we tryed to go on slowly...very slowly...10kph...when we reached shaw creek...
No way, it's not possible to cross. Too high the water. And it's becoming dark: so we decided to camp. We were prepared to this: we had water and food. The only thing we were not aware of were the ants: hundreds, thousands of ants, coming up our feet, and legs, and really biting us!
It was a big struggle. We had a nice evening, around the campfire prepared by Jan. But we had to go inside the tents, to avoid being eaten by the ants!

In the morning the river had almost disappeared, so we were happy that we could go on. And we put immediately socks and boots, to avoid the ants!
But the flyes arrived, and did not permit us to enjoy the breakfast...
We started, reached Docker River, luckily just a couple of minutes before the noon closure: we would have had to wait a couple of hours otherwise to have the fuel!
Docker River is a strange place: You can see trash everywhere on the roads, many stray dogs, crumbling cars.
The gas pumps are locked into cages, the roadhouse store seems a prison: double locked doors to enter it... not a safe place at first sight... We bought water, and something to eat, other than fuel, of course.
Children coming out of school, and a camel approaching. It fall in love with Blondynka, Jan's bike: he (the camel) wanted to rub himself on her (the bike)!
It started to suck Jan's helmet, then the mirrors, then pointed at the jacket, and it was a big matter to dissuade it and literally run away!
Just by the Western Australia border, the street immediately became better, a big wide good gravel road. We could speed up to 80kph, having fun, and reaching Warakurna in a couple of hours. Great day!
We had something to eat (not a lot for me because of a headache, due to accumulated tiredness), then found a quite good and cheap accommodation for the night: a backpackers "container", of course "low class", but with air conditioning, clean kitchen, and (incredible!) free wifi!
The bad thing is that they said to us that the road to Warburton, our next destination, is closed...what to do?
We collected information from police, from the kind couples managing the roadhouse, from other people stuck here with us...
It really seems that the road to Warburton is closed. Due to the floods they had last friday...
Yes, floods! In the middle of the desert!
It never happened before. There's no history of such a flood in Warburton since when the white men came, in 1933. Two meters of water somewhere, 60 houses evacuated, 2 feet of water in the general store.
What can we do?
Wait. Just wait.
We decided to stay here for a couple of days: usually the road is re-opened again after one, or maximum 2 days. But that is "usually". This is a real uncommon situation. Somebody says that we could be stuck here for a couple of weeks!
We have to wait.
So arrived the rest. Forced rest, but so desired rest.
There's nothing to do here. There's only the desert all around, for hundreds of km.
This is the first place in Australia where we are really alone: we have all the campground for us, all the kitchen, there's really no tourists! Nobody except from the two couples of (young!) people managing the roadhouse, the aboriginal people from the near community, the policemen, and a girl, Kaisey, who works as a teacher in a near community, stuck here like us.
The internet helped us wasting time, searching for weather forecasts, and road reports, but there's nothing updated... still the same bulletin from friday, shown to us by the roadhouse people: street closed.
Yesterday evening we had a good dinner: Jan prepared the barbecue, I tried to make a "risotto", with not much luck... (nothing compared to my mother's one...)
Then on tv in the night there was "Into the wild"...what better movie there could be in our situation???

What to do today?
There's the small museum of aboriginal art in the roadhouse, very nice.
And there's the Meteorological Station.
It is one of the most remote weather stations on the planet!
We went there this afternoon. It was nice to see the release of the balloons to the atmosphere, to collect information on temperature, pressure, wind direction, speed, etc.
I did not know that all over the world there are hundreds of atmospheric balloons released three times a day at the same time! And all this information is freely shared by all Countries! It should be like this for anything...

There are 3 meteorologists working there, and a "jollyman", who welcomed us: he makes general maintenance, surveillance...and cooking!
They were very kind, explaining us many things, and giving us an illusion: maybe the road is open! in their bulletin it was written open! Just like in the roadsign! (that we did not trust)
So we went to the Police, but nobody there on sunday afternoon...then we called the roadhouses on the way to Laverton...they confirmed us what we found written on the bottom of the page of the bulletin: the great central road is open, but only from Laverton to Tjukayirla...just one third of our way...
The water is now down, no more floods, but the street is closed to preserve it from destruction, if many cars pass now...
We would like to ask: what about motorbikes? But somebody told us that there's a fine if we try to go, and it's 500$ each wheel. We have 2 wheels "only", but 1000$ is too much a risk, maybe to find a muddy street and really be stuck, on the road...
So it's time to decide: if we have to go back to Port Augusta and drive all along the Nullarbor, our way to Perth will be 4000km long, instead of the 1800km we could have from here, if only the streets were open...
Jan is thinking of going anyway...maybe they will give us a ticket but maybe we will never pay it... or maybe they will not tell us anything, as nobody asked us for the permissions for entering aboriginal land (that we have).

Now here it is windy, and the rain is coming and going...
The sun is already down. We are going to prepare something to eat for dinner.
Today it's 8 months that I left Italy. And I am in the middle of the desert, stuck here because of floods...
these floods are following me everywhere in Australia: from Brisbane to Sydney, from Port Augusta to the Red Center! It's really incredible...

Tomorrow it will be another day of big decision: left, or right? On, or back...?
We will try to be packed and ready for 9 o'clock, when maybe a new bulletin will be released, and we will ask to the Police about the road condition.
You will know how the story will go on only on this blog...