Day 2 - Walyunga National Park to Knobby Head - Tues 13 Oct 2015
Today was spent still shaking down our equipment and vehicles and transitioning up the coast. A day that was punctuated with dicking around as only a bunch of blokes with no sheilas to organise us could do.
We started the day early in our lofty perch in the Perth Hills; the change in time zones is still making many of us wake up at 5 o’clock ready for the day. Today our task was to get across to the coast and then turn right and head north. Still learning the ins and outs of our set-up we dicked around for a while before rolling out. Fines were handed out to recalcitrant team memebers from the previous day with Joc copping a bit of a whack for dicking us around with his bike. Brock received the newly minted ‘Anything but Average’ award. This award was struck in recognition of the efforts of the Leyland Brothers who nearly 50 years ago were the first ones to complete a trans-national crossing. It will be awarded daily to the Team member who on the previous day or over a period of time has demonstrated ‘anything but average’ qualities or performance. Brock is anything but average as he has continually demonstrated.
We went west across the northern suburbs of Perth in the very nice Swan Valley, stopping at Wanneroo. Joc was dicking around with his ABS and Scotty had to dick around with a tyre that had a slow leak. We dicked around having a coffee and doing a bit of shopping, and then dicked around getting out on the road. Heading north we went past Lancelin and called in at Cervantes, lunching at the Tavern. Here Don the publican who had been travelling to Steep Point for 27 years, took pleasure in informing us that there was no way that we would ride our motorbikes to Steep Point. We took this on board, knowing that we weren’t here to just dick around; we would get to Steep Point. As we moved up the coast we enjoyed a range of coastal landscape with a variety of vegetation, interspersed here and there with giant dunes of fine white sand erupting out of the earth and marching across the ground, driven by the vagaries of the wind. Much of the banksia was in flower which was nice, but we didn’t dick around much looking at them.
We dicked around sorting out some fuel and then shot off further up the coast looking for a spot to camp; The first couple of shires (take note Dandaragan Shire) we travelled through didn’t really support us: ‘No camping here, piss off (or words to that effect) were encountered. The shire changed though and the bike boys found the perfect campsite right on the coast. And by right on the coast, we meant look out for the tide. We weren’t sure where we were (S: 49 40 1.1 E:114 57 38.5 said the GPS, about 50kms south of Dongara, locally known as ‘Knobby Head’). Hector, Brock and Ferg chanced the white pointers and had a dip. We sat on the dunes and watched the sun set over the Indian Ocean, sharing each other’s company and knowing that even though we dicked around all day; in the end we met our objectives.
Today was spent still shaking down our equipment and vehicles and transitioning up the coast. A day that was punctuated with dicking around as only a bunch of blokes with no sheilas to organise us could do.
We started the day early in our lofty perch in the Perth Hills; the change in time zones is still making many of us wake up at 5 o’clock ready for the day. Today our task was to get across to the coast and then turn right and head north. Still learning the ins and outs of our set-up we dicked around for a while before rolling out. Fines were handed out to recalcitrant team memebers from the previous day with Joc copping a bit of a whack for dicking us around with his bike. Brock received the newly minted ‘Anything but Average’ award. This award was struck in recognition of the efforts of the Leyland Brothers who nearly 50 years ago were the first ones to complete a trans-national crossing. It will be awarded daily to the Team member who on the previous day or over a period of time has demonstrated ‘anything but average’ qualities or performance. Brock is anything but average as he has continually demonstrated.
We went west across the northern suburbs of Perth in the very nice Swan Valley, stopping at Wanneroo. Joc was dicking around with his ABS and Scotty had to dick around with a tyre that had a slow leak. We dicked around having a coffee and doing a bit of shopping, and then dicked around getting out on the road. Heading north we went past Lancelin and called in at Cervantes, lunching at the Tavern. Here Don the publican who had been travelling to Steep Point for 27 years, took pleasure in informing us that there was no way that we would ride our motorbikes to Steep Point. We took this on board, knowing that we weren’t here to just dick around; we would get to Steep Point. As we moved up the coast we enjoyed a range of coastal landscape with a variety of vegetation, interspersed here and there with giant dunes of fine white sand erupting out of the earth and marching across the ground, driven by the vagaries of the wind. Much of the banksia was in flower which was nice, but we didn’t dick around much looking at them.
We dicked around sorting out some fuel and then shot off further up the coast looking for a spot to camp; The first couple of shires (take note Dandaragan Shire) we travelled through didn’t really support us: ‘No camping here, piss off (or words to that effect) were encountered. The shire changed though and the bike boys found the perfect campsite right on the coast. And by right on the coast, we meant look out for the tide. We weren’t sure where we were (S: 49 40 1.1 E:114 57 38.5 said the GPS, about 50kms south of Dongara, locally known as ‘Knobby Head’). Hector, Brock and Ferg chanced the white pointers and had a dip. We sat on the dunes and watched the sun set over the Indian Ocean, sharing each other’s company and knowing that even though we dicked around all day; in the end we met our objectives.
