I am sitting in the park in Darwin down-town, finally getting a chance to write again. It’s been quite a roller-coaster over the last couple of weeks.

I successfully completed Cape York, mostly on the Old Telegraph Track (OTT) but with the last bit on the Development Road. I skipped over the last section of the OTT as I was warned there was a river crossing on it over a metre deep. The adventurer in me wanted to try it so badly, but the idea of drowning and possibly killing my bike at the start of such a long trip was daunting and eventually I told myself I was saving it for later. Standing at the sign, on the most northern part of the mainland of Australia was an incredibly feeling of accomplishment. All the days of riding, the cold, the wet, the heat, the mud all culminated in being on the top of the (southern) world!

The OTT was the perfect level of challenging for me. I feel extremely accomplished having done it, and also confident that the bike setup, the suspension and the luggage (and ME!) are up to the challenges ahead! I didn’t see a single other loaded adventure bike doing it. I saw a few unloaded ones and plenty of dirt bikes, but it felt pretty good to be the only fully loaded adventure bike out there. Although, I would have swapped for an unloaded one in a heartbeat, no question!

I was feeling amazingly relaxed and calm in the evening after the hike to the tip. I rode a little south along some flowing smooth sand tracks through lush forest to an incredible camp site overlooking the beach, setting the tone perfectly. Everything was good in the world, I had 11 days to travel the remaining 3000km to Darwin to load the bike, five days before the boat sailed. This meant calm days, a chance to see Kakadu, Litchfield and a few other amazing places on the way. Having dinner as the sun set over an island in the background was one of the calmest and most accomplished moments I have had on the trip. And it lasted less than one hour.

Some of the other guys I had been talking to on Horizons Unlimited (HU) were meant to be loading their bikes in Darwin that day into a shared container. I was going two weeks later, no wanting to rush, but it meant I would be travelling solo, at the mercy of a shipping company that is notoriously fickle, with a plethora of forms and procedures to face alone, and hoping they could actually fit me into a container. That night, as I was blissfully reclining on the beach, the other guys messaged me and said, despite turning up on the day they had been told to, they had been told it was too late to get onto the boat. So, they were catching the next one, my boat, in two weeks. Perfect, now we get to share the container, I save some money and have some certainty, right?

Except they had been given a loading date 5 days before my date. I could stick to my original target date, but given what had just happened to them realised I should probably be early. And I was also getting an idea of just how much organisation and paperwork there was going be, and how unorganised and chaotic the shipping was. Going with them would guarantee me a place, save me almost $1000, and also save them money as it would make it a 5-way split. It also made it a less daunting prospect at the other end, given we could all argue, and negotiate with customs together. So, I decided to go for it. But now, I had 5 days to travel 3000km with over half of it on corrugated dirt road, unknown if they were even open after wet season. It was time to get moving, the holiday was over.

The next 5 days are a blur of long days riding. There was a shortcut I was desperate to take called Dixie Road, which cut off a huge distance, but I couldn’t tell if it was open. I stopped a every roadhouse along the way, and nobody knew. Finally, at the last roadhouse before the turnoff, a local told me it was open, but a bridge was out, adding 200km to the route. Now I had a distance to the next fuel of 700km, far more than my range of 550km. But not to take it would add nearly 1000km to my trip and almost guarantee I didn’t make the ferry. So, I took three water bottles from the roadhouse recycling, bought a jerry can, filled them all and strapped them to the bike and set off into the desert.

The sun was setting as I left town, but I needed to make distance tonight, so I rode for hours after dark. The track was rough, so I was travelling at about 50km/h which meant I wasn’t too worried about wildlife. Well, hitting wildlife anyway. I was a little worried about the wildlife coming for me, being deep in crocodile country. There were some river crossings I had to do in the dark which had me a little worried. Especially one wide one, which I had to wade first to check the depth, torch in hand frantically looking for eyes (which I did NOT see). But I made the whole stretch and found a camp-site late at night.

The next day was just hundreds of kilometres of corrugated dirt road that threatened to break my spirit. It was dusty and hot and unrelenting, and I was so worried the bike would break. I had to set at 80-100km/h in order to float over the corrugations. But every now and then I would hit a section of bulldust of sand which would almost take me out and I’d slow for a bit, until the corrugations threatened to break me or the bike again and I had to speed up. I lost the chain guard to the vibrations!

But I persisted and I made it through. Finally, I hit sealed road again and after a couple of days I made it up to Darwin, still vibrating form he corrugations. Met the guys, repacked my stuff, loaded the bike, send it in for freight. Time for a beer.