The
Simpson Desert was “my” desert. I’d spent two years researching it, and one trip to
Birdsville to see if I liked
the desert and more importantly, if it liked me.
I vividly remember one fella’s bones had been found under a sand blasted Landrover out there, just before I was due to set off. My work colleagues thought I was certifiable.
The old FJ55V bounced its way up the
Oodnadatta track. Spare wheel and hilift lashed to the bulbar. Jerry cans lashed across the back
seat. A mobile bomb!
All the way up the track people asked where I was off to. I didn’t want to have to come back red faced so I didn’t tell them.
Finally in Oodna, I pulled into the local “fast food” (micro waved pies) place. An uninspiring tin shed, run by Adam Plates wife.
“Are you going across
the desert?” she asked. I bit the bullet and said yes. “My husband would like to meet you”, she told me. Oh dear, my plans were going to come to nothing at this stage I thought.
Turned out there were a group of desert bikers that needed some poor fool to carry their fuel and provisions across. Not me, I was too full. And I had 300L of fuel on board.
“Whatya mean full?” they asked as they repacked their provisions into the back of the truck.
Agreeing to meet at Dalhousie, I set off. My wooden carry all box disintegrated on about the third stony
creek bed. I came over one rise and the world turned white…bull dust hole.
Dalhousie was a tin shed, a pool and a
clearing for an
airstrip, all hidden from the track as I arrived just on dark. Search as I might, I couldn’t find the “
airstrip”. (There was no GPS in 1983). After the odometer told me “too far I turned around in the dark, and was guided by the bikers headlights. I thought they were just down the road. They were…10km down the road! Light travels a long way in the clear desert skies.
We were just about to leave the next morning when a bloke, his wife and two kids showed up in an over laden 40 series shorty. They had come from Collie in WA, got bushed and found the track by accident.
The more the merrier.
Now these bikers were decked out in full desert bike gear, Bandanas, leathers, headbands etc, and seemed to be interested in the lady’s T-shirt, which boldly proclaimed, “my body is my own, but I share it.”
The T-shirt was promptly replaced.
We agreed to meet at Purnie that night. They rode cross-country and disappeared to St Somewhere.
The boke in the 40 had a rifle and intended to get rabbits for a stew, but I wouldn’t let him. I had visions of him blasting away while the bikers, who could come in from anywhere, were arriving. They didn’t arrive that night, or the next morning. I’d camped between cattle and the
bore, and had a stampede during the night, so by morning I was skittish and decided to return to Dalhousie to see if I could spot them. Lights on, and a blast on the horn occasionally only seemed to attract mobs of
brumbies.
Dalhousie had visitors. All were naked and floating in
the pool. Three generations of the one family, and I was introduced to each and every one, while trying to keep my eyes to myself. And no, they hadn’t seen any bikers.
I was on the way back to Purnie, when I heard a roaring sound and thought “tyre! Buggar!”
But it was the bikers, riding next to me, they’d become bushed in the dark and seen me from
miles away.
One of the bikes had chewed out a bearing on the steering.
“Whatya mean too full?” they asked again, as they roped the bike frame into the back.
Oh
well, I thought. At least I have a passenger now.