Just got back from a 6800 km road trip with my brother to Uluru and the Snowy mountains.Amongst the realisation that Australia is a huge place and we only inhabit the fringes,I also have come to the conclusion that goats are the Albert Einsteins of the animal world and roos are the stupid ,suicidal emos.On the road from Cobar to Broken Hill there are heaps of feral goats grazing near the road,yet not one road kill,but there are hundreds of roo corpses.There were so many that in places you have to zig zag around them.Just past Broken Hill there were 6 corpses within 100 metres.I can only assume a road train wiped them out.
Anyway,once on the Stuart Hwy from Port Augusta to Uluru ,you enter one of the most desolate,barren landscapes imaginable.Even the local birds are retards when it comes to crossing the road.We wiped out 2 when they flew into our car whilst we were doing 110+km/h. About 20 km south of a tiny town called Marla,near the Northern Territory border an oncoming car suddenly started flashing blue lights.FAARK! The pigs.The cop asked "Do you know why I stopped you?". My response "No". "Mate ,you were clocked doing 134 in a 110 zone". If you have travelled the outback you will know that on these roads everyone cruises at around 130km/h as 110 feels like you are doing 60 km/h.He hands me a ticket and says it is only a fine and I stuffed it into my wallet without looking glad that no points were involved.
My brother after a while asks "So how much was the fine?" I pulled over and looked at the ticket.
$815 !
Lucky for me the cop didn't appear when we doing 185km/h.About an hour later we crossed into the Territory were the highway speed limit rises to a reasonable 130 km/h.Just to reinforce the fact that cops can appear at anywhere and anytime,at the turn off to the Uluru road there was a random drug test road block.Thank god my druggo brother wasn't driving as he did nothing but smoke endless spliffs.Anyhow,here is the type of road where I was a menace to other road users,even though the nearest one may have been 15 km distant.
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Behind the bushes ;)
fantastic post Tom! - it felt like I was in the car with you! - thnx mate!
You're welcome.
Nice story Tom :)
Oz sure is a big place.
I set up a virtual map on my laptop and gave myself the goal of riding my bike the equivalent of a circumnavigation of Australia (clockwise, starting in Sydney). My phone logs the distance and plots it onto the map. I started on 1st Jan 2017 and have so far traveled about 8,300 k's and am about 200k's south east of Darwin (in the virtual reality world) heading for Cairns.
All up the Australian loop by road is about 13,600 k's. That's quite a lap!!!
My goal is to get it done by the end of August.
They were literally swarming all over the road. The trip from Wickham to the Airport normally takes about 40" but given that my wife barely got above 60 Kmh it took almost 2 hrs. My son made his flight because the plane was delayed out of Perth
It has never happened to me but I was told the worst thing to hit is an Emu. Legend has it that the head can sometimes go thru the wind screen. Some kind of whiplash effect
On the road between Uluru and Kata Tjutu (the Olgas) there is a turn off that says WA Coast.I looked it up and saw it was a dirt track that ran through the Pilbara.I looked at my brother and asked "You wanna do it?".We both said "Fark that!". At a little sh*t splat an hour and a half out of Uluru I had to fill up.The bowser was padlocked and unleaded 91 was $1.96 a litre.I'd go crazy if I had to live out there.
Too bad about the fine
If it was baz he would have paid the ticket off right there and then.
I can imagine how THAT would go... "Officer sir? Have you ever been pegged??"
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