Ceduna to Maduna

12-14-08

It finally cleared out mostly buy this morning. This sure is big open land. I like it a lot. This is wheat and grazing land. The wheat crop harvested and the grass crop ‘thin’……

This is the first triple road train I have had a chance to photo. I had one pass me earlier and they sure take their time and they wiggle down the road like a snake when they pass. It was nothing dangerous it is just they take their time to straighten out. 46 tires on the ground. It seems like I remember someone telling me that truck tires now sell for about a grand apiece. It is interesting to see that they extend the frame on past the box on the first two trailers. With this arrangement they could not back up to a dock with them. These boxes have to be unloaded from the side. It seems like most trucks down here have these soft sides for loading/unloading.

I stopped an got a cup of coffee and considered this sign.

Humm, this is a sign you don’t see in Montana……. What the hell is that last thing? It was a long road but I never saw any of these.

Ahhh, finally out of those damn trees. Now this is really Big Sky Country and you can see the curvature of the earth.

There were a few signs pointing to places where you can watch the whales. I am here at the wrong time of year to see the whales.

This is the start of the huge cliffs that go for miles and miles.

Every now and then they have these signs for places where they use the highway for landing planes. This stretch they actually widened the highway but in other places they just put some extra lines on the road to designate the ‘air strip’.

There were several roads over to the edge and I was hoping to get to go on down to the water. No way on this stretch.

I finally got past the cliff stretch and still couldn’t find a way to the water unless I hiked a long ways over sand.

Looks like official sand dune area eh?

Another warning sign and this time with emus or ostritch’s. Is there a difference? While riding along I come by some road kill now and then but never have I come across a camel or big bird carcus. Most of the kangaroos have been fairly small. I wouldn’t want ot hit one I know. 

I finally found a little road that went down to the beach. It was a pretty good little road even if it went in the sand dune area. I didn’t realize that I was in the middle of a fishing operation.

A couple of guys and their lady showed up in a little 4x4 rig right behind me. They are fishermen and they had been out for 11 days and were just coming in with 2 tons of shark he said. You might notice the shark tooth that they wear.

They are pulling their boat down to the water here.

they use the truck to push the boat in the water.

They all jumped in the boat along with the little dog and off they went out to the big white boat anchored off shore. I really like these little rigs these guys drive. This one is special, as you will see soon below.

I walked along the beach while I waited and found several cuttle fish bones. These are used to cast silver jewelry.

I shaved a layer off and you can see the rings like tree rings that give casting made with cuttle fish bone unique.

Here they come in from the mother boat.

They use the truck to pull the boat up on the beach. They boat has wheels on the back and they really pull it way up there.

Here is a container filled shark.

They had the truck frame braced and this little hoist really had to grunt to load the box.

I bet they are glad to be back home on land after those 11 days on the water. They loaded the shark box on the little truck and went out where there is a big two ton box truck and unloaded the box there.

Another box was filled with Red Snapper and some other fish.

Like this one, what the heck is it? looks like a nasty little spike on it head. I was just leaving and I am sure they went back and got the other box and then it would be a dash to some town to sell their catch. I wonder what a ton of shark sells for as well as probably a ton of red snapper and other miscellanous fish?

I got a economy room here at Maduna. When I first opened the door I though I saw a mouse quickly dive under a cabinet. Later when I was in the bathroom about to take a shower I see that these are world-class cockroaches. Actually while I was writing this a bit ago one walked up on the bed next to me. They are about two inches long and ¾” wide. I tried nailing the one next to me but it takes more than a hit to get them to die. I think either birdshot in a 22 or maybe even #8 shot in a .410 would be handy. Jeez, I sure hope they don’t crawl on me tonight. I gotta pack my food up and put it in the little fridge here in the room. I would hate to scoop out a spoonful of cereal and come up with a damn cockroach or roach turds.

Out on the road again I came across this place. Unfortunately it is back in the dunes on soft sandy roads.

It is starting to green up here.

These time zones are sure different than the hour ones I have seen before.

A rubber necking motorcyclist favorite kind of road.

It is really green here with nothing I could see eating the grass.

check out those ‘safari’ tanks on these bikes. I think they are the 33liter ones.

They are from Germany and have a seven week holiday. I asked how much the bikes rented for and she said it was $5,000 for the 49 days. That would be about a hundred bucks a day for two of them. They picked them up in Perth and will drop them off in Melbourne. I think that is in Australian dollars too so knock 30% off that, and it sure makes that price look pretty good.

As I was riding along I was thinking about what it must be like if this place were to burn. It wasn’t many kilometers after that then I came to this place where there had been a fire not too long ago. It kills the trees up high but I see that they sprout from the base. I was talking with a woman at the park where I camped and she said that those fires can be really terrible. One fire was along a highway and three truckers wanted to go through. Finally the police let them go but not one of the three made it through. I remember Keith telling about riding through a small forest fire on his motorcycle. Careful my friends…….

This is a nice size one. I haven’t seen any big trees so far but I hear that there are some big ones down along the coast.

Camel country.

I was going through this little town and it started to just poor. Nice covered walkways came in handy. It was also nice that it was right next to a little store that sold icream bars.