Broome to Dampier

Today is rest day and it sure is needed as yesterday was the toughest day of riding I have ever done.
We woke up at 3.30 AM packed the camper and were away by 5AM, having filled up the bike and 2 jerry cans with fuel the night before, and also buying ice and plenty of water.                                      

 The sun just coming up as we leaving Broome

Our first road house was 330 km away and I knew it was going to be tough.

We stopped for our breakfast a couple of hundred km out of a rest stop and were very surprised our mobiles worked and so did my new application for iphone (a TV). We watched the news for a few minutes then set out on a marathon that saw us do 865 km and take 13 hours through desert country!

This photo is of the Fortescue Caravan park and yes that's cow pads right where you set your tent up. Needless to say we didn't stay.

Fortesque metals has a Market cap 0f $20,850,096,691 they didn't spend any of here i can tell you.

I have never gone so slow for so long, the head winds were so forceful and I had to work  at keeping the bike upright the whole way and we used so much fuel. A tank that would normally do 280 km with the trailer behind, now we were lucky to get 160 out of it. When the day was finally over my shoulders felt like I had been at the gym for a whole day and we both felt like we had been on a ship in high seas .

I had the throttle open full most of the time and could do little more than 85 kpm, it was such  a slow, hot, boring day. Poor  Marie-Louise kept cracking her helmet on mine because she kept falling asleep and was even more bored than I was.

We were going to stop in Port Headland but it was such a dusty dirty and expensive place ($380 a night for a cheap motel including meals that you were forced to pay for thanks to the huge wages the miners are on) so we carried  on to Dampier, a quiet little place of 1300 that was recommended to us and was well worth it .

We are staying in the only Caravan park right on the water over looking the loading of the Huge  iron ore ships.
A night photo of the Harbour .
Dinner was at the Palms resort that caters for the miners and also for the public. What a feast! They cooked me a beautiful scotch fillet to go with the roast, salad vegetables and every sweet you could think of . A huge buffet and all for $25.00.The staff work 2 weeks and then fly back to Perth for a week, but it's 14 days work without anytime off. Marie-Louise is giving me a hard time about my beer gut coming back even through yesterday was my 25th Anniversary  of not having a drink.
Tomorrow we will vist Rio Tintos North West gas platform  and display along with the red dog that is famous out here (more to follow regarding him).


Pool is Marie-Louises' new pass time and she is learning fast - she even kicked my butt.