Day 8 - Dalhousie Springs to Oodnadatta

Woken early this morning by bloody KTM riders... Joking... They weren't KTM riders this time. A couple of bikes were started early and they were promptly told to "Switch 'em off or fuck off".

Back to sleep for a little bit. There was no rush today. Get up late, have a swim, eat, pack, and mosey on down the road.

Time for a bit of site seeing

Dalhousie ruins. Tough folks these.

Pretty cruisey day today. We rolled into Oodnadatta pretty early. Setup camp in the caravan park. We went and bought some coffee which had us bouncing off the walls in no time. Young Kyle from Leeton setup camp next to us. He had a very well setup Hilux and was off to visit a mate in the Kimberly's. Things were looking pretty bleak. There wasn't a lot to do or look at once the sun started to set and we were looking at an early night. Luckily Trent found some fire wood and a fire was lit. Feeling pretty chuffed that we'd snaffled the wood before the KTM riders that had rolled in when the owner rolled in with a ute full of wood. Oh well, at least we would be warm all night. The KTM guys got a big fire going and were well behaved, even in the morning. They may had restored some faith in the orange steeds yet.

Kyle told us the ring around the moon meant rain within the next 3 days... We hoped he was wrong.

Day 7 - Mt Dare to disapointment

KTM riders... They got up early just to start their bikes... The first bike started at 6:15 and it idled until 6:45 with the last bike leaving at 7:30. Over 1 hour of idling KTM's. They're not the quietest bike in the world. Arseholes.

Anyway, into the hotel for breakfast and a coffee. packed up camp and over to fuel up for the big crossing. $2.48 a litre.











Off we went. The plan was to stop at Dalhousie for lunch and head into the desert as far as we dared for night 1.

The picture above was taken just after the first crash for the trip... I hit a big rock which threw me off line straight into another rock and I couldn't recover from there. My right hand saddle bag was torn off and my screen was broken. Luckily no injuries other than a big bruise down my right forearm. A couple of Gotcha straps later had my bags secured again and we were off.

Time for a swim.

The spring was full of these little fish that nibbled at your dead skin. Kind of freaky to begin with. The water was around 34C where we were swimming. The swim couldn't last forever and it was time to dry off and hit the sand.

 Bit of a breather at Purni Bore (I think Trent was a little bit buggered)

YEAH BABY!! Officially into the Simpson Desert!

These sand dunes were chewing us up and spitting us out. Just could not get the hang of them. So after a few crashes and me losing 4lt of water it was reluctantly decided we should turn around. Bugger... Absolutely gutted, but there was no energy left to go on.

Again we were racing the light to get back to Dalhousie, but we made it back with just enough light for another swim. That helped ease the body pain and the Mead helped with the mental pain.

We chatted the night away. Peter from Kingaroy was trying to talk us into having another go at the crossing the next day. He may have convinced us if he had of offered to put our gear on their support ute... Anyway, cold night, into bed at a reasonable hour and the start of our trip home.