DAY 34

Dropped Betty off at Precision Honda, they came in and saved the day, offering to help as I can’t lift a spanner. The truck went in for a service. I went to the doctor and the physio.

DAY 33

Massive day for Matt behind the wheel of the support truck, he drove us 1000 K’S from Tennant Creek to Darwin. Arrived very sore and in need of beer.

DAY 32

Rolled into Tennant Creek and almost a punch up, twice. Nice place. Caught up with Pia, an old friend and managed to avoid the second punch up by grabbing a lift out to my motel from the drummer of The Go Betweens.

DAY 31

Every bump still feels like someone is punching me in the chest, we got into Mount Isa at dusk and I passed out.

DAY 30

Another painful day in the truck, every bump hurts. At one point I self medicated some morphine just in time for the boys to stop the truck in the middle of nowhere for a group of lost backpackers. They decided to turn it into a street party, one of them a young Canadian guy was playing a piano accordion and wearing an eye patch. Of course I thought I’d over medicated myself and non of this was actually happening, until the Canadian pirate looked at me and said, “Hey man, are you Paul Carter” and went off to the back of his van to get my first book that he’d dragged all the way from Canada to the middle of the outback for me to sign for him. Go figure.

DAY 27 to 29

Three days in Longreach Hospital on morphine in a ward full of people over eighty, one of whom was quite obviously clinically insane. It was like being next to Hannibal Lector, I was close to swallowing my tongue. I went from a wheel chair to a Zimmer frame to hobbling so on the 29th the boys put me in the support truck and we drove on North to Winton.

DAY 26

Departed Longreach 10am.. Rode for 5 k’s, fell off. Arrived Longreach Casualty 11am. Bad scene.

DAY 25

Well today I rode into the outback and into what looked like the front line of a Kangaroo civil war. So many dead animals, too many to count. Lots of big eagles feeding on the road kill. They like to play Eagle Chicken with funny smelling, funny sounding motorcycles. Betty doesn’t move fast enough to give any relief from the smell so I’m chewing lots of mints.

DAY 24

Sat on 95kl/hr all day, lots of heat, dust, long straight roads. We got into Tambo in the early evening as a storm kicked off, made it to the pub and got hammered.

DAY 23

Met Queenslanders today who told me about giant trucks, ‘roos, pigs, eagles and goats on these roads.

DAY 22

Lots of dust and heat on the road today, starting to see the odd dead ‘roo. We got into Roma in good time. The place is full of oil patch characters, loved it.

DAY 21

Betty is performing really well; today’s only problem was a blown brake line. Everyone we meet out here is up for a good yarn and interested in Betty and what we are doing.

DAY 20

Great run into Brisbane, no bike problems, she’s a new machine after Deus. But we have no spare belt drives so we will push on into Queensland on the last three belts.

DAY 19

Saw the big prawn, had prawns for dinner, talked about prawns, need to find another big thing.

DAY 18

I had the wind behind me all day, got past 100kl/hr. I never thought I’d say that about riding this motorcycle. Made great time into Coffs Harbour.

DAY 17

Left Sydney. Great day today, no Betty dramas at all, spent the night in the National Motorcycle museum and half the next day drooling.

DAY 10 to 16

With Betty in a bad way we drove straight to Sydney and Nirvana, namely Deus Ex Machina, my friend Dare’s custom motorcycle emporium and holy ground of custom builder Matt Bromley. Matt is Yoda when it comes to bikes, he is The Oracle and has forgotten more about what makes a motorcycle than I will ever know. He should get a Nobel Prize for bike building; we should put his face on the money. Dare, Rod, Taka, Matt, Ben, all the Deus people Betty and I are very grateful. While at Deus, Rory from GIMOTO LEATHERS came buy and measured me for a racing suit for our run on the salt flats at Lake Gardener in March next year. After the fitting I somehow managed to lose my wallet and after a frantic hour escalating as they do into a frenzy of looking in every single corner at Deus, the bins, fridge, the street outside, random dumpsters I eventually found it in the toilet. Good one.

DAY 9

Another day of bike trouble, culminating in Betty literally shaking herself to bits just outside Kiama. We could not fix her there, so she went onto the back of the truck and we drove to my friend Jane & Jose’s farm near Kiama and spent a really great evening catching up.

DAY 8

The ride up to Majors Creek was wonderful, Betty was finally not underpowered on this run. My good friend Nigel lives just out of Majors Creek. He lives for motorcycles and all thing motorcycle related. So Betty really needed to meet “Stunt Bike Nigel”. As it says on his card, “When I’m not in action I’m in traction!” Nigel joined up with us and we rode on to Araluen.

DAY 7

This was a long cold day filled with plenty of bike troubles, we finally got into Canberra late at night, Betty running out of biodiesel within a few k’s of our destination.

DAY 6

Departed Melbourne early with Shane at the wheel of the support truck. We headed North to Shane’s home town of Taggerty and after lunch onwards to Albury via “The Black Spur”. Plenty of people had told me that Betty wouldn’t make it up the “The Black Spur” but she did with plenty of abusive motorists behind her.

DAY 3

The last leg of stage 1, I was worried about a couple of big hills we had to get over before Melbourne. Betty wiped the floor with them! On the run into the city she was doing 120 km/h on a big downhill run. Couldn’t believe I was overtaking cars in the fast lane on a bike powered by a 10 horse power, diesel ag-pump motor.

DAY 2

A four-hour session fixing the damage after my more than embarrassing get-off, then we departed Mt Gambier for Warrnambool. Betty is a Frankenstein motorcycle, but to my surprise she performed very well, with a padded seat, fixed throttle lock, and a new, light fender cluster, we made it into Warrnambool at night, seriously cold.

DAY 1: ADELAIDE TO MELBOURNE

Well we had a great kick-off from the University of Adelaide, and I hit the road on Black Betty the Bio Bike. She was nice at first, then about halfway to Mount Gambier she went all China syndrome on my arse, literally. The vibration coming through the frame with her diesel single-stroke donk almost shook me to pieces. I decided to put her in the back of the support truck to try and fix the throttle lock…and rode her straight over the side of the ramp and crashed, nice one. Lucky not to break my leg.