Last stretch through Queensland as I head home on my Solo motorcycle camping adventure S2 Episode 23

It was another early start. I'd only made it five kilometers down the road before I realized I'd made an error. It was too cold for the summer gloves I was wearing yesterday, so it was back on with the winter gloves. Let's try this again shall we? I do love riding at this time of morning. Soon I had to stop again. It was too cold for the rest of my body, so I put all the gear on. Uh, whoops. Let's try that again. It seems to be the theme for the morning. I was making my way east. I'd started 30 kilometers outside three ways and was heading to the Queensland border along the Barkley Highway. Now that's a bit more than just a rough patch on the highway. I pulled into the first planned stop for the day. Just made it to the Barkley Homestead for fuel and it is cold. I had to stop a second time and put on thermal legs and another thermal top and everything I had for this thing. The gloves weren't enough. Then I, uh, wasn't watching where I was. I was looking if there was cars coming. It wasn't. I was going and hit that gravel that somehow stayed upright. But anyway, we are at Barkley Homestead. This is the middle of nowhere, really. Last, oh, 20 years ago I came through here and there wasn't a tree or bush. It was desert. So yes, they've had some rain since. Oh, I'm going to eat something warm and then continue to the Queensland border will be the next thing. I think it's about 240, 330 kilometers, 230 kilometers. There's nothing else out here. Absolutely nothing except trees now. Oh, fresh. I wasn't having a good run. So this just happened at 110 kilometers an hour which is kind of a bit of a problem. Now with the electrical tape I had reached the open plains. There was a very strong crosswind from the right. The main issue with that is when trucks pass they break up the wind which becomes unpredictable. So you get thrown around a bit. Yeah, I seem to work that one out myself. Stopped here because there's a single tree in a white field. See if I try and get to the border. I continued making my way across the empty plains. I'd finally made it to the Queensland border. It's hard to see but that is the old highway. I would have traveled on that when I was 17 in a Kombi heading to the coast with my mates. Time to fill up again. More mining trucks must mean I'm near the biggest town out here, Mount Isa. Mount Isa came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. It is also one of the most productive single mine sites in world history based on a combined production of lead, silver, copper and zinc. Well finally got to somewhere to camp and I'm camping behind the pub. And as I came in you might have recognized the pub. I'm gonna have a look in a minute. Love the country. This isn't even a campsite. It's just out of the wind and the lady was like yeah back here. It's got grass, no wind. With camp set up I went over to the pub. So the pub I'm at is Walkabout Creek from the movie Crocodile Dundee. Random I know but it was a place out of the wind. Shower and I can get something to eat. The pub is from the opening scene in the movie. Although the movie is set in the Northern Territory, the pub itself is in Queensland. There are photos and memorabilia all over the pub. It even has the head office of the Never Never Safari Tours. And outside is that iconic Never Never Safari Tours truck. So just watched the sun go down from the deck of the pub and now back at the tent just deciding what to have for dinner. But I have one issue. The label's all wore off so it's a lucky dip. So the plan for tomorrow about the same as today. Let's see how far we get and I guess the wind's going to be an issue again so that may slow me down a bit. Let's cruise along. So I bunkered down behind the toilet block as the light faded. There's something you don't see every day. A phone box. The fuel station hasn't opened quite yet. Neither has the Blue Heeler pub. With the last fuel station not open and running low, I fuelled back up with the jerry cans. So do I need to explain which international airline was founded in Longreach or did they make it pretty obvious? For people who might not be from Australia and wanted to know, Qantas is Queensland and Northern Territory aerial service. 1920s it started. It actually was something like Western Queensland to start with but they went with Qantas. This is Ilfacoon and I have a collection of old farming equipment running along the main street and also a pub. I continued east trying to make it all the way to the coast. I spotted storm clouds ahead so I pulled over to get the rain suit on. My rain started to fall. I'd misplaced the side door to the camera so it was no longer waterproof which means I'd have to put it away for now. The rain had eased off so it was back out with the camera. Well that day got away from me a bit. Probably had a couple of longer stops than I was thinking which delayed me a bit so I was going to ride a little later but then the storms came and that obviously the roads were wet and there was standing water and the country roads so they're really bumpy so I had to slow down and it was hard to see. Things were fogging up. All good just going to take it easy then I thought okay next big town's Emerald. Got here just as it was getting dark and I thought I'll be doing this from a motel room. I thought a little bit of budget left in the emergency fund looked on bookings.com couldn't find anything but I saw a motel went into there and they were full and the lady was nice enough to look around nothing anywhere. Well there was one it was about a town an hour away so I went to wiki camp. The caravan park had one spot left and it was like five to six but the lady said I'm closing at six so I scrambled over here got in and it was raining trying to set up a tent in the rain and the wind in the dark. Lots of fun. Wish I could have filmed it but I had priorities of getting it done. I still had my onesie on and I needed to go toilet and if anybody knows about rain suit onesies you really can't. Didn't pee in the onesie. I did get to the top at the end but it was everything happening all at once but I'm dry I'm inside it's not supposed to rain tomorrow so we'll just go again. The one thing bonus lady just next to the caravan park is fish and chips fresh fish and chips so I'll be eating like a king at least till tomorrow. Well this was it the last day and again I was starting out in the dark. They have extremely long cold rains here like the ones I passed in the Pilbara in Western Australia. Got an early start again look like I could get rain but it all cleared up which is good it's a little windy but I'm used to it now. This is Dingo, great name for a town. I was going to stay here before the storm got me. Out the back you can camp for free. So heading to the coast now and well just getting breakfast. Anything with berries is good. I had made it to the outskirts of Rockhampton. This is where I turned right to head south. It feels like I'm back in civilization again. Looked like I was about to get hit by another storm so I pulled over and got my wet weather gear on again. With the rain starting it meant I had to put the camera away again. The rain finally eased off and being near Noosa I had one more mate to drop in on. So I've pulled up at an old mate's place. Paul who's one of the three guys I've caught up with and this is Paul here. Yo yo. And this is where the road trip started. So when we were 17 we bought a 1978 Kombi and basically we were on Darwin and we headed to the coast to go surfing. We did. Then I had kids and you kept surfing. This is the trip that cemented the love of road tripping and exploring that has continued to this day. So yeah this is the last stop before I head home. Probably in the dark. 35 knots suddenly. Headwind. I rode the last couple of hundred kilometers of this journey in the dark reflecting on the ride. When starting this journey the only real plan I had was to head west and see places I hadn't seen before. The Flinders Ranges was definitely a highlight at the beginning and the motorbike's ability to get me through the riverbeds and over the washed out rocky steep hills truly surprised me. Kangaroo Island and the Remarkable Rocks were stunning. Camping along South Australia's coast. Riding the old air highway across the Nile bore. Lucky Bay and the huge trees along the south coast. Margaret River is always spectacular. Seeing the Pinnacles for the first time was pretty amazing. The vibrance of Hutt Lagoon. Kirijini rock pools and gorges again stunning. I think the bungle bungles topped it all off with the challenge of actually getting there through all the water crossings and then the out-of-this-world formations of the landscape. The ability to see such diversity of this landscape across this country truly mind-blowing. You know someone said they loved the Royal Enfield Himalayan because it looked like it had just been ridden out of an Indiana Jones movie. I'm not one to name bikes but its ability to take you on an adventure and get you into mischief but also somehow being able to get you back out again definitely seems fitting to the name. So if you ever were going to give these bikes a name I think Indy would be perfect. This ride has definitely been an experience to cherish and made me hungry for more. If you're still watching you're who I want to talk to. Basically to say thank you. As you probably know by watching these videos right to the end it's a massive help to the channel. I also would like to thank the people who have sent super thanks through. Again it is a massive help. What's next? Well I have an idea for another big ride. A hint it's on an island. Actually I think there's two but it'll take me a while to save up for it so in the meantime I might go on a shorter ride as well. Also I'll probably do a video about the bike after 40,000 kilometers, how it's gone, the gear I used, what was different from the first series to the second one, what I tried new, what worked, what didn't and what I might try the next time. I'll also probably do a video on how to take better photos on your adventures. It has nothing to do with the camera so hopefully you get a chance to check some of those out. Oh yeah I got a comment from someone asking what I was reflecting on coming towards the end of this, well in their words, grand adventure. I replied I think they'd assumed something wrong. It wasn't the end of the grand adventure, this was just the warm-up.