Day 1 of my 3 day ride in the deserts of western Victoria started off with a slightly embarrassing situation. I stayed in a motel in Rainbow, Vic and I was checking the oil level on the bike when the motel manager came out and said good morning. I was holding the bike level and let the bike back down onto the stand as I stood up to say goodmorning to her, but the stand had flicked up so instead of resting on the stand the bike went straight over, dragging me with it as I tried to stop it from falling. She laughed. I cut my finger in the process and had to break out the first aid kit before the trip had even started. At least I can say it got better from there. I ended up leaving a bit later than I would've liked. Around 9:30. The first half of the day was mostly deep sand and it was a blast. The 500 just ate it up! I followed several different tracks west toward the border track. The border track runs along with Victoria/South Australia border. I followed it to Pinnaroo where I stopped for a pie and a refuel around 2. After lunch I kept heading up the border track towards Renmark. I arrived in Renmark around 5:30. Almost 7 hrs ride time and 380kms. Awesome day.
Day 2 started with a run to Maccas for breaky. Then I headed west out of Renmark and towards the Victorian border. At the border I turned left and headed as far north in Victoria as I could go, snapping a pic on the Murray River before heading back to the highway the way I had come. On the run back to the highway I had a near miss with a kangaroo and an emu. They get your heart pumping when they jump out in front of you at speed! From there I headed off the highway towards Mildura. The route I had planned out turned out to be just a big gravel road, which was a bit boring, until I got to Rocket Lake. From there almost all the way to Mildura it was mixture of whooped out 4wd track and whooped out single track. What a way to finish off the day!
Day 3.
I stayed with family on the NSW side of the Murray on Thursday night making that the 3rd state for the trip. I left Mildura around around 8:30 and headed for Rainbow where my ute was parked. The first hr or 2 was mostly tracks winding through private property and cleared land. I had one heart fluttering moment when a goat jumped out from behind a bush in the middle of scrub country. That slowed me down for awhile. Then it was back onto the sand! Sweet. It had rained over night so all the sand was wet, which was nice. What wasn't nice was the sections of super slick clay. There was at least 10 times where the bike just started sliding even at low speeds. It kept me on my toes. I stopped at Underbool for a museli bar around lunch time and then headed off again. I stuffed around for awhile trying to find my way through the private property and across into Wyperfeld NP. Then it was soft sand and awesome trails all the way to Lake Albacutya. I had one final scary moment when I was riding a fence line track near the end. Someone had left a pile of old ringlock wire on the road and I didn't see it till the last minute. I managed to stop before it got tangled enough to pull me off. It's just another thing to keep you on guard out there. Then as the sun was sinking on my right I pointed my bike down the final 15kms of bitumen towards Rainbow. That was awesome dirt bike adventure.