TheTip
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Latest News
Updates on the trip can be seen here.
The plan to head to M'sia and get some motorbikes and ride around is knocked out, but not dead. We'll probably revive it in a year or two, but there just werent enough of use able to save the requisite $$$ to make it. So, we've tightened our belts, and picked another venue, and this page is all about it. We are now planning a Motorbike ride up Cape York to the tip of the east coast of Australia. The dates (earliest departure and latest return)are now locked in as the 18th of July to the 9th of August. Rhett has arranged for tickets, everyone's booked time off, and the weather should be nice at that time fo the year (fingers crossed :p)
This page will be updated as we progress with the plans and mods on the bikes, get gear ready, and kit up, as well as being updated after with photos and vids and things.
A source of initial and background information on the Cape can be found here http://www.cypda.com.au/book/export/html/3 with some information about camping permits and such to be found here https://www.epa.qld.gov.au/parks_and_forests/find_a_park_or_forest/
Time
Time is broken into 2 parts: The time to the Trip, and the time spent on the trip. Here's a countdown for the time Until:
Countdown to the trip
Remaining time until 18th of July, 2009:
- Days: D
- Hours: H
- Minutes: M
- Seconds: S
Trip Schedule
We have allocated 3 weeks for the trip. Basically, thats a week up, a week back, and a week of slide-time. So if there's a patch that slows us down, or is nice to stay in, we'll hang there for a bit longer.
I'm not in a mad rush to get to the top, but there's a bit of a no-win situation that could arise - if we ride straight up to the tip using the Dev road, we'll definitely get to the top of Oz, but might be too flogged to sight-see on the way back, and the ride will be crap, as that's not a road (or traffic) that is fun on a motorbike.
If we sight-see on the way up, we'll have a far more pleasant ride, but will be more likely to encounter something that delays us and increases our chances of not hitting the tip.
For my money, I'm plotting way-points for the scenic route up and back. If we're too shagged, we will have options available to shorten the days ride, or to overnight an additional night at a rest-spot.
With adequate mapping and common sense, we'll be able to play it as it comes without significant issues.
jelf 07:39, 10 May 2009 (EST)
Prelude
For a taste of someone elses attempt, here's day 0 of a 14 day trek by 8 lads: [1]. The remaining days can all be seen on Phill Grays Youtube page. A poignant moment is when one of the lads crashes and gets concussion, and is later seen with his broken wrist strapped up using a couple of thongs :p There's rides there from multiple years, and they take a different route each time. Good to watch, esp when the bikes don't work as intended.
Also, just for a bit of an eye opener, here's page 17 of some guys ride report across the top of .au [2]. He hit a bulldust pit and snapped his swingarm (youtube vid of the carnage on the page).
Tour operators offer trips about a week long for 1 way, [3] for about 5k, which is still a touch pricey for us, as we're looking at about 1.5kpp. As we have our own bikes and gear and such, and dont have to pay the tour guides and insurance etc etc etc, we shouldn't have too much of a problem.
The Planning
Gear listing here Kit
We are going to be roughing it. Hold no illusions about this. We're on bikes, with minimal gear, camping in remote parts of Oz where getting any creature comforts is difficult and expensive. There's 3 possible scenarios at the moment:
- Bikes only - 3+ bikes of varying types, no support vehicle
- Bikes + Part Ute - 3+ bikes + a 4wd for some of the way until our paths diverge (approx 1 week)
- Bikes + Ute - 3+ Bikes + a 4wd vehicle to act as base-camp for extended rides
Using these 3 models, the plans for each can be made to layer on top of one another:
- Model 1 - In this model, we take only the essentials; the bikes are kitted with enduro tanks and full camping, cooking, repair, amusement, etc kit is packed around the knowledge that _it has to fit on the bike_, so light is a factor, small is a factor, durable is a factor.
- Model 2 - Here, we can stow our gear on the ute, making the bikes easier to ride for the first part of the trip. We can determine in the first week what parts of our kit are essential and what we can live without. Additionally, we can bring some 'luxuries', and if it turns out they're worth having, we can redesign the bike-only kit for the later part of the ride to include anything we find to be useful. This also gives us a few days of being able to have additional spares, which could be good, as I figure it'll be in the first few days that we have our first good bingle (eg bent wheel). The second half of the trip is then done using model 1.
- Model 3 - Here, we have a ute for the whole trip. This would be great as the bikes would always carry minimal extra weight, we can carry far more spares and luxury items, and we can carry a 44 gallon drum of fuel to reach the out-of-the-way spots. Packing for this model would be done in accordance with the previous 2 models, in case the ute was required to take someone (and their bike) back to civilization in the event of a serious crash.
By layering the packing models, we should be able to factor our kit down to one of 3 groups - 'pure luxury', 'handy to have', 'essential to have', and if the trip model changes, due to a broken ute, a broken rider, or whatever, the riders are still adequately prepared and equipped. There's another page kit, for each of us to write up and discuss gear being brought.
Just to update the documentation, the bikes aren't being equipped with long range tanks any more, as the cost of the tanks outweighs the benefit of independence from the ute.
Planning 2.0
Okay, so we've suffered some attrition of riders and such, with BOTH finally deciding that he's not going to get any kind of bike sorted out, and he's probably not even going to be able to muster the requisite $$ to go in a support vehicle. And that also then points to the other piker - Ghost is also failing to meet requisite commitment levels, so we're down to a bike-only trip now.
Planning 2.1 - The escape
It turns out that BOTH is back onboard, fingers crossed, as he has secured another income stream, and so he believes he will be right to get the cash together to coem along. We're working on a Plan A, Plan B thing atm, so if he can't Plan A - buy a bike in time, he'll be able to Plan B - come along in the support vehicle (assuming we have one - Rhett says he'll be able to bring his, and Luke (no user page yet) is also suggesting his old Cruiser and cycle the other guys on their bikes, providing some time in the ute for everyone, and some rest time for tired and injured riders...
Focus Points
Okay, this is probably going to be a major fight avoiding component; Anything listed here by a member of the trip is a key factor to having their trip be enjoyable. This is a list for everyone to communicate their must-sees or must-dos to ensure that no one gets steamrolled. To start things rolling:
- Riding the bikes on the beach at the Tip near Somersetjelf 12:45, 10 April 2009 (EST)
- Camping (roughing it) as much as possible both for the experience and the cost jelf 12:45, 10 April 2009 (EST)
- Fishing for an afternoon somewhere (I don't care where, and I dont care if I catch anything)jelf 12:45, 10 April 2009 (EST)
- Exploring the plane wrecks around Bamaga jelf 12:45, 10 April 2009 (EST)
- Everyone says the Falls (Elliot and Twin) are awesome jelf 12:45, 10 April 2009 (EST)
The Budget
The ballpark for the budget came from a guesstimate of 70/day, broken down as follows:
- $40/day fuel (2 tanks of abt 20l at $2 This is a way-high over-estimate) See map for basic route.
- $20/day food see menu below.
- $10/day consumables (batteries, etc)
- + a total trip guesstimate of about 300/direction for luxuries like dining out and camping ground fees.
Obviously, if we need to pay for camp fees every night, or stay at roadhouses, this cost balloons a bit.
On top of that, we're taking as many spares as seem reasonable to our mechanic, who has promised that any bike that dies will be set on fire with the rider. Additionally, because the unexpected happens, credit cards will be available should we need to ship in a major part, or something unforeseen occurs.
The Timeframe
This is a bit of a hard one, as it'll have to allow people to get time off work and all that jazz. I've booked 3 weeks for myself (last 2 weeks of July, 1st week of Aug), cos I figure we'll have about a week there, a week back, and a week of buffer time for things going wrong or nice camping spots that just have to be stopped at. So, with an estimated 4000km (allowing for some fairly large detours), we can aim for about 300km/day, which is a tank of fuel, and about 6 hours riding at an average of 50km/h... which is all delightfully theoretical, and will probably have very little to do with what we actually achieve, as some of the trails we'll be struggling to get 5km/h for a bit, and then we can get over 80 on the Dev road. Still, it is a basic picture of time in the saddle and expected distance between campsites.
The Map
Here's a starting point: To the right is a thumbnail of the route provided by Google Maps. As mentioned earlier, I would like to follow a similar trail to the lads who videoed their excursion (linked above), so I'll get some scans in here or at least some GPS waypoint co ordinates for each days travel. But, to get an idea of the scope of the journey, this image should do :)
Oh, just as an FYI, its apparently 1069km each way using the route shown, so I figure we're gonna top 4000km for the total trip with side-excursions and such.
To recap the bike-only method: As we'll be carrying less kit than can be fitted into a 4x4, we'll be looking at staying at the roadhouses on the way up and back, with day-trips off down the fun trails. In this way, we'll be able to cover the entire distance without making the bikes too heavy with additional camping kit. The downside is that the camping portion of the trip will have to be reduced somewhat... but not completely. After all, we can still take most of the roads with the camping gear strapped on, and once we get to the roadhouse, we can then strip down for a day or two of fun exploration. In this way, we get to cover distance, stay within fuel-range, and explore some gnarly trails. It would be nice to have the support vehicles, mind you, as they would change the dynamic by being able to bring days worth of fuel along, letting us reach areas that are otherwise inaccessable without Enduro tanks on the bikes.
As a better mapping option, here are some basic instructions to get a reasonable set of topo maps that we can start to generate waypoints and load other peoples trip plots into: Download and then install in this order -
- http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=835
- http://www8.garmin.com/software/MapSource_6156.exe
- http://shonkylogic.net/download/shonkymaps_3.51.zip
The first is a free training utility from Garmin that satisfies the licensing requirements to install Mapsource, the second is MapSource, and the 3rd is the topo mapset. Mapsource should be closed when you install Shonkymaps. Obviously, Shonkymaps (and Mapsource) are only usable for exporting to Garmin GPS's, and the 2 I've had recommended to me so far are the Etrex and the 60CX. Both have good visibility screens, long battery life, take standard AA batteries, and can handle SD cards, so we can plot multiple maps and then simply switch cards as required for the big rides. Additionally, I've read online of people dropping their bikes mid-creek etc, and the garmin units not packing in, so there's another positive. The big negative I constantly read about Garmin units, however, is that the bar-mount is crap, and tends to break under the weight of the GPS over only mild corrugation, so the word on the street is to get a more rugged mount from a 3rd party, or just build your own on your dash.
The refined path is going to avoid the dev road as much as possible, but it will still entail some stretches of it.
Day to day is looking to be something like:
- Cairns to PKs
- PKs To Cooktown
- Cooktown to Lakefield Park
- Lakefield Park to Port Stewart
- Day trip to Cape Melville
- Port Stew to Archer (and nearby Nat Park)
- Archer to Weipa
- Weipa to Start of OTL
- OTL to Bamaga
- Hang at Bamaga
- Bamaga to Capn Billy
- Capn to Weipa
- Weipa to Archer
- Archer to Musgrave
- Musgrave to Maytown
- Maytown to Cooktown
- Cooktown to Cairns
- And some time spend mucking about fishing and camping and such...
The Bikes
89 Dommie 650
Just to tidy the page up a bit, I'm not going to fill it with stuff about the NX650. Instead, that'll be on a separate page here, and the hope is for each rider to similarly write up a bit about their bikes and mods and such, with this bit being a summary and a link.
To see the components being upgraded and the reasons behind the changes, just check in on the page about the bike here.
XR650R
Rhetts toy. Details by him later
DRZ400
Adams plaything. He should have pics and planned mods and such soon (as soon as he gets off has ass to create a login).
Jims Toy
My new pride and joy, Bessy. It's a 2008 Yamaha WR250R, and the love of my life.
Boths Toy
Well wait and see what eventuates for this one, eh?
Useful Links for Bike Stuff
Bike prep and helpful tips:
The Riders
The list so far:
In addition, there's every possibility that we'll have a support vehicle. If this comes to pass, we'll add a few more sections on here about it, as well as the occupants. At the moment, Rhett seems to have a handle on it. More news once he figures out how to post :p
KIT
The kit has been spun off into its own page kit so if you want to chip in, drop on over and edit :)
