Flinders Ranges Trip 2025 - The Ride Day 6

 

I was going to get up early this morning and go for a walk along one of the hiking trails…..but it was bloody cold and staying in bed seemed like the better option.😊

When we eventually did get up we wandered around to the restaurant for some breakfast. We were a bit later today so it was quite busy.

There was no great rush to get going. We were heading back to Broken Hill (and reality) today so we had 300km of dirt then ~200km of sealed road to tackle. While our biggest day, it would be easy going.

Once loaded we rolled off and immediately my bike felt funny. It felt like the steering damper was wound right up or the front tyre was flat. I stopped to check - nope, damper is wound off and the front is pumped up - but the rear tyre is looking pretty flat! 

Bugger!

I must have flatted not far from Arkaroola yesterday afternoon and it went down overnight. Riding around to the fuel pumps where the air hose was I pumped the tyre up and went hunting for the puncture. It didn’t take long to find as it was hissing fairly loudly. Don’t know how I didn’t hear it yesterday?

Anyway, I shoved a plug in, pumped it up and was good to go. Tubeless is the way to go when it is this easy to fix.😉

Rolling, take two, we stopped numerous times to get photos in the morning light. 

We overtook a couple on a KLX 230 and an MT450 not far out of Arkaroola, trying not to dust them too much.

We were on the lookout for the sandy creek crossing and it was indeed hard to spot when coming from this direction. It caused no problems for us this morning though.

This morning consisted of just blatting along at 90-100km/h. No need to go too fast and once we took the turn to the south at Frome Downs, toward Yunta the road became covered in a 50mm deep sand/ gravel which made for some "loose" moments.  We stopped along here for a short rest to give our concentration levels a break. 

A while later we came to the mining ruins at Waukaringa. I missed out on checking them out closely in 2022 so I followed some bush tracks over to the old kiln and chimney for a quick look around.  Steve wasn't keen so stayed over near the main road.

 We then wandered down to the couple of derelict buildings only to find a group of adventure bike parked out the front. The riders were all hiding around the corner,  out of the wind, cooking sausages on the bbq that their support car had supplied.  Talk about doing it in style!

We chatted for a bit and they offered us a snag which we politely declined. We would be in Yunta soon and would refuel there. 

We tried the other service station in Yunta this time.  A sandwich and an iced coffee worked to avoid the hot coffee disappointment of our last visit. 

As we were fueling up a van with Jemma Wilson splashed on the side pulled in for fuel.  Jemma was/is a high level Moto Crosser and now does ladies coaching.  She must have been down in Adelaide for some coaching.  We would leapfrog  the van for the next two hundred odd kilometres back to Broken Hill.

Arriving into Broken Hill I suggested to Steve that as it was still relatively early we ride the thirty or so kilometres out to the historic Silverton. We were riding into a settling sun along a road lined with kangaroos so we took it gingerly. 

Stopping into the iconic Silverton Hotel it looked pretty deserted but entering the bar there was actually quite a few people. 

We grabbed a couple of Tooheys Olds and sat out the front watching the shadows grow longer. 

That done it was into Broken Hill to find some accommodation.  We weren't that chuffed with the caravan park unit from last week so we found a nice clean, warm motel room - briefly checking that my car was in fact still OK at the caravan park.  I'll go get it tomorrow morning. 

All up,  a pretty easy day but we were a bit tired from the concentration required on the looser dirt roads into Yunta.

Dinner was at The Broken Hill Pub which was very clean and modern. 

I didn't take much rocking to sleep tonight! It had been a solid week on the bike.  Not huge kilometres but quality stuff that demanded concentration. Tomorrow would be an easy day in the car back to Dubbo..... and as we both still had all the next week off we would need to come up with a plan for some more riding...... stay tuned! 😎

Cheers.

What happened next HERE.