National AGM Albany - 8th to 14th March 2010

I rode to Albany in WA to attend the Ulysses Club AGM, with a group of friends – Peter, Leo, Col and Rob. We took two weeks to get there, stayed a week in Albany, camping at the AGM Event site, and a week to ride home.

We left on 20th February, travelled via Nyngan, Broken Hill, (2 nights) Port Augusta, Nullabor Roadhouse, Caiguna, Kalgoorlie (2 nights) New Norcia, Secret Harbour, Augusta, Walpole, and arrived at Albany. We were lucky to see water in abundance around Broken Hill and Nyngan and the bush was very green and lush – and also along the Hay Plain coming home.

Our return journey was via Wave Rock at Hyden, Fraser Range (a working property just past Norseman), Eucla, Streaky Bay, Morgan near the mighty Murray River and Balranald next to the Murrumbidgee River.

We walked among the tall trees of WA, went swimming on one of West Australia’s lovely beaches, visited Hamelin Bay, drank many kinds of beer including the Abbey Ale at New Norcia, visited Lighthouses, many small town museums – if you want a snapshot of life as it was, these museums are a gem. We rode the “Mad Max” road at Silverton, saw the old Water Wheel at Augusta, saw dingoes at the Nullabor Roadhouse and across the plain, stood on the Bight, watched wedge tailed eagles, kangaroos of many varieties, and emus.

We learnt that if you add a bad thunder storm to the dust at Eucla, it makes mud that gets everywhere and stays with you for a long time. Gravel roads aren’t all that bad when the place you arrive at is stunningly beautiful, a locust plague hurts and the guts are difficult to remove. Riding in 43 degrees heat is not funny and requires more fluid than you can imagine to stay hydrated. We learnt that road trains are easy to get along with and we had no problems – they appreciate if you have a radio and make contact because they like a chat too. And random acts of kindness can happen anywhere.

The price of fuel fluctuates a lot “out there”, $1.84 for Unleaded was the most. I took a small container of spare fuel for crossing the Nullabor – and where did we need it? The first day as we headed west through NSW at Tullamore – many small towns have either lost their petrol stations or the stations were shut for Saturday afternoon.

Col sampled as many “big breakfasts” as he could on our trip with the BB at Balladonia being declared the clear winner!

I did around 9600 klms in 4 weeks. I took my camping gear with me on the bike and managed beautifully. I stayed in cabins though on the way home – sharing a cabin with two others meant we paid about $30 each – for a good sleep! Camping at the AGM is definitely the way to go – having friends drop by every night and making a “cook up” for many people with little in the way of “facilities” was a load of fun and laughter. The small inconveniences are more than compensated by the friends and sense of sharing that camping engenders.

Jen Woods

(Thanks to Andrew Campbell & Jennifer Woods for the photo’s below)