I wake up around 7Am & it’s raining. Looking outside it’s very ominous, the sky is covered in dark thick cloud blanket. It stops raining so I spring up & start packing, it starts raining again as I am pulling the tent down. I am in my motorcycle wet weather gear, I finish packing & get on the road heading west.
It starts bucketing down, I convince myself to continue & soon I will be past the rain clouds, I ride 3 hours of so in some pretty heavy rain!
I arrive at the Great Australian Bight Whale lookout & ride down the 12k road to the entry shop, & run inside for shelter. I take a black coffee & kit kat. Then the weather clears enough for a walk down to the viewing platforms overlooking the cliffs. It is sensational, no whales but sensational all the same! Last time J was here, about 15 years ago there were Whales, about 5 of them. Southern white whales, they migrate here to breed every year, amazing.
Feeling somewhat refreshed from the miserable wet ride, I continue 25k or so to The Nullarbor Hotel Motel Roadhouse & fuel up Big Blue & myself. She took 21 litres for $63, although not stated anywhere that seems to be $3 a litre! I took an Egg & Bacon burger & latte. They claim it was “Premium 95”, but she was still running flat afterwards, the flat feeling that Big Blue gives when I feed her 91, its like she is complaining.
I ride up the road an hour or so & camp in the Nullarbor National park. I go in down a little stony track, & then ride into the bush off road. The clay ground is a bit soft but seems ok, I setup camp.
There is no phone reception & it is very quiet. This is Likely to be the most isolated campsite so far.
The Erye peninsula is more isolated than I expected, but the Nullarbor is on another level.
So Big Blue has not been sensing the key, it’s been happening quite a lot since the trip started, but is getting worse. It doesn’t seem to be the battery in the key, as there is no message that the battery is flat like before, just a message that there is no key so don’t stop the engine because she might not start again. Although I happily ignored this message many times, it occurred to me that this might be serious, what if in the middle of nowhere I cannot get her to start? I dig around & find the “wallet Key” it a thin one, that apparently one might keep in their wallet. I wriggle up under the rear mudguard and feel the flat spot, press the key against it, while using my left hand to reach up & push the ignition button, she lights up & I hit start, Bob’s your Uncle, she fired up happily. Who knows which engineer in Berlin came up with that arrangement, luckily I had read up about it before departure just in case! So it seems even if she refuses to start off the normal ignition key, provided I have the wallet key it’s all good. This is my assumption anyhow! I did surprisingly ask Leon, AussieKiwiAdventureRider’s in-house mechanic before departure sbout this, “what is the difference between the normal key & the wallet key? Leon suggested that the normal key must be sensed on a regular basis, where the wallet key is sensed only once & not repeatedly. So there you have it, I am happy with that explanation.
I am tired & cannot be bothered cooking, some Muslei & majic water & its 18.30hrs & guess what? It’s raining again, so I crawl into my survival vestibule & it’s good night.
It rained most of the night.