Add to the risks of riding motorcycles

Australia is a great country but being ill prepared can cost you your life.

ashman said:

A few years ago there was a new paper story about a motorcycle ride riding outback Australia on a dirt road he seen a King Brown snake on the road sunning itself so he rode over it and as he did the snake leaped up and bit him on the back of his arm, KBs are very deadly, he was able to tie his shirt around his arm and by the time he got to the nearest hospital the poison was having a effect on him, lucky he got there in time for anti venom but still spent a week in hospital, he was pretty sick from that bite, if he had not tied his shirt around to slow the poison down he would not have made it, the doctors said.

Ashley

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Straya strikes again!

Time Warp said:

Australia is a great country but being ill prepared can cost you your life.

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Very true and a lot of people have lost their lives because of break downs outback and try to walk it out and that's where they make a mistake, best to sit it out at your car as someone will always come along, but these days with small EPEPS that will send out a single when in trouble are cheap compared to your life and like you say most are not prepared and OS tourist always get caught out, Australia is a vast open country and long distants between towns or fuel stops and some bike travels you need to carry another 10lts of fuel or more as well a full tank.

Ashley

I think in that picture which was around 1000 kms from Darwin and Darwin/Cape York return on the dirt for the most part and I never saw another vehicle or person that day, but that is part of the adventure but will aspire to riding the Interstate without a raincoat.


Some other pics from along the way.. Two wheels keep it real.

Hope the dude remembered to shut off his petcocks before he entered the hospital. Lots of fuel could sneak past those floats in a week.
I watched some herp expert jacking with one of the aussie cobras and the bogger got a piece of him... He went into immediate panic with lots of shrieking in the doc, anyway they got him to the hospital in time.
Everything that crawls, flies, and slithers there can put you under from what I glean…. Even the ants are badass.

Fella in top pick eyeballing lunch.

That's a good snake its called a squash snake, you got to watch them as they play dead, as for the croc you just poke them in the eye and they let you go, then you got to watch out for the Red Backs behind the dunny seat, but our most feared one is the drop bear, sneaky critters they are, then the Dingo got my baby, the killer Sting Ray, I could keep going but don't want to put any visitors off in coming to our great country down under.

And the deadly hoop snake

There is a video at the bottom of this page (I couldn't get it to link)
That is one of the other guys, I am somewhere ahead and regard this as one of the high lights,(its 1000's of feet above sea level) and switch backs.

https://imageevent.com/time_warp1959/oldschoolpictures?n=0&z=2&c=4&x=0&m=18&w=0&p=0

I keep seeing a link on FB for a 10000 km ride the width of Russia next June.

This was on the front page of the Darwin News (when I lived there) it was a series of photos of a tourist working for a fishing company.
The pic was so popular they made it into a postcard inside the paper a week or so later, I still have that card somewhere.



https://www.google.com/search?q=dar...8#imgdii=l-6WHMfaWved3M:&imgrc=RMwaiMq7pGkxlM:

Bikes are not that dangerous.

My dad lived up at Cape York on my cousin cattle station (South Well Station) and one day he was over looking the river when he seen my cousin in the water with his dogs, his boat had flipped over and the cousin slowly swimming to the bank, my dad being the joker he was threw a rock in the water behind my cousin, he freaked out and dad said he started to run on water he thought it was a croc till he looked up and seen my dad pissing himself laughing.
My cousin Nooky is a outback bushman and never wears shoes even when he was getting married he was dressed in his Sunday best and stated to walk in the church with no shoes on his feet till his dad baled him up, he only wears shoes when he needs to see the bank manager these days.
They are so remote when they go shopping everything is brought by the ton, ton of flour, ton of sugar etc etc and all supplies are stored up in the rafters of the house roof and in the wet season they are stranded for months and only way out is by mail plane.
I am going up there next year for a few months to look after his place while he goes on holidays for a few months OS, I spent 2 weeks up there back in the 90s and got caught in the start of the wet season and we had to fly out to get back to Cairns.
If you get injured up there only help you can get is the flying doctors service.
Nook has told me the crocs are so bad up there now they are wiping out the Barra and other fish and where they draw their water for the house the fresh water spring behind their house is now infested with salt water crocs.

Ashley

I was working at in a large corporation. One of the guys was a Malaysian Chinese. He got bitten by a white-tailed spider which was in some laundry he had picked up. The bite became flesh-eating. He left Australia and returned to Malaysia, which I thought was an over reaction. All you need to do is take care. I live in a suburbanised country town. I would still be very careful if I need to move a sheet of corrugated iron - if there is a snake under it, it might be very lively. With crocs, you just don't go near the salt water. If you ever go to outback Australia, carry water and don't walk away from the road. If you get lost there, it can be curtains very easily. Snakes usually go in the opposite direction to yourself, as long as you don't step on one.

My shed is full of red-back spiders. Once a year, I open a pressurise can of pyrethrum insecticide and kill them all. In any case, it only takes one smack of the hand to kill one. You just need to be careful when you pick things up.
Overall the Australian bush is very friendly, nothing except pigs or crocs will eat you. Getting lost is not wise. That can even be a problem where I live. My Chinese dentist took his girl for a hike, ended up too exhausted to carry their pack. Then went back two days later searching for it and could not find where they had been - lost the camera. The place is full of black-berries in some parts.
He was very shaken by the experience - but OK.

I was at Yosemite in 1985. It amused me when the Yanks were terrified and ran when they saw a bear. In Australia, we don't have anything so dangerous. Who was stupid ?

acotrel said:

I was at Yosemite in 1985. It amused me when the Yanks were terrified and ran when they saw a bear. In Australia, we don't have anything so dangerous. Who was stupid ?

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Australia and America were founded under far different circumstances....

Australia was founded because America refused to accept any more British convicts.

In Australia, you have to be very stupid to get eaten by the wildlife. If you go north or west, you swim in the swimming pool - not at the beach. But encountering a bear or mountain lion in the forest which has the capability of killing and eating you, is something the like of which we do not have. When I was a kid, I was with rellies in North Queensland. We camped next to a waterhole in a major river where there were freshwater crocodiles. They don't usually attack, but are capable of giving you a laceration. My young cousin went straight into the water, she had absolutely no fear. I would not swim in there. You would not usually see them, but if you walked along the bank of the river, you would hear the splash ahead of you as they entered the water after sunning themselves on the bank.

me had motorsickles flown airplanes had brit sports cars since I was teeny bopper a person asked me a while back if I was having mid life crisis I said it is an ongoing thing I approach bike riding same way as I did flying pay attention don't show your ass check and recheck mechanical corn-dition of machine before takeoff when driving the MGB I assume every cellphone talking person in SUV is trying to kill me.. on bike too... all sich activities done correctly work the brain and reflexes and keep them sharp I am 67 going on 29 (in my own mind at least)

Driving along the Motorway in my Austin Healey at 70 Mph I saw in the distance Twinkling shiney bits of metal flying off a lorry. Next thing 2ft square sheets of metal are cutting off my spotlights ,bouncing off the bonnet and screen top rail,slicing up my tyre. I am now below the dashboard driving blind. What if I had been on a bike?

I was on University and on my old MK3 and getting off the motorway onto a long curving off ramp that really didn't have much of a speed reduction.

I was behind a glass truck, the kind with the big a frame in the bed. For some reason I backed right off. As I did so, I saw a big glint of the sun, which was to my 8 o'clock, as a full plate glass window spiraled above the truck and turned to a shower of glass as one corner hit the ground.

No avoiding the mess, but I am glad I did t end up like that guy in The Omen.

norton bob said:

Driving along the Motorway in my Austin Healey at 70 Mph I saw in the distance Twinkling shiney bits of metal flying off a lorry. Next thing 2ft square sheets of metal are cutting off my spotlights ,bouncing off the bonnet and screen top rail,slicing up my tyre. I am now below the dashboard driving blind. What if I had been on a bike?

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Then they might have found a use to recycle a magician’s coffin, the one where he saws an assistant into two. and no, it doesn't seem worth thinking about.

Bury two midgets?