checking the bike and stocking up on supplies before heading to more remote areas . The next supermarket would be six days away at the town of Katherine . I checked spoke tightness and final drive oil level at 2,500km intervals . With sidecars , there is lateral stress on the wheels that does loosen spokes .
Visiting the Stockman ’ s Hall of Fame was a real opportunity to learn about the history of early outback Australia that is entwined in the stories of the drovers . The drovers were stockmen who moved sheep and cattle for long distances . Riding horses they camped out each night . Sometimes the livestock were being taken to distant markets , sometimes seeking better grazing in times of drought . There is an impressive bronze statue of a stockman commemorating this work .
Recognition given to the role played by Aboriginal drovers and stockmen , their knowledge of the
harsh and arid outback country invaluable to new European settlers of Australia . The Aboriginal peoples had a great knowledge of their ancestral lands and expert horse riding skills .
We had travelled three days further up the road to reach the small town of Camooweal , 12km from the QLD - NT state border . Now more remote and very much into the areas of roadhouses rather than petrol stations . We were now overtaking occasional road trains , the large trucks with three or four trailers , that require one kilometre of clear road to pass . The following days ride would be 260km of isolated country until the next roadhouse at Barkly Homestead . For such a long stretch , it was good to have fuel in the 10 litre jerry can that is standard on this model Ural .
Our early start the next morning was to ensure we crossed the border before it closed again with the
second wave of COVID continuing to grow in the southern states . We were attempting to cross into the NT within hours of becoming legally entitled to do so under the COVID restrictions .
We filled out hard copy applications and handed these to the very friendly Aboriginal police officer at the border . After a bit of a chat about where we had been , road conditions and the sidecar he said we were welcome to go anywhere we please in the NT . Whoo-hoo ! What a relief , we had made it into the NT . The trip to the top end of Australia was happening .
We were enjoying crossing the open grassland plains of the Barkly Tablelands . The grass had a blue tinge . This was where I started to really get the sense of travelling in such a large country . This was an area of huge cattle stations . The large grazing properties in Australia are known as stations and can be a
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