TRAVEL FEATURE - AUSTRALIA CRAIG BALDWIN
WHEN KRAMER GAVE UP
Pigsy is my brothers Suzuki DR650 who resides on the Central Coast of New South Wales , and Kramer is my Yamaha Tenere XT660Z and resides in the Lockyer Valley in the state of Queensland .
This outback adventure was quite a long time in the planning . I ’ m talking almost 2 years , all thanks to Covid placing the original trip on hold until we were able to travel this great land of ours again .
In the initial planning stages , we looked at heading to Uluru as neither my brother nor I had been there but after some considered decisions and timeline restrictions we decided to change the plan to take in outback NSW through to Cameron Corner and down through the Flinders Ranges in South Australia before returning home .
This would allow us to not be rushed and enable us to take in as much as we could of the trip instead of just blasting through each town . It would be a three-week ride , one that I ’ d invested a large part of my heart and soul into for I suffer from anxiety and depression and riding is my equilibrium . This trip for me was an adventure and experience that I greatly needed . I was looking forward to re setting some of my fears , my stressors and reinvigorating some of my lost happiness . For some parts of the trip it absolutely did , but other parts it pushed me to my outer most limits , but more on that later .
During the planning stage we noticed two small towns on the map not far from Lightning Ridge , one being Lyndon , our fathers name , and just near that was Mount Charlotte ( Charlotte being my daughter ’ s name ) these would be two destinations that we locked in right from the start . The rest of the trip was just a rough route through the outback to Cameron Corner and
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