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came out of a workshop and took care of us . There was a fridge with cold drinks in the bar and even a sparsely stocked shop with crackers and biscuits .
After filling up the bikes too , we spent some time swapping stories . They were doing their mandatory 88 days for the second year working holiday visa here , working on the farm and fixing up their camper van in the workshop in the meantime . The proudly presented project was in the beginning stages , but their creative and enthusiastic plans sounded promising . A quick dig around a huge tub of old bolts and they found us a couple of spares that fitted Aidan ’ s suspension and would keep us going .
All stocked up , we now had enough
supplies to get us back to Adelaide , where we would prepare much better for our second attempt to cross the Red Centre and reach Darwin . The dodgy bolt actually held until town , where Aidan swapped it out for one of the ones we ’ d been given . We ’ d learned our lesson and realised that distances between access to fuel and water are far , so we made sure our new route across the outback went from one roadhouse to the next and fuel and water supplies were well within our range , even in the dirt road sections .
AFTERWORD :
When we finally got a chance to look up the salt lakes online , we confirmed that we should not have been riding onto Lake Gairdner without obtaining express permits . We also found out that the lake is of great significance to the Aboriginal People , and we are deeply sorry that we did not respect the sacredness of their land .
Had we known , we would of course not have ridden onto the lake , no matter our dreams of the perfect photo . As Europeans with a vastly different history , it did not occur to us , but in hindsight we should have known that in Australia such a special place would be of significance to the Aboriginal People . It is a lesson learned in doing a bit of advance research on the places we are visiting . MS
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