Our luxurious camp
We pulled stumps that fateful morning from our makeshift camp (safely located 10, maybe even 15m from the road). As the road crews started hauling past the bulldust was hanging in the air, a warning perhaps? (Bulldust morning, Mango's warning??).
Beware Mango.... Bewaaaaaaare
After a quick brekkie we headed a further 25km or so into Bulman, and filled up Tom's bike plus enough jerries to get the Dakar to Gove. We then had to push a bit, seeing as the fuel stop was unplanned. We gave Gove a call on the Philcomm satphone, it's first use, and warned them we would be a bit late and would miss the lunch appointment. Tom pointed the Dakar towards the Gove peninsula and didn't spare the horses.
I meanwhile, chowed his dust. There was a lot of it, towards the end of the dry season the road comes apart like a hastily bitten Salada, so Tom was doing well through corrugations large and small, long stretches of bulldust the full width of the road, etc. I was doing it tough in the aircon listening to Radio National, and hanging back a bit so as not to run him over.
Suddenly the dust cleared, and there is the Dakar, down on the starboard side, with rear wheel still going in 4th gear. Mang was still attached to the bike, a good captain goes down with the ship after all, but as I threw out the anchors and came to a halt he jumped up and started trying to lift the Dakar so as to hit the cutoff.
This was all to familiar territory for me, so I jumped out and started about the business of checking he was all right. Our standing agreement was to check the other is OK, then take photo's and try not to laugh.300km from Gove Mang had found himself caught in a 100m stretch of bulldust, no strange thing, he'd ridden through worse, and had battled it all the way through. When he got 5m from the end he thought 'Yeah, made it', which is when the front wheel dropped into a yawning hole concealed by the bulldust, and the Dakar went down with all hands before you could say:
Bugger.
A Wedgetail circles, waiting for Mang to stop moving
Unfortunately he came down not in the talcum-like bulldust, but on the hard crap after it. The butchers bill consists of one snapped mirror, another bent mirror, sundry cosmetic damage to the Dakar fairing, a dinged helmet, one lens of his sunnies gone, and worst of all, a very sore right arm.
Later the finest medical minds Gove had to offer would concurr that Mango broke his arm, although only just. We applied a cold pack, then strapped his wrist, and like a trooper Mang got back on the horse, and rode a further 60km or so, until we reached the Groyder river and could load the bike onto Thirsty.
So the two of us rolled into Gove on the great bike trip, me driving the cruiser with my bent bike in Darwin, and Mang riding shotgun with a broken wing and his Dakar strapped to the tray. Good times.We were met in Gove by Cassie and Darryl, who to be fair must have had a 'What tha' moment, and explained our 'issues'. They managed not to laugh at us, and instead lined up radio and paper interviews and a fundraising trip to the wet mess, in addition to the $2000 Alcan put up to sponsor our ride. The blokes at the wet mess all chipped in bringing our total for the Gove trip to $2282.40.... awesome.
Later whilst I was waiting outside the hospital Darryl pulled up next to Thirsty. I opened his door:
'Want some diesel?'
'&%!# yeah. '
Somehow he had flagged down a fuel truck, and proceeded to top up both tanks and the 44 on the back, which went a loooong way towards helping us cover our (unexpected) diesel bills... Champion!
L-R Dakar, Daz, Daz, Diesel Truck
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