Motorbike Across the Canning

When we were at the Three Ways Roadhouse in the Gulf of Carpenteria having a feed last September, I ran into a bloke who rode a motorbike along the full length of the Canning - and the only reason that he survived, was because he had a rule that he wouldn't go to sleep until he had a wee.

I noticed him ride in on a battered bike. We got to talking, and after a bit, David told me how he and his mate Ken had ridden their bikes along the Canning Stock Route (CSR). I was pretty surprised, because the CSR is hard going. It runs some 2,000 kilometres between the top right hand corner of Western Australia, and the lower left hand corner.

David Rooney (on a 600cc XT Yamaha Te-ne-re) and Ken Evans (on a Honda XR 500) started at Halls Creek, and headed south along the CSR to Meekatharra. It took them two weeks.

They were well prepared. They timed it so that their trip centred around the full Moon in October, 1987, so that if things got bad, they could drive out at night to either the east or the west. The drove in two shifts - from 3 AM to 11AM, and from 4 PM to 6 PM. In the middle of the day, they rested.

Each bike had 25 litres of petrol in the tank, and carried two 20 litre jerry cans as well. They used 60 of their precious 65 litres getting to Well 35. They had arranged for a 200 litre fuel drop at Well 35, but had to leave 80 litres behind.

They didn't carry an RFDS radio - there's not a lot of room on a motorbike. The cops at Halls Creek didn't want to know about them, anyway.

They each carried a total of 20 litres of water, in various containers. It wasn't a lot of water, but they filled up at the three or so wells that they passed each day. But they were drinking 25 litres per day. Riding a motor bike in sand is like jogging, because you're standing up all the time, so you work hard and get thirsty.

They ate Army rations (one Day Pack each day, $25 each) because they were nutritionally well balanced, and because they were not dehydrated. If they ran low on water, they didn't want to use it to hydrate food.

They wore compasses on their arms, and mounted strip maps of the CSR on the handle bars. And their lives were saved because of the rule that they had invented while riding across the Simpson Desert.

They'd noticed that even though sometimes they were actually quite thirsty, they didn't drink enough water. And so they made up a rule that they couldn't go to sleep, unless they had urinated. Your body will let you urinate, only if you are well hydrated.

It turned out to be a pretty rough trip. It was 43º at Alice Springs, and it had to be hotter than that in the Gibson Desert. It was so hot that the valves in the engine stuck.

Early on, on the third and fourth days, they got injured. Ken hit a termite mound with his right foot. When a four-wheel drive vehicle travels the CSR, it follows the wheel tracks, and only a few centimetres or so of mudguard actually projects outside the wheels. But on a motorbike, a lot of the motorbike and your feet project out on either side of the wheels. Ken took his shoe off that night, but his foot swelled up overnight, so he could hardly get his shoe back on the next morning. So he left his right shoe on for the rest of his trip. The next day, David broke three toes on his right foot, and he left his right shoe on for the next week.

A few days later, at the 11 AM stop, they arrived at an empty well. They had each drunk 15 litres of water, and had only 5 litres left. They didn't stop, and pushed onto the next well which was quite close, only about 20 km away.

They soon began to experience heat exhaustion. David described it as the feeling you get when you drink five rums really quickly. He was breathing very fast, felt dizzy, and was so uncoordinated that he kept on falling over. But because they were so irrational from the dehydration caused by the heat exhaustion, they just kept on riding and falling over, and riding and falling over, getting more injuries with each fall, and laughing hilariously at the fun of it all. They arrived at the next well (which had water) around midday.

''We decided we deserved a rest after that, so we didn't do the evening run''. So they lay down and rested, and drank. ''When you're buggered, you don't feel like drinking, but you know you have to''. They had a rule, so they kept on drinking water. Gradually their heads became clearer, and they realised what terrible shape they were in, and how close they had been to death. But they still hadn't urinated so they kept on drinking. And finally after sundown, around 8 PM, 8 hours after they had started resting and drinking, they finally urinated, so they went to sleep.

When they woke up the next morning, they realised how dehydrated and delirious they had been. If they hadn't drunk water until they had urinated, they could have easily died. They might have woken up the next morning still delirious (and not known it), and ridden and fallen and laughed until they died. Or they might have dehydrated even more during the night, and not have woken up in the morning.

When I was talking to David up at the Three Ways Roadhouse, at first I couldn't understand his rule of not going to bed until he urinated. But when I thought about it, I realised that it probably saved his life. David still rides motorbikes. But Ken Evans sold his motorbike after their trip, and has taken up rowing instead.

Copyright © Karl S. Kruszelnicki