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If you are looking for an excuse for an adventure ride in WA why not be part of the second Desert Raid at Neale Junction on Saturday 4 June 2011. Over 70 adventure riders gathered at the inaugural Desert Raid in 2009 at Carnegie Stn and many had tall tails of their adventures to or from there. Eight hardy soles from places other than WA made the trek... we would love to see more this year. Search ride reports (in Advrider) for some good reports from 2009 and one RR done as a reccy for 2011. Unlike Carnegie, there's no 'soft' way to get to Neale Junction. Will there be sand? Absolutely!

Where is Neale Junction?
It's the junction of Anne Beadell Hwy (east-west) and Connie Sue Hwy (north-south). It's approx 370km east of Laverton and approx 310kms south of Warburton and is on the western edge of the Great Victoria Desert. There is NOTHING at Neale Junction... it is only a road junction. I haven't specifically researched this point, but I'm guessing you'll need permits to use either of the tracks leading there.

GPS: 28°18'10.13"S __ 125°49'3.03"E

What happens when you get there?
It's an overnight social gathering, but you need to bring everything you need. Meet other adventure riders, tell lies about how tough the trip was etc etc, camp for the night, then have another adventure trip heading home.

Here's a map to give everyone an overview of the area. (map courtesy Hema - Great Desert Tracks, South West Sheet). Just repeating from above - Connie Sue Hwy runs north/south thru NJ and the Anne Beadell Hwy runs east/west thru NJ

1 Neale Junction
2 Laverton (fuel)
3 Tjukayirla (fuel)
4 Warburton (fuel)
5 Warakurna, aka Giles (fuel)
6 Wingellina, 11kms from Surveyor General's Corner (fuel -- ph 08-8956-7566 to confirm availability & hours)
7 Ilkurlka (fuel -- ph 08-9037-1147 to confirm availability & hours)
8 Tjuntjunjarra (closed community ph 08-9037-1100 - fuel?)

Distances (according to the Hema map)
NJ [1] to Laverton [2] - 373km
NJ [1] to Tjukayirla [3] (via Pt Sunday Rd) - 346km
NJ [1] to Warburton [4] - 311km
NJ [1] to Ilkurlka [7] - 172km
Wingellina [6] to Ilkurlka [7] - approx 325km (permit may be hard to get)
Warakurna [5] to Wingellina [6] - 161km
Warakurna [5] to Warburton [4] - 230km
Warburton [4] to Tjukayirla [3] - 249km
Tjukayirla [3] to Laverton [2] - 311km

Hope this helps...

Youtube vid done by one of the faithful (no DR content though)

DR Content...

Taken somewhere not too far from Neale Jcn... shamelessly pinched from HillBilly from Advrider

...just to prove there is nothing there

I'd love to go but other more pressing commitments must prevail.

If I had the money I'd farkle the bike with a bigger tank and luggage and ride from Melbourne, but I'm too poor.

Cheers.

BTW - the DR will love you forever if you clothe it with a bigger tank and luggage . The bush beckons

Might have to wait to next year though. I'll slowly farkle the bike with luggage, tank and procycle gel foam and maybe even work on the suspension a bit, put some expensive dualy tires on her, carry a spare rear tyre, should be good.

I'm no good at ride reports (don't stop to take photo's) so here is a summary of my Desert Raid. Sorry if there's too many words, I tried to keep it brief.

Dren & I left Perth on Thurs 2 June at 8am with the forecast being "clearing isolated showers". That gave us hope. Turned out to be short lived because by early afternoon we had stopped to put the WWG gear on. And wore the WWG for most of the next 4 days!

Bitumen till Bullfinch (approx 300kms) then it was dirt pretty much all the way to Neale Junction (NJ). Gotta love local humour.


I got one of those zip-top 6 can insulated soft cooler bags, put in a zip-lock bag as a liner and filled it with 4 cans and ice. At 7am I packed it my tank pannier (which I sling over the seat, not the tank). It was mild weather 20c (65f) all day but this is what I had at 6pm - winner


Day 2 was pretty uneventful riding as we soldiered on to the edge of the desert and the beginning of our epic. Our attention was taken up by the constant on/off drizzle and the darker clouds on the horizon we were heading towards. Saw some interesting outfits heading to NJ as well (they never made it).




Day 3 - 14 hrs of offroad riding, ~4hrs of it in the dark .

Early on, we came across this. Everyone had guns and knives except us 2 nancy DR riders so we were very polite and got going .


Later on we met up with 3 riders we had bumped into on the previous day. Turns out we had the same route planned (the Long Way Round, instead of the direct way) so we became a tour de force of 5.



It was from here that things got interesting. Sorry no pics of this bit. We headed up a track each of us independently (prior to the trip) had plotted into our (4) GPS's. The track seemed to be more 'used' than what I had seen in google earth but I didn't pay much attention to it. Was having fun and enjoying the company. Just before dark we came across a drillers temporary camp (geo survey drilling for mining companies). We were told to keep going NE on the track we were on. OK, too easy. Started out well used but after approx 10kms there was a fork. The well used track headed NW, the less used track was NE - the direction we need to head. NE it was. Mmmm... no-one has been on this for a while, maybe years . No worries, we got the right machines, push on.

25kms later (it was dark now) and the track came to a dead stop. Group chat. We must have missed a turn in the fading light. No choice but to go back. It hadn't stopped drizzling all day; never saw a patch of blue sky let alone seeing the sun. Tinted visor on my helmet, so i had to leave that up; fine misting rain was a real vision blocker on my clear safety glasses and riding tail end charlie meant the track (actually, sand) was occasionally chopped from close calls by the guys ahead (very understandable and I was having my own 'excursions' too).

It took us over an hour to ride the 35kms back to the drillers camp. Spoke to some else who volunteered to escort us back up the track to the turn-off we had missed - twice! 5kms and he stops and points the way. We could have rode past 100 times and still missed it. You see, the barely visible track on google earth was exactly that, barely visible. The trouble was, the drillers had come through and graded their own tracks. And for the first big stretch (from where we met up with the other 3 riders), the drillers need for a track had coincided with the existing 'barely visible' track... so the drillers graded it. Wonderful. Except, when their needs went off in a different direction, they didn't put any kind of marker at the deviation. So when you add that situation to the matrix of other drillers tracks (dead straight, we sussed them out easy) it's almost inevitable you're gunna miss the right track.

Anyway, we were on the right track now and had over 150kms of 2nd & 3rd gear unused bush track riding to do, in the rain and the dark. Just 3 hours later (~10pm) we reached NJ. Got a huge welcome from the other intrepid riders who had come the direct way (an adventure for them all by itself).

Day 4. The group photo on the next morning. Apparently nearly 50 riders set out for NJ, only 16 made it. The relentless tough, sandy kms and the weather took its toll on those who didn't make it.


The guy who rode the 1150GSA had a spill early. He suffered compound fractures in his left hand and 2 cracked ribs. He rode that fully loaded pig 370kms along the corrugated, sandiest and some of the toughest riding I've experienced... and not one complaint came out of his mouth. Robin, you're an absolute legend . I rarely use that term; those of us who witnessed his ride out of NJ regard him as the toughest dude on a bike we know, nothing less than that.

170kms out of NJ was this isolated outstation hut on the former Lake Yeo homestead. We had a break in the weather, so we stopped here for a breather and lunch.


We continued on the Laverton and stayed there for the night. Had a steak meal and a few beers. Heavy rain had set in.

Day 5. Woke up to steady rain and with the dirt roads closed in every direction, we had no choice to slab it west towards home. We decided to suck it up and ride the whole 950kms home in one day. The sun greeted us around 2pm which was a very welcome change. Got home around 9pm totally stuffed but extremely satisfied. We had 3000kms with approx 700kms of the hardest riding I've ever done (for you aussies, I have ridden the Gunbarrel and that was a breeze compared to this). The DR performed faultlessly. The only casualty was my Airhawk which got spiked by one of the 1000 thorny bushes that lined the track on our day 3 epic. I am absolutely stoked with my choice of bike and I am seriously considering selling my GSA now. The DR is doing EVERYTHING I want out an adv bike.

Thanks to Dren for the great company (as always) and also to Ross (KTM950), John (DR650) and Steve (KTM640A)... good riders.

I've been asked about fuel economy (FCR carb) so here's some numbers. They all relate to a fully loaded bike which at times was carrying 8 litres of spare fuel and 10 litres of water in addition to food for 5 days.
Highway riding at 100kmh - approx 6lt/100kmh (I'll edit this when I find my scribble notes)
Hard packed dirt roads at ~85kmh - 5.3lt/100kmh
Sandy, muddy tracks - 2nd & 3rd gear - estimated 4.8lt/100kmh (reasonably close estimate; rode conservatively to give greatest fuel range)
Highway riding at 110kmh - ~7lt/100kmh

Very nice! One of these days I gotta go on a big adventure ride. Will probably do it at the end of the year when the university holidays are on and the weather is nice.