That's about 490 kms, so we said screw that, let's take this "Ivanhoe Menindee Road", 206kms, how hard can it be right? It turns out there is a reason the GPS tells you to go via Wilcannia my fellow travelers.....
Ivanhoe Menindee Road is actually a pretty good road, the problem is the sand, especially the first 70kms out of Menindee. We hit the track travelling at about 90kph, which felt perfectly safe on the firm road surface. About 2kms down the road we hit the first section of deep sand, and that was a very sobering experience. Now I've done a bit of sand riding on my dirt bike, and it was a ton of fun, but on a 210kg bike, carrying around 30kgs of tent, sleeping gear, tools and extra fuel, it become something else entirely. Yes yes I know, weight over the back of the bike, keep the power on, stay on the pegs, all very easy on a 120kg dirt bike, but on the GS800, this was damn hard work.
Chris took a rather nasty spill after about 30kms, it really knocked the wind out of him and gave us both a bit of a scare. Thankfully there were no serious injuries to Chris but the bike took a fair pounding, and I am VERY glad I decided to travel together.
After that, the pace slowed right down. According to the GPS logs it took us about 4 hours to travel just over 200 kilometers from Menindee to Ivanhoe, including a 40 minute stop after the little fender bender. Even though we had a bit of a mishap, I still LOVED that track, it's everything I expected the outback to be, and taught me a lot about how to prepare for my next trip.
After that ride the accomodation in Ivanhoe looked fantastic!
Goodnight Ivanhoe, see you in the morning!
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