The Madigan Line

This entry is part 16 of 21 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #13

In 2010, the Motorbikin’ Team pulled off the first recorded crossing of the Madigan Line from Mount Dare to the Hay River. In 2015, the team took a shot at the whole shebang, almost 800km from Mount Dare to Birdsville. Phil Hodgens has the story.

Six Safari-tanked adventure bikes rested easy on their sidestands in the darkness as the smell of fresh-baked bread rose from the bakery and drifted across the sleeping outback town of Birdsville. Inside, six nervous riders clutched steaming mugs of coffee as Dusty, the Birdsville baker, loaded loaves into the racks.

“You’ve been here a while Dusty, any desert advice for us?” asked one nervous rider.“Stay the f#$% out of it. It’s a dangerous place,” he replied deadpan, holding a tray of sesame seed buns to his chest.Our fate was sealed. We mounted up and rode off into the grey dawn.

Brake down

Our six-man team was made up of Vince, Brian and Steve on DR650s, Mario and me on DRZ400s and our solicitor, Bob, on a lone WR450F.

When you ride with the Motorbikin’ Team, it pays to take your solicitor.

The show ground to a halt 10km out of town when the bolts securing Bob’s front brake made a desperate bid for freedom, launching the caliper into his spokes.

His ride could easily have ended there, but the brakeline survived unscathed, and with a couple of M8 bolts from the tool bag, we were back on track.

Fork’s sake!

We had a rendezvous planned with our mate Easo on the far side of The Simpson, and with 1100 dunes between us we were going to have to rattle our dags to make it in before dark. We fell into formation with Vince and Mario up front, Bob and Brian in the middle and Steve and I bringing up the rear. Each settled into a steady, distance-eating rhythm, powering up the steep eastern slopes of the dunes, braking at the top, then powering on down the western slope as a plume of roost rose from the rear wheel.

We crossed the salty crust of Lake Poeppel mid-morning and attacked the dunes of death that stretch west to Knolls Junction. Suspension increased proportionally as fuel loads decreased and we were able to click higher gears as we pushed west on the French Line, tossing glorious red roosts behind us as we counted down the dunes, crest by crest.

By Colson Junction we’d been on the go for almost eight hours straight, and while the bikes were still on song, the riders were showing signs of fatigue.

Bike imprints in the red sand with footprints all around told the tale of crashes up front and we breathed a sigh of relief when the rutted clay at Purnie Bore let us click into top gear.

My DRZ went onto reserve not long after, then coughed and died as the 30-litre Safari tank ran dry and I waved Steve on as I topped her up from a 10 litre bladder.

We neared Dalhousie at that awkward time of day when it’s not quite light enough to see but not quite dark enough for the lights to work.

“Hmm, that looks like a witch’s hat.” I mumbled curiously to myself a second before the track disappeared beneath the 400’s wheels.

Time slowed as the bike-swallowing chasm passed beneath me and I pondered idly what the hospital food in Alice Springs would be like at this time of year. The forks compressed as the front wheel impacted the other side of the washaway and the rear wheel followed with barely a quiver.

“Good forks on these 400s,” I marvelled.

“I wonder what’s for tea.”

Social climber

With no spare clothes, we nuded up and leapt into Dalhousie Hot Springs.

Small piranha-like guppies patrol these waters and the yelps of pain rent the air as they zeroed in on our night tools, and then things got serious when a gaggle of grey-nomad ladies cornered us in the steamy waters.

“Ah, ladies…” Vince cleared his throat.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but we need to get out and we’re not wearing anything.”

“Well I can’t swim so I’m not letting go of this ladder,” their leader replied. “You can climb up past me. I won’t mind if anything brushes against me,” she beamed.

It was checkmate to the grey nomads.

Birthday suit

It was Vince’s 62nd birthday and our mate Easo had made him a birthday cake for the occasion. Anyone who’s seen Easo in our Motorbikin’ DVDs will know he runs on a different wavelength to most folk, so nobody was terribly surprised when he dressed in a full-leather gimp suit to deliver the cake.

Vince is in pretty good shape for his model number and he’s shining proof that riding DRs is good for your health. I hope I’m still riding big red dunes at 62.

Bored

We rose with the sun and saddled up for Mount Dare where things would start to get serious. We had almost 800km in front of us for the return run and no real idea of conditions.

The Madigan Line only sees one to two parties of vehicles per year and the track can vary from faint to completely non-existent. We took on around 65 litres of fuel each between our Safari tanks and a collection of fuel bladders, and 20 litres of water in MSR bladders.

We were expecting an easy transport north up Binns Track, but instead we hit bulldust and the heavy bikes handled like wheelbarrows full of walruses. By the time we racked up the 160km to Mac Clarke morale was low, but we’d burnt almost 10 kilos of fuel. When the going gets tough on an overloaded bike, it’s important to remember the further you go, the lighter it gets.

Dave from Mount Dare had given us a mud map to get us from Mac Clarke east through the maze of station tracks to Madigan’s first campsite, but nothing seemed to match up and we rode around in circles, all the while burning precious fuel. In the end we abandoned the map and took a bearing for East Bore. It paid off as we pulled up at the abandoned windmill in failing light.

Swag men

Madigan’s first camp lay a few kilometres to the north, marked by a steel post and a small plaque. Cecil Madigan pioneered the route on foot with a team of camels in 1939 and his camps were spaced 20km to 30km apart, which was pretty good going on foot.

His next three camps lay in Aboriginal land and were off limits, so we pushed east for the Colson Track through low, rocky breakaways. Marshall Bluff rose from the glowing red gibber plains right on sunset, and with plenty of firewood on offer, it was too good a campsite to pass up.

We weren’t long out of the swags and I lay back listening to my snoring mates. Bob started up first with a mellow tune as the sounds of Edelweiss resonated from his nasal passages. Meanwhile Big Brian had launched into full-on Jimmy Barnes as his thunderous snorts rented the desert air and threatened to start a rockslide up on Marshall Bluff.

“Does your missus ever complain about your snoring?” I asked timidly the next morning.

“Sometimes,” he shrugged. “I just tell her as far as I know, they’re still makin’ husbands.”

Dave’s mud map delivered gold as we followed it northeast toward the Colson Track on an old shot line.

DR650 versus DRZ400

The DR650 ran a D606 rear and a Geo Max front with ultra-heavy-duty tubes, and despite running cross country, we didn’t get a single flat. The Jebtech fuel pods coupled with a Safari tank up front gave it over 50 litres of fuel, all plumbed into the carb with vacuum pumps.

Brian crash tested the Jebtech fairing extensively and gave it two thumbs up as a tough bit of gear. Head to www.jebtech.com.au for more info.

The DRZ400 ran the same rubber with no problems and a 30-litre Safari tank up front coupled with fuel bladders in custom canvas slings we borrowed off our mate Joe Morgan. A Stainey pipe gave the 400 a bit more punch.

Both bikes ran Pivot Pegz and MSC steering dampers with B&B bashplates to complete the picture, making them pretty much all-Australian made.

The suspension on the 400 made it our choice in the tougher going of the Madigan and we had it pegged as the best bike until we hit the road into Birdsville and the 650s left it in a cloud of dust!

Australia is a big country and the mile-eating ability of the 650 makes it the king of versatility.

That said, there’s a lot to be said for the light weight and nimble handling of the 400, and if the mere thought of lifting a loaded DR650 makes a blood-fart bubble in your undies, then the 400 is the bike for you.

Vince Strang Motorcycles can set both bikes up as mild or wild as you like.

Relief

Rusting remains littered the gibber plains and were a reminder of the drilling rigs that had ventured into this wasteland in search of oil and gas. The track was overgrown but had weathered the years well and we covered the 40km or so to the Colson in an hour.

By comparison, it had taken us over a day on our previous attempt, thrashing cross-country through the sand moguls.

Camp Five lay just a few kilometres up the Colson and we ticked it off and roosted east over a massive dune, following the pink line on the GPS to Camp Six. The sand of the northern Simpson is a different colour and texture to the dunes of the French Line in the south. It’s a deep, blood red that burns like a fire as the sun inches closer to the horizon.

We made steady progress eastward, pausing at each of Madigan’s camps to rest and transfer fuel from bladders into the main tanks.

We stopped to check the visitors’ book at Camp 10, and in the five years since we’d last passed this way, only one other motorcycle had been through; a lone 640 heading west from the Hay River.

Only two or three parties of cars had been through each year over the last decade and the sheer scale of what we were undertaking began to sink in to the team. No other motorcycles had ever attempted an entire Madigan Crossing from Mount Dare to Birdsville. We were about to set a record.

Madigan had left Camp 10 in low spirits with his men exhausted and their camels in bad shape. They travelled less than three kilometres and crested a dune to find a swale rich with grazing for the camels and so decided to call it a day. We knew exactly how they felt as we roosted east, and when Vince pointed to a cleared area with plenty of firewood, the team breathed a sigh of relief as we kicked out our sidestands and unpacked our swags.

Sign off

With an early start we made the Hay River Track by mid-morning and pulled up at Camp 16 where Madigan had blazed a tree nearly 75 years ago. The tree still stands but the blaze has long since grown over. Vandals had defaced a plaque commemorating the tree and we shook our heads at their senseless actions. It just goes to show that even the most remote places in Australia are not free from cockheads.

By that stage we’d burnt over half our fuel and water load and the bikes were around 40kg lighter and starting to handle again. We had our sights set on a beer at Birdsville, but the Madigan Line had other ideas.

Slow going

The second leg of the Madigan had only recently been opened and was an unknown to us…as it turned out, it was the toughest leg of the line.

As the line arced south for Birdsville the sand turned from blood red to a paler shade and became soft and fine. The track was difficult to spot so we abandoned it and spread out, following the pink line on the GPS.

By midday we were starting to overheat with the high temperatures and slow going, and when Bob’s WR developed a fuel leak it was a relief to pull over in the shade of some gidgee to fix it. We were on the move again in an hour but it was obvious we weren’t going to make Birdsville, and when Vince suggested we make an early camp on a clay pan near Camp 18, we weren’t about to argue.

The final leg

We hit more clay pans the next morning and held the bikes flat as we skimmed across the salt flats. The salt must’ve been verging on radioactive as it began to attack all metal surfaces within hours.

Camp 20 was marked on the banks of the dry Muncoonie Lake and we turned and headed south, following a massive dry channel that drained floodwater to Lake Eyre in the wet.

The ruins of old Annandale Station marked the site for Camp 21 and a tragedy of the outback.

Locals don’t talk much about it, but the husband was forced to head out in search of work during a drought, leaving his wife and two children behind. When they ran out of water, she made the tough decision to poison them all to save a slow and painful death by thirst. The two children died, but she survived and was found wandering in the dunes nearby. Crosses made of weathered timber and wire mark the graves beside the ruins as the dunes gradually reclaim what was once theirs.

Camps 23 and 24 are on private property and out of bounds, so we headed south between the dunes to the QAA Line and back over Big Red to Birdsville where the final plaque for Camp 25 is nailed to the bar at the pub.

I reckon you know what happened next.

Want to check out the full story? Head to www.motorbikin.com.au and grab a copy of the DVD!

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