Australian Outback
AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK
In Both Prospecting And Sheepherding, The Outback Tests A Motorcycle's Versatility.
New uses have been found for motor-cycles in Australia’s vast outback, where sheep roam over millions of acres and prospectors probe arid wastes for mineral riches.
White and Aboriginal cowboys— Australians call them stockmen—ride small and medium capacity motorcycles mustering stock. And few of the prospectors in the nickel rush that has gripped outback Australia like the gold fever of the 1850s and 1890s arc without two-wheeled transport.
Some use roughly converted British tourers, but the most common machines are Japanese —Hondas, Yamahas, Suzukis— with the special outback BSA. the Bushman, and a few CZs thrown in. Most Japanese makers offer special machines for the job, which are fitted with knobby tires, lowered gearing, crankcase guards and have high ground clearance.
One company even runs a motorcycle rental service for prospectors in the nickel and gold rich Kalgoorlie area of Western Australia.
Australia’s first big nickel find at Kambalda, Western Australia, was made by a prospector who traveled with his dog on the tank of his Honda. Now most prospectors carry motorcycles on special brackets on their pickup trucks or four-wheel-drive units.
Only recently has there been a swing to motorcycles for prospecting. In the gold rush days prospectors used camels, and the streets of some outback towns were built extremely wide to allow camel teams to be turned. Then for many years only a few prospectors wandered the outback of Western Australia seeking riches. Most did not find them.
In the middle and latter 1960s a younger breed of men came seeking nickel and iron. With them they brought
modern equipment, and part of that equipment was the motorcycle.
After a recent ban on claim pegging in mineral hungry Western Australia, dozens of motorcycles were ready to rush into the field when the ban was lifted. The hire company offering machines at $5 a day could not meet the demand.
According to Australian mining law, claims must be marked with shallow trenches at specified distances along their boundaries. Some prospectors take compass bearings along boundary lines and then ride them on motorcycles, using the speedometer as a rough guide for spacing the trenches. Later they are properly surveyed, but the motorcycle is important in the initial rush for claims.
In some prospecting country that which is often scrub-covered ground of a mixture of fine sand, rocks and grass tussocks the motorcycle is the only alternative to walking. They are a valuable safety precaution too. If a fourwheel-drive transport breaks down in the outback where 1 00-degree-plus temperatures kill a couple men each year, the motorcycle is often the only means of contact with civilization.
Most of the big prospecting groups have a fleet of half-a-dozen motorcycles. The usual plan of operation is for a prospecting team to carry one or two bikes on the back of their four-wheel transport. After they have made camp, the prospectors move out on the motorcycles, which prove their advantage because they can trickle along at only a few miles an hour, thus allowing the men to study the ground formations almost as though they were walking over the area. Also, the machines are so light they can be lifted over those rock obstacles which would stop a four-
wheeled vehicle.
Usually the motorcycles go about 1 5-20 miles from the base camp, and if they find a better area, the camp is moved there and the process goes on.
Because they often push through thick bush country, some riders fit a steel tube guard running from the handlebar ends and parallel with the bar shape to hold branches off their hands.
Outback farmers have used motorcycles for station work since the first World War. Belt-drive Nortons, HarleyDavidsons and Indians were popular for this work and later machines were also converted. But these bikes were heavy and cumbersome and their low ground clearance made rough country riding a very dicey proposition. So when the Japanese bike invasion began, and lightweight, reliable trail-type machines hit the market, the station owners began to switch over.
Now many of them have four or six motorcycles on their properties. Dealers are loath to reveal their sales figures, and because the bikes are not licensed no official figures are available.
But the sales are big enough to justify Perth (Western Australia) Yamaha dealer Ken George’s organizing riding instruction schools in desolate outback country.
There is also a sales tax concession on machines used for station work. If the bikes meet specified regulations, are not more than 250cc, and are obviously for station work only, their buyers pay no sales tax.
Many of the biggest stations are in
the biggest state.....Western Australia.
They are measured not in acres, but in square miles. On these properties motorcycles are used for everyday work in the kind of country U.S. enthusiasts would think twice about using for enduros.
Sheep are run in huge paddocks and musterings, for shearings used to take weeks, with stockmen camping in the
open. Now they take a matter of days with stockmen using walkie-talkies for contact with aircraft which spot the sheep and call in the motorcycles.
Once only aircraft were used, but the sheep became used to their noise and would not respond. When they did move they rapidly tired. With motorcycles there are no such worries.
They are used for other jobs as well.
All the tasks once done on horseback have been taken over by motorcycles. Boundary riding to check fences, windmill maintenance work, spot-disease control are all done with the help of motorcycles.
Ken George made a huge survey of the northwest part of Western Australia by truck in 1967. He took along two bikes to demonstrate and came back convinced the area could not be adequately serviced by road. Every year since then he has sent out three or four aerial schools a year.
The well planned trips to the northj west are made for ten days at a time. Top maintenance men fly north in a I chartered aircraft and take two machines with them. They spend a full day j giving instruction, mainly mechanical, and some riding training to Aboriginal stockmen. Then they move on to the next station early the following morning.
Flying parts to these far-flung stations is an art in itself. Regular commercial flights, mail flights, and an intimate j knowledge of who might be driving j where at what time are all used to ensure the least possible delay in repairing machines.
Whether used for prospecting or station work the motorcycles all have one j thing in common - they owe more than a little of their ability and success to the makers’ experience in trials or scrambles competition. Now what was that 1 heard somebody muttering about competition improving the breed?
