Tropical Motorcycle Adventure Full Length

Motorcycle Adventure Dirt Bike TV is proudly supported by Adventure Spec in England, Rally Raid Products, Giant Loop in the United States and Adventure Motor in Australia. In this adventure Nugget has formed a crew of eight riders to take on the notorious Krebs Track in tropical north Queensland Australia. Six KTMs, a Husserberg and a lonely Yamaha 450 will take on the greasy steep hill climbs and descents of this challenging tropical jungle track. Deep long river crossings will test a rider's resolve to make it with the added incentive of the very real possibility of being eaten by a crocodile if the rider stalls halfway across. We've done this adventure the Chardonnay way, flying from Sydney to Cairns with Nugget's dad Ted the Legend trucking our bikes all the way. Following a little preparation we quickly head to our first challenge. This is our first croc infested ripper, it's not a great way to start. I'm normally nervous about drowning my bike but it seems to be playing second fiddle at the moment. Yeah well the crocs would be used to people crossing so. Hang on. That's a great idea mate. Thank you. I'll take credit for that. This tinny that I left here last year we're gonna take because I was a bit worried the water might be up a bit so I've left it here she's still anchored and well we're gonna send Nugget across and we'll see how we go. Nugget can I just shake your hand look mate it's nice knowing you considering that old blake got eaten the other day. I tell you he'll be poisoned if he eats me. Well there's our first cane toad and here's Rub-a-dub-dub. Oh he's put a cane toad in the boat. When the moon is the sky. For our international audience the other day a croc knocked two people out of a boat that big. What have we got ourselves into Sean? Oh they're not instilling me with confidence. We sent them out there to check the water and they're floating back to Cairns. They're going downstream. They've always been an item you know. I can see that. Help me. This is. Come on battle harder. Nugget you're going downstream and the problem is the crocs hang out on the banks. If we get anyone eaten. This is a problem we got here. It's a big crocodile slide mark. Right up. That's a decent slide mark. It goes over that way. Engine started. Oh god it's hitting the rocks. They'll end up. They got that on the ground. It's not deep. Yeah we've done a certain. There's no crocs. The boat's got no prop. Yeah we'll do some business after. Anyway my mechanical skills. I just did a few things and got it going. That's amazing. One piece. It's amazing knowing your mechanical skills that I'm just going across. I couldn't give a bloody stuff now. Here comes Fluke. As soon as you get your bum down you lose traction. Now what it is. I'll tell you what it is. Hang on. Go on Sean. Sean's a bit lighter than us so he might have. He's a bit lighter than us. He's getting carried with the water downstream. Lucky Phil. He's got to keep it on because. Is yours a carby? Yeah. Oh **** Phil. Anyone got any crocs attached to them? Anyone got any crocs attached to them? Nah. They're all good. A bit of a moment towards the end though. I jumped off the pegs because I thought I don't want this extra 99kg on the pegs. So yeah I didn't know if it was going to get deeper or shallower. So I rammed it. Yeah all good. Well you guys provided some excellent entertainment. In episode one I took you straight to the first river crossing to get you interested in the story. Now I'm going to wind back a little to make you aware that at the end of this video you'll find the guys discussing their bike setups. You'll also find that Nugget's first choice clearly had its shortcomings. You got the tank on? I just hope the creaks aren't too deep. I'm off the peg. That's actually the perfect size bike for you. I can touch the ground on this one at least. We made pretty good speed through the creme track. A little slippery at times but great traction with the tyre pressures around 10 to 12 psi. Although the water was crystal clear in the river crossings we all seemed to hit that hidden big girly just out of sight. A breakdown in the corner man system meant that for a short while we lost the rider and the finger pointing began. And then there were seven. And then there were seven. Fortunately this was quickly sorted with no surge parties. Look at the mud. Look at the leg. Nick we thought and then there was seven but you've come back. I'm back. I'm alive. How do you like the humidity? I'm not allowed to swear am I Dave? No that's PG. All right well that says it all. I can see off the bottom of your helmet there there's just sweat dripping off the bottom of your helmet just down here. Just there. There it goes. Look mate the reality is I'm from European stock. A good dose of Polish. A bit of German. Mate we don't come from Nugget led us to a very gnarly river crossing and this is where I observed for the first time what I call Day O. Otherwise known as deluded adventure optimism. When I think back I wonder how in the hell did we think we'd get across this one. Oh there's Filippo but like it's going to be really you need three or four on the bike. See we've got to get over this big rock here and then I think we're right Filippo. See there straight through there. I think that next bit we're all right. You're only knee deep at the moment. I think we're optimist if we think we can get across that. Look Filippo's he's six foot two and he's up to his nuts. You don't look too disappointed. You don't look too disappointed Nick. All right look mate you've got to be sensible about these things. Like logistically it's a two hour job to get the bikes across. Yeah. Well Nugget, leader. Well Filippo's six foot three and he's up to his nuts so that means I'm going to need a snorkel. In one adventure filled day we'd knocked over the Kreb track, got our crackers wet and had a few laughs but we wondered what Nugget had in store for us for the next three days. We were heading for the Lion's Den Hotel where Phil would embarrass us with his eastern suburbs behavior. Lion's Den Hotel. Don't do anything else to the lion. I don't Phil. Had to be Phil. Now Phil, we're you know fairly seasoned adventure riders and so what are you eating there? I'm having a lemon meringue. A lemon meringue? Yes. Okay. This is very eastern suburb. It is. This is extremely Bondi isn't it? Oh gosh. I'm riding a 350 and been at it for weeks, farcling, you know tinkering, getting all that giant loop stuff on there, GPS, tanks, you know all of all of that that doesn't cost anything at all. So no looking very very forward to it. Yeah so this is my new light enduro adventure mount. KTM 530 2011. Last of the Carbi. None of this fuel injected problems. Set up we've got a long range tank. This tank's only the 13 litre but we can get with the adventure gear and get easy 300k's out of that. Got the oil cooler on it to increase oil capacity. So overall I've got 1.9 litres of oil on board. Got the giant loop bags on the back. Just carry a little bit for the days. Adventure gearing. A little bit of a homemade windscreen on the front and I think for this ride she's going to be sweet. All right this is patented adventure fairing. Soon to be available on eBay. It's actually made out of a plastic bin and a non-80 yard LED bar light. Yeah I drowned the old girl. Swept away in a river in the big storms. Lost it down the river and yes I've got a new one now. 15 model KTM. We've gone up to the 500. Bit more pace to keep the boys off my tail and yeah so this will be its first big adventure. See how it goes. I've decided to stick with the 500 for adventure bike now. So yeah got the big tank on it. Big tank and a couple of giant loop panniers from the old one still. Running a 15 on the front. Didn't go to extremes. Most people know me. I don't mean too much. I'm a bit safer than that. But I have invested in a $15 mirror just to see who's catching me. Well done. Yeah and the gps because someone's got to know where we're going. Someone has. Yeah and Mark's going to give me a running lesson as we're driving how So basically the only thing you've done is um lamps will cover to make your ass soft. Yeah. And how big's the tank? The tank is um I'm actually not too sure. All right it's got a lot of litres. It's got a lot of litres. I think it's over 15 they're telling me. I got one of mum's Omo bottles. Two litres and that that will get me an extra 40 kilometers. I'm hoping on 20 20 kilometers per litre. So mum's Omo bottle. How about your mouth? Well mate after uh arduous nights in the garage and much money spent. I think she sorted out fingers crossed. We don't know the internals of the engine. But um starting from the front we got a mirror. All right that's a new addition. The steering All the suspension's been reworked. Long overdue. New springs in the front. Feels really good. Mate bit of luxury. The air hawk seat. All right. Um the panniers of course. We got bladders in the panniers. Um that's about it. It cost a lot of cash. A lot of time. Looking forward to this trip. So what model is it? What is it? It's a 2010 KTM 530 EXE. All right. Love the bike. You know ever so reliable. Let's hope it persists on this ride. Under your bike to do this adventure. I've had long range tank on the front. Sub tank on the rear. Rebuilt. Top end rebuild. Panniers. More bladders. Suspension. Lots. So I got 16 on the front. Got four on the rear. I can get another three in that. Okay. Are you thinking it's going to matter? Phil you're the only Yamaha rider in the team. What can I say? You need some someone with a reliable bike out there just in case they all break down. They're all KTMs. So have you done anything to your bike? Yes I have. Put a couple of big tanks on there. Anything else? And that's for single trail. You know how fuel efficient these bikes are. I noticed new tires. New tires. Yeah. Gearing 1549. So we'll see how that goes. Yep. And that's pretty much it. And a screwdriver to adjust the suspension on the way through. I'm noticing Mark's got a 350. Sean's got a 500. Nugget's got a 500. Are we over biked? I think I was a bit. We could have taken our Harley Davidson's I think. For that ride. I think we are over biked. I'm a bit concerned about our fairing when with the rainforest mud. Well the only thing that annoys me is the word rainforest is the word brain. And I think we'll be caught with this. Well this will go. Yeah. If really the track is getting too nasty. Because I mean with the fairing as it is we can't see anything. I mean we don't see our front the front wheel. So I'll remove that and yeah that should that should improve a bit. I mean the GPS will be a bit exposed but well that's the way it is I guess. We don't have really the choice. So here we go. There's no doubt about it. Nugget's tropical adventure in far north Queensland is jam-packed with river crossings. Fortunately they haven't as yet been jam-packed with man-eating crocodiles. In this episode Nugget leads us on a 350 kilometre trail deep into the never never. And it wasn't long before a rider cracked under the strain. That's excellent. But if we survive this one last river crossing we'll be out of croc country for the rest of the ride. And that suits me just fine. Morning Dave. What are you doing there? Nugget must be serious this time. He's giving me a bloody sat phone. So we don't often see that. It's the first time I've seen that from Nugget. So I don't know where we're heading. We're going remote. We're going remote. So the only thing is if I crash on the left hand side this could get tin tuna juice all over it. So I've got to note to self. Only crash after lunch. Only crash after lunch. Today we get into the serious crocodile country. Yeah we do. 100% remote. Not a townhouse. Not a community. Absolutely nothing. About 345 kilometres. So it's our biggest day and we're excited. And of course the weather's you know not exactly playing in our favour. And it's meant to get worse. So we'll see what happens. I need a couple extra today. So I got rid of the wife's washing liquid. And this will be my extra two litres that will save me today. Can I put another couple of cents in? No. No. You got enough fuel? You're gonna have fuel anxiety. I'm gonna have fuel anxiety because I just I always get concerned when you start to take me into a 300k ride with no servos. That's a concern. I want to tell you something. All you guys about the fuel anxiety. There is the beast. There she is. 600 kilometres range. And anyone who wants petrol out of that rear tank will be paying $30 a litre. I might just be your best friend. Yeah I thought you might. Okay we're leaving today from Cooktown. Heading up to Hope Vale. Here Teddy's going to bail out. He'll come across and back down to Laura where we stay tonight. But we continue on up north here to close to Cape Melville but not quite all that way. Across the top and back down to Laura. We've quite a few rivers coming in through the top here and a lot of rain today. Nugget what do you reckon? A few locals have been saying it's a bit dodgy, a bit deep, a few crops but cross that bridge when we get to it. Not worth worrying about yet. Cross that bridge when we get to it. Yeah I wish there was a bridge. There's no effing bridge Nugget. This is really helpful to us. A local's come from the north where we're heading. Nugget's just getting a debrief to see if we can make it over the creek. Nick what's going on? The word is it sounds a bit ominous in front. River crossings seem to be apparently too deep. Let's find out shortly. We've come to a bit of a dead end but it's not going to make it. Yeah don't, that's not a positive attitude Philippe. I reckon we can make it. Yeah I reckon we can go through there. Here he goes. I'll help you. What are we getting ourselves into? You know when I'm nesting, he gets to get we're too close. Oh Jesus. get through and the other blokes said yeah mate no worries. So one of them told Porky. Where are we Philippe? Well right in the middle of nowhere but right in the middle. Well in a minute there's a croc coming upstream. Oh yum yum yum yeah eat that cowshit that's excellent. Walking down the position bare feet where everyone thinks the same. And I don't think I can walk these roads anymore and now I'm walking down the position bare feet where everyone thinks the same. In my mind I'm just going to a place I've been before so kick me out. So it looks like that's a mechanical difficulty so I'm looking forward to hearing what this is. Oh excellent. I looked down and I just couldn't see anything and then when it happened I realized because it's camouflage and it's an army issue. And it was in the sprocket. All the way from Nam. This is heaven! Such a huge landscape. The great thing about these ants nests that they line up north south and I don't need the GPS. Why not? We're heading west and that's good for me we've done enough north. Oh won't you take me higher won't you take me higher won't you take me higher won't you take me higher won't you take me higher won't you take me higher I think I can walk these roads walking down the position bare feet where everyone thinks the same. In my mind I'm just going to a place I've been before. What do you reckon of that one Sean? Well I was just thinking Philippe and Nugget they should get that boat over on the other side. There's a few of them there. Oh they don't know it yet the boys don't know it but there's a recent croc sighting here. I'll let I'll tell them that when they come through. I still don't understand I think the crocodiles can speak German. Ask the boys they've seen heaps. Hey boys have you seen any crocs down here? Where at? What's the biggest one you've seen? 12 or 14 foot. This place smells like wild animals. All the motorbike gear. Day three in tropical north Queensland and I tell you what we stink. In this episode we move away from crocodile territory and into the hinterland of far north Queensland and are rewarded with the best track of the adventure. But fuel challenges continued for Phil and Mark was reluctantly forced into an unnatural act on Phil's bike to keep him going. Nugget bites off more than he can chew. Sean goes mining. And very weirdly we accidentally discover that Nugget and Nugget's dad Ted share something in common with Kylie Minogue. Laura consists of a telephone tower, a general store, a pub and a motel. Who's that buddy? Batman in a cape. You know it's a big day. Can you see those bottles of lemonade down there? We had 200 mil of rain last night to the south. The road Ted come across on battle camp road was two foot deep and uh this morning it's now two meters under. Crumps. I wonder how we're gonna go today. Yeah good luck. We've come to a bit of a dilemma because uh we're going into Tyconal Mine and there's no um fuel there so uh. How far is that away? It's, I don't really know because we can't work it out. About 260. That's the electronical man and from there it's about another 120 through the back track but as you can see the rain is just astronomical. Severe storms come through and so the truck might be able to get through the creek crossings so up the banks so um I don't want to risk the old man going through there so he's gonna have to go around the easier way. So yeah we thought about going through to Jimbula but there's no accommodation that we can find there at the moment so looks like we might be either carrying coke bottles full of fuel or uh Plan B. So Phil, how are you feeling? I'm going with Teddy. He's going to take Plan B. Tow cable with him. He's going to take a tow cable. Someone can tow him. All right looks like we've got to put Plan B in the place then boys. Everyone happy for Plan B? Yeah what's your Plan B? Before I sign. There is no Plan B. Day three in tropical rainforest sweating your asses off. My god we stink. Oh it's horrid. It's horrid. Isn't it? I got a fresh pair of socks on today. I treated myself all right because the other ones they had a life of it. So well we're well and truly away from Laura now. This is a brilliant trail Nugget's taken us on. I've had the great privilege of riding all over Australia on the best adventure trails this country has to offer. And this trail is up there with the best. The varied conditions, surfaces, challenges and scenery. It's got the lot. Oh last one to come through. Oh that's a good track. Well done. Where the ****'s my helmet? I need my helmet. Bill's lost his helmet. Hey Bill. There's something on my foot. Dave, please tell me who that was. No. You're a nicer bloke than me because I would have flipped it down the hill. Shaun, please Shaun. How good is that view? Look at that. How good is that view? I want to build my house right here. What a view. Nugget, we may have bitten off more than we can chew. That looks to be flowing mighty fast. It's nice knowing you. Discretion's the better part of valour. That's fast. We might need two to take a bike across. The weir crossing cracked me up. Here we have hairy ass adventure riders awkwardly and carefully tiptoeing across the water and the local kids are running around us and having a swim with their dog. Bloody unbelievable. What do you reckon boys? Pretty good? I reckon you could ride it Nugget. Yeah go and ride it on one wheel. What's this Nugget? This is Mount Mulligan. It's Australia's biggest mining accident. 75 men died when the mine exploded. Yeah, it was a tragedy. 56 orphans were left. The day the devil wept. Fuel shortages on rides like this bring out the best and worst in adventurers and make them do things they naturally wouldn't do. Phil's run out of fuel for about the 20th time today. I've given him two litres. I've got nothing left myself. He's got issues with his rear tank. So he's going to siphon that off and I'm just going to speed things up a bit. Resuscitation of a Yamaha. And the KTM mothership comes into play. Saves another motorbike. This time it was the Berg. A close relative of the KTM. No assistance the Yamaha though. Hang on there might be some assistance from the Yamaha. No no I'm not giving any assistance to Yamaha. I just put two litres in I'm good. I could have given it to Ben but I gave it to myself. I can understand why Phil keeps running out of fuel but for some reason he's hoarded all this fuel in the back all day. He's scabbing fuel off everyone else. Phil is a greedy shipman. He's got so much left he's actually offering it to other people. It's our final day and I hate to say it's a really kind of yuppie adventure thing to say but we've got planes to catch and you know it's hardly life-threatening but we seem to be displaced. I won't say lost. What do you reckon Phil are we lost or displaced? No no we're lost. Lost okay. I'm just saying now we've got a flight this afternoon. I take no responsibility for anyone's flight. A very big thanks to Tom Richardson a young and talented Australian musician who has given me permission for me to broadcast his great music that matches perfectly with adventure riding. Oh and I almost forgot Kylie Minogue and her partner shared a double bed with Nugget and Ted. Well to be more accurate they stayed in the same room as the famous couple. On Kylie's most recent return to Australia she flew into far northern Queensland hinterland for some quiet time away from the hectic pace of the entertainment world. We hope our tropical motorcycle adventure series has motivated you to get off your backsides get away from work and get out and explore this wonderful world that is not nearly as dangerous as what television news would make you believe.