Day 14 - Jimbalakudunj to Kununurra - 771 kms

Another long day on the road trying to catch up for my past mistakes led me deeper into less habited portions of NE Western Australia. Now I know Texas is big but Western Australia is massive! I've checked and 11 days of solid riding and I'm still in the same state. At least tomorrow I'll make it to the Northern Territory and I'll get to see some different licence plates as I glide by on the washboard roads.

To break up the monotony of the bitumen (asphalt in American) I left the main road to see an art gallery at the Yallarri Aboriginal Community. After terrorising 5 kms of dirt after riding street for way to long I arrived at the village. I probably should have been paying more attentions to the signs and I wasn't quite sure where I was so I parked and started walking around. The first building I walked into was an Aboriginal school in session and they looked pretty shocked to see a random white guy in motorcycle gear walk into their classroom. The next building I walked into was the library followed by the artists studio where I was promptly ejected in a language I later found out was the local dialect by a sign outside of the school. Luckily then I was directed to the actual studio where there was an excellent selection of the art from the Kimberly area. At that point I realised it probably wasn't the appropriate time for art shopping as I was on a motorcycle and the paintings probably wouldn't survive my riding style.

The rest of the day was riding through the southern portion of the Kimberly Ranges which are very similar in appearance to the book cliffs except with a lot more rock. The birds got more noisy and colourful as I continued north and I ended up in the complete dark at 5:30PM in Kununurra, WA. This state is so big that the time zones are messed up and it gets dark in the mid afternoon. I pulled into a gas station to fuel up in Kununurra and was immediately attacked by tiny black flies that left large welts and the guy inside made me feel like having a locked door between us. (See photo) At this point I decided I had had a rough few days and I deserved a hotel room. I found a nice little place in town and as I'm laying in my nice soft bed looking at my swag sitting on the floor I feel like saying "Sorry baby, you knew this wasn't a long term thing"