Pioneers spirit can�t be found everywhere in such evident way as in Australia. We would like to remember the epic journey that Jack Boviers and Frank Oakley Smith did in 1929 from Sydney with their Harley Davidson and sidecar. They traveled for 15.000 km in 7 weeks through their country. Running over white roads through desolated moors they would sometimes use telegraph poles as their reference mark. According to the data found at the Autocycle Union of Australia and Motorcycling Australia, many motorcyclists tried the same exploit in the years after that obtaining every time a better timing. Few years ago, the same distance has been covered using a Goldwing 1200 in less than 7 days; a great performance even if now days roads are in better conditions and motorcycles are more dependable and fast. Far away from trying to emulate the extraordinary adventure that Jack Oakley described in a book he wrote in the last years of his life �Around Australia Hard Way�, we went back to Australia with our Lambrettas. The idea to commit ourselves to such difficult journey with our mythical Lambrettas came from the awareness of having two great means of transport. They are the result of an extraordinary and still valid project that allowed us to prepare meticulously the Lambrettas. All these efforts to be able to overcome difficulties that would put to the test even the most modern and robust cross-country motor vehicles. What can we say about us? We are pensioners chancing one�s arm� Some of you will probably remember our previous journey in this country carried out with a 1947 Lambretta A and a 1954 Lambretta 150D: 16.000 km in only 75 days. Most of the roads we run through in 1998 were asphalted and conformed to our modest means of transportation. We had the chance to measure ourselves with the great Australian distances and with the vastness of the territory and at the same time we had the chance to appreciate the beautiful Australian landscapes, the asperities of the territory and the great temperament of Australian people. We got back to Australia knowing that we could say that we know well this beautiful country only after traveling over the Australian Outback and over the Simpson and Gibson Desert through Alice Spring, running along the same roads explorers, pioneers and gold seekers had to run in the beginning of the last century. Traveling Companions As soon as the news about our travel plan spread among Lambretta�s raiders, Bill and Peter Guthrie that we know for a long time expressed their desire to come along. Their presence gave us more confidence and we were sure that they would make the journey more pleasant with their knowledge and liking. Ron De� Pannone, a Lambretta rider for a long time, will meet us there traveling from Perth to Laverton with an FD 150. Preparing the Journey The organization of such exacting journey took a long time and care. We took in consideration the climatic conditions of the area we were supposed to go through, roads conditions, distances between gas stations, distances between overnight stay places like camping, motels and roadhouses and transit permits for those areas subjected to limitations. Great attention has been paid to the mechanical preparation of the scooters. We decided to make the trip in July, during the southern winter. In the geographic area between the tropic of Capricorn and the 35th parallel south (dry season) we have in the Outback a warm temperature during the day (from 17� to 25�) and cold temperature during the night (from 7� to 0�) while on the coast the weather is particularly pleasant. In this period showers are not common in the Australian interior so there will be no danger to be trapped in mud and flooding (very common in the monsoons season instead). We will be able to run along the roads easily and when impassable, roads will be back in use in short time. We asked to the local authorities about the gas station locations and we received a detailed list. We found out that due to the low number of vehicles that pass through that area every day (it has been estimated from 8 to 12 vehicles) and because most of the cross-country motor vehicles rarely use fuel, gas stations are few and very distant from each other. This means we�ll have the objective difficulty to have assistance in case of an accident and to obtain a fuel refill. For all these reasons we�ll need to carry extra fuel and oil, a light tent and non bulky sleeping-bags, maps, tools for repairs reduced to the minimum for weight reason, some classic wire, tape, holding belts and also some glue and patches to repair inner tubes. Also important are a pump to inflate tires, working gloves, the classic Barbour jacket necessary to any respectable hard scooter driver and oilcloths for rain. At this point there�s only some room left for few other clothes and no portable stove or coffee-maker (sob!). These pages will not be enough to talk about the right way to fix the luggage both on cross-country motorcycles and scooters. In few words, luggage must be fixed with holding belts so that it�ll not get loose and in the lower position possible to prevent the scooter to swing and to prevent the possible loss of it on the road. Very important is the position of the fuel and water spare tanks: they need to be firmly fixed to the carrier but at the same time they need to be easy to handle to be filled up and to be used for scooter refilling. They also need to be placed in a safe position in case of accident. We refused to use the more esthetical carriers usually bought on Saturday and then thrown away on Monday. We decided than to build with the Cuppini firm two new carrier models: light, robust, practical and fitted to our purpose. A carrier will be set on the front and the other one on the back. Heavy waits can make difficult the drive on uneven paving; they put to hard test the mechanical components (in particular frame and suspensions) and increase the fuel consumption. We knew that we could obtain a drastic loss of wait and therefore a better drive by removing the lateral bonnets and the posterior pedal keyboard. The advantage was to be able to easily check the mechanical parts and avoid the dusty whirling that usually follows a scooter in transit and the inevitable clog of the air filter. We decided to give up these benefits for a better identification of our Lambrettas. The mechanical preparation need a lot of attention, apparently meaningless details can cause annoying inconveniences during a trip. Our Lambrettas, the same we used in the Los Angeles-Alaska Rally and few years before that in the journey through the 61 alpine passes, are checked and modified with the thermical unit Mugello 186. This unit will help to reduce fuel consumption, easy in delivering the power and great for its robustness and dependability. The same mechanical changes have been made by our Australian biker friends so that repairs will be easier to take care of and the number of mechanical components will be reduced relieving our bikes. Furthermore they will furnish useful comparative tests. We�ll use sponge air filters furnished by Polini to protect our motors after being modified to be easily removed and washed every day. This is a very important operation not to be underestimated especially when driving on dusty roads. The preparation of our Lambrettas, a Li 125 first series and a Li 125 second series, continued within sight of the transfer. In Sydney Bill and Peter were generously working on their bikes, a DL 200 and a 150 Special. They have decided to use, for a more comfortable transport, two nice PAV trolleys from Czech Republic, very popular in that area in the sixties. Departure Date is Near Our Lambrettas have been shipped by boat a month in advance using robust iron cages that will be used again at the end of our adventure to bring them back home. Luggage has been shipped with the scooters and already fixed in the definitive position for the trip. Finally, after almost 30 hours since we left, we arrived in Sidney going through the inevitable duty checks and through some very efficient and nice �quarantine� dogs. We need to remind to those nostalgic of �national salami� that the import of food, vegetables included is severely forbidden for hygienically-health reasons. They would be caught (or rather sniffed) by or four-legged friends led by kind and chubby but inflexible customs officers. At the Sidney airport Bill and Peter were waiting for us among the crowd raising the Lambretta banner. After clearance (sob!!) we�ll use our Lambrettas to visit downtown Sidney and Bondy beach and to pay a visit to Toni Brancato, the owner of a workshop in Leichard that become in the last 30 years, a point of reference for every Lambretta and Vespa owner. From this city begins our journey. We�ll use the time left to the departure to set-up the carburation and make the last adjustments to the Lambrettas of our Australian friends Bill and Peter. Leichard is Sydney�s Little Italy; there are good restaurants, fashion boutiques, coffee-houses, pastry-shops, sport cars: it�s the centre of the Australian �dolce vita�. It is from here that we�ll leave for our adventure after drinking the last real Italian coffee with Toni and all the other Lambretta riders. FROM SYDNEY TO ALICE SPRINGS AND ULURU Departure from Sydney It�s finally the departure day and, as we decided, we�re leaving from Leichard. The rainy day is not a good sign for our plans but we are in a good mood and after the ritual of our last espresso and after saying goodbye to Toni and to some other Australian Lambretta riders, we take off. Leaving behind a thick wall of smoke coming from our cold engines, our Lambrettas leave in line without uncertainties taking Paramatta Road, one of the busiest streets that connects Sydney with the rest of the country, going west in the Blue Mountains direction. We are surrounded by heavy traffic and our unusual scooters made people curious and amused. Banners on our luggage speak with no doubt about our real intentions. �Will they make it? Will they not?� We are optimists, they are not. Leaving Sydney behind, traffic is getting lighter: most of the vehicles took exits to the highway and to other directions; we stayed on the same track riding smoothly the wide ascent curves to Katoomba on the Blue Mountains, following or rather chasing Bill and Peter that with enthusiasm were taking with us this long desired holyday. We are getting cold from the rain and also, leaving the coast and going toward the mountain, the temperature is starting to drop. It�s also getting dark: low visibility and raindrops on our visors dissuade us from keep going. We spend the night in Katoomba in a youth hostel. At dawn and before our departure, we make some adjustments to the scooter�s carburation and find a better position for the luggage. We envy the comfort that our Australian friends have: their mono-wheel trolleys allow them to carry everything, even their cameras, protected from rain and mud. Looking at them riding in front of us, we notice that they are not conditioned by the trolleys presence even downhill and bending and that stability and speed are not penalized. We pass the Great Diving Range and we go through Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo. Road condition is good, traffic is close to zero and our Lambrettas are riding in the direction of north-west through the lowland. The main activity in this area is breeding and after Dubbo, riding on the Michell Hwy, we have the sensation to be entered in the Australian Outback already. We are riding north getting closer to the tropic. We make stages from 350 to 490km a day and we start to really appreciate this trip and the landscape because the temperature is gradually rising. We ride in this order: Bill is at the head followed by Peter, Nadia and me at the end of the line. Nadia is a Lambretta veteran already and a faithful companion during all my journeys, both with our Lambrettas and without. She�s easily keeping the pace with the group and I�m often surprised by her way of facing even the most demanding curves with a unique style of her own. Gas stations locations are getting more and more far one from the other and, not used to that, we find ourselves without gas (won�t happen again though): we find shelter in a small but welcoming hotel in Byrock. The Australian Outback, Bourke �The Gateway of the Outback�; we ride through Queensland then Cunnamulla, Charleville and Blackall. Leveled roads allows us to ride faster and our stops are an occasion to buy gas and have some �sausage rolls� and some �Shepherd pie� that, together with the �T-bone steak�, can be considered the most popular Australian dishes found everywhere, even in the most remote location in the desert. It is preferable not to eat sausage rolls for dinner before going to bed because there�s the risk to have a sleepless night or not wake up at all; it�s definitely a dish to avoid when sleeping in a tent. We pass the tropic of cancer and we arrive in Winton. Winton, native town of many poets and musicians, is the starting-point for people (both from the south and from the coast) to reach Darwin in the north or to reach Alice Springs to the west going through the Outback Hwy. Here in Winton we have the chance to make important reparations to our bikes and buy some provisions to go though the Simpson Desert. We also have a last chance to spend a nice evening in a cozy restaurant before the next difficult stage. We fill up our tanks of fuel and water and pack the provisions we bought. We fix the tires and get rid of few extra clothes we don�t need. The departure is as usual in the morning, not early, and when our companions (more efficient then us) have already prepared breakfast and fixed the luggage. We can really say that everything went smoothly till now. We only had small damages to the bikes like the breaking of the mudguards of the trolleys, few punctures and the blockage of the gas filter: common hitches easily resolvable. After a hundred km we notice that one of the trolleys (Peter�s) has a crack on the shaft. The risk of its total breakage and the imaginable consequences for those riding behind it were clear so Peter moved his position to the end of the line, in this way the risks were limited. We manage to make a temporarily repair secure enough for us to be able to reach a place where the right repair could have been done. Sadly, one of our carriers got broken too. We decide to stop in Middleton, the only point of reference between Winton (170km far) and Boulia (almost 200km far). The city of Middleton can be found on any map and if you picture it as a city, a town or a village you would be disappointed. The whole town consists in a road house with restaurant & bar, few cabins to spend the night, water and fuel supplies, workshop for repairs but most of all great managers. Those who knows maps are not surprised about it because even a small reality like this one has great importance for people riding these trails, most of all for us in need of a refuge, some help to fix our PAV trolley and a place where to rest our sore bones. Inside the road house pictures turned yellow, paintings, papers cuttings, old and rusty finds are all pieces of history of this isolated place. Everything is there to mark the quiet passage of time while somebody tells us about the Boss, an expert camel�s conductor who won many competitions: a real myth in the entire region. He will say goodbye to us friendly cracking his whip. He does that even to busses when the tourists riding in it are fascinated by this magic place and spends there more time than what they are supposed to. In front of the road house there�s an old beautiful carriage by Cobb & Co., a company that until 1926 made transportations possible between Winton and Boulia. Nowadays it�s a touristy attraction to photograph together with a loquacious parrot and a puppy kangaroo. Nadia will obviously fall in love with the puppy and wish to bring it back home with her (� but what would our cats say about that?). Our trolley has been fixed so we can go back to our journey on the way to Boulia. A sign tell us that the trail we�re getting on is open only for high vehicles: what about our scooters? They�ve never been seen on these roads and we�ll be the first to ride the Outback Highway with our Lambrettas! The road is not that bad and after visiting the Min Min Hotel ruins (the remains of an old postal station) we continue our journey arriving in Boulia during the evening. The Simpson Desert is in front of us and a billboard at the entrance of the village tells about the explorer Burke and his friend Wills as a warning to travelers: they stopped to the river (that will be named after them) to fill up their water-bottles but at the end they died in the desert of hunger and hardship. As the story suggested we�ll spend a cheerful evening at the restaurant!! The restaurant as well as the pub is a very important point of aggregation for the inhabitants of this region; breeders and land-owners (from 50 to 100 km far) meet here, contacts are exchanged, purchases are made. People can simply meet here and listen to music and most of all can eat the delicious �T-bone� steaks. The next morning we refill our fuel and water tanks and buy some food; we check the scooters and screw well all the bolts because we�re about to face a stage 250km long: the longest without the possibility to find supplies. The road-bed is sometimes rocky sometimes sandy and our Lambrettas maintain a speed from 25 to 65 km/hr leaving behind a cloud of dust that seems to enter everywhere. Sometimes Kangaroos run with us as in a race made of harmonious jumps 2 meters long and often they go faster than us. Like Kangaroos our Lambrettas easily jump on the road hollows: it�s not the same on muddy intervals created by the heavy rains of the past days. Unprepared we all fell down but Bill, who will pass the slippery stretch showing an unexpected balance endowment. Falls caused no damages to the bikes; on the other hand we got covered in mud. We�ll stop for the night halfway through the 250km that separates Boulia to Tobermorey. Tobermorey is a �Cattle Station� organized to give shelter to travelers; we camped there, bought food and fuel and most of all made small repairs to our scooters. We�ll also fix the inner tubes and the accelerator wire damaged by rocks and we�ll clean the air filters. The night hasn�t been one of the quietest: the diesel generator kept working all night and for that reason we couldn�t sleep�. Bill�s Lambretta gives up. There�s a power fall due to the dust entered through a braking in the filter. The wear and tear caused by it will make Bill�s bike stop after 100km, the engine stopped due a lack of pressure. The small breakings, the silent block and carriers fall and the engine stop convince Bill that the Simpson Desert crossing couldn�t be done. Silent blocks are one of the most used parts in a scooter traveling on trails like this one. Fortunately during the preparation of our scooters we decided, with our friend Stefano Balboni, to change the silent blocks with a different and more dependable system. The best idea we came up to has been to use some well tested silent blocks from India that were known to be dependable enough to let us reach the destination with no problems. Arrived in Alice Springs Bill will go back to recover his bike well hidden between the bushes and the three of us continued the trip to Jervois. The road gives no brake to us or to our Lambrettas. Around us the desert landscape often changes: arid dunes, forest of xerophytes and spinifex bushes, shrubs, wild camels, kangaroos, eagles, parrots; we even encounter a brown snake, one of the most poisonous snakes of this desert. Camels have been introduced in Australia in 1840 and already in 1860 they have been used by Burke and Wills in their unlucky expedition. Giles too used successfully camels as a way of transportation. He reached the Olgas after a trip of 220miles and the Queen Victoria Springs from Bumbury Downs after 17 days riding for 325 miles. During the following years connection were possible using caravans of camels: some of them were sent free and became wild starting to populate wide areas of the desert. They now amount to 600.000 and bred for food exportation. Lots of camels were also used to build the Adelaide-Alice Springs railway called �Gan Rail� in memory of all those camels from Afghanistan (even if they really came from Pakistan). Enough of camels. We arrived in Jervois at sunset hungry like wolfs. Nadia will cook for us lots of delicious spaghetti �Italian-way� as guests of two Telstra technicians there to install an antenna for telephone connections. Jervois is also a livestock collection point; the owner of the roadhouse has more than 100.000 animals by himself. There�s a gas pump, it�s possible to spend the night in a tent or in some essential cabins and have water supplies. The lady working at the gas pump looking at our shabby faces and clothes suggested us to stock up on water because that would have been the last opportunity to do that for at least a hundred km. We thank her for the kind attention given to us, we fill up our tanks and say goodbye. 200 km separates us from Gem Tree, the next point of reference where we want to spend the night. Unfortunately on this track the shaft of Peter�s trolley gets broken again therefore it needs to be abandoned. Peter leaves us too. We arrive in Gem Tree when it�s dark already, cold, tired and hungry but most of all sad because the Guthrie brothers are not with us but going back to Sydney. We still have 3000 km to ride. We are about to reach Alice Springs halfway through our journey. We find ourselves on the Stuart Hwy, road that connects Darwin with Adelaide, undisputed reign of the Road Trains and we ride for about 80 km on this asphalted road in no time. The legendary Alice Springs and Uluru, the red heart of Australia Alice Springs, positioned at the center of Australia, is now a small modern city of 20.000 inhabitants. We cannot talk about it without telling about the Overland Telegraph line owned by Charly and Alice Todd and about the Scottish explorer John McDonall Stuart. Stuart leave Adelaide and arrive in Port Darwin (now Dawin) in 1862 horseback riding through the Australian continent that was mainly unexplored at that time. He said that the same distance covered by him could have been covered by a telegraphic line 3176 km long and then, using an underwater cable from Port Darwin to Singapore, would have been possible connect Australia to the rest of the world. The first message was sent from Adelaide to Great Britain the 21st of October 1872 and Charles Todd at the head of the telegraph and postal services was acclaimed, with his crew, a hero. Todd organized the construction of the telegraph line for the stations in between; he found the right places where to build water wells necessary for the hundred of workers used in this exploit and provided the 36.000 poles necessary to support the line of a single cable made of steel. Chronicles of that time emphasized the fact that only six men died during the constructions, a low number of losses considering the arid conditions of the deserted areas crossed. Beside the communications with the old continent, the telegraphic line with all the stations in the middle and the water wells have been for years the only connection and support to installations as well as a security for sheep-farming activities, travelers and pioneers. The history of Alice Springs and the history of all the structures that formed the actual city can be found at the Old Telegraph Station, now a museum. The telegraph station was run by six men responsible of the maintenance of the line for 290km and responsible for the connections with the rest of the country. The connection we can say with the civilization was carried out in the beginning every two months by postal convoys pulled by camels. Trips became more frequent when mining and sheep-farming activities rose in that area. From 1926 the service was carried out using motor vehicles. In 1932 due to the new communication technologies and the air connections, the telegraphic station was no longer the most important point of connection in central Australia. Alice Springs was already a small village by then and part of the legend. Nowadays Alice Springs is an important tourist town where people coming from the north or from the south can find anything they wish; even us, coming from Sydney with our Lambrettas through the Outback Highway, are looking forward to spend a nice time here to clean up, reorganize the luggage, check well the scooters, change a tire and most of all get rested and get in shape to face the second part of our journey. Here we�ll meet our friends Bill and Peter ready to leave for Sydney and visit the Kings Canyon with a likeable group of tourists. We ask for the necessary permits to go through the Aboriginal Lands and, after seeing our Lambrettas, they are given to us with evident perplexity and only with our declaration of total responsibility since our scooters were not believed to be right for the roads we were going to ride. Our mythical Lambrettas unsuited? Please�. No jokes! The thought to leave or change our itinerary never crossed our minds, neither for a second. We leave Alice Springs behind us with a good supply of gas and lighter luggage to ride on the Stuart Highway and reach Erdunda and from there to Uluru (Ayers Rock) on the Lasseter Hwy for a total of 450km in only 2 days. No matter the weight and the unfavorable aerodynamics due to the luggage holding out, we ride fast on the Stuart Hwy maintaining a speed between 100 and 120 km/h and sometimes faster than that. We appreciate the absence of engine vibrations due to right setting of the rocker arm and to the generous flywheel mass of the crankshaft used. The electronic timing adjuster ignition setting by itself according to the number of spins allows a more fluid power supply. Gas consumption is acceptable too. On our way Stuart Well, Mt Ebenezer Road House, and Curtin Spring: places we have already seen six years ago during our previous trip in Australia. Rising from the lowland, it's the square looking Mt Ebezener and then Mt Connor. The Uluru (Ayers Rock) suddenly appears: The big red Heart of Australia is in front of us in its majestic greatness and its magic meaning. FROM SYDNEY TO ALICE SPRINGS AND ULURU Departure from Sydney It�s finally the departure day and, as we decided, we�re leaving from Leichard. The rainy day is not a good sign for our plans but we are in a good mood and after the ritual of our last espresso and after saying goodbye to Toni and to some other Australian Lambretta riders, we take off. Leaving behind a thick wall of smoke coming from our cold engines, our Lambrettas leave in line without uncertainties taking Paramatta Road, one of the busiest streets that connects Sydney with the rest of the country, going west in the Blue Mountains direction. We are surrounded by heavy traffic and our unusual scooters made people curious and amused. Banners on our luggage speak with no doubt about our real intentions. �Will they make it? Will they not?� We are optimists, they are not. Leaving Sydney behind, traffic is getting lighter: most of the vehicles took exits to the highway and to other directions; we stayed on the same track riding smoothly the wide ascent curves to Katoomba on the Blue Mountains, following or rather chasing Bill and Peter that with enthusiasm were taking with us this long desired holyday. We are getting cold from the rain and also, leaving the coast and going toward the mountain, the temperature is starting to drop. It�s also getting dark: low visibility and raindrops on our visors dissuade us from keep going. We spend the night in Katoomba in a youth hostel. At dawn and before our departure, we make some adjustments to the scooter�s carburation and find a better position for the luggage. We envy the comfort that our Australian friends have: their mono-wheel trolleys allow them to carry everything, even their cameras, protected from rain and mud. Looking at them riding in front of us, we notice that they are not conditioned by the trolleys presence even downhill and bending and that stability and speed are not penalized. We pass the Great Diving Range and we go through Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo. Road condition is good, traffic is close to zero and our Lambrettas are riding in the direction of north-west through the lowland. The main activity in this area is breeding and after Dubbo, riding on the Michell Hwy, we have the sensation to be entered in the Australian Outback already. We are riding north getting closer to the tropic. We make stages from 350 to 490km a day and we start to really appreciate this trip and the landscape because the temperature is gradually rising. We ride in this order: Bill is at the head followed by Peter, Nadia and me at the end of the line. Nadia is a Lambretta veteran already and a faithful companion during all my journeys, both with our Lambrettas and without. She�s easily keeping the pace with the group and I�m often surprised by her way of facing even the most demanding curves with a unique style of her own. Gas stations locations are getting more and more far one from the other and, not used to that, we find ourselves without gas (won�t happen again though): we find shelter in a small but welcoming hotel in Byrock. The Australian Outback, Bourke �The Gateway of the Outback�; we ride through Queensland then Cunnamulla, Charleville and Blackall. Leveled roads allows us to ride faster and our stops are an occasion to buy gas and have some �sausage rolls� and some �Shepherd pie� that, together with the �T-bone steak�, can be considered the most popular Australian dishes found everywhere, even in the most remote location in the desert. It is preferable not to eat sausage rolls for dinner before going to bed because there�s the risk to have a sleepless night or not wake up at all; it�s definitely a dish to avoid when sleeping in a tent. We pass the tropic of cancer and we arrive in Winton. Winton, native town of many poets and musicians, is the starting-point for people (both from the south and from the coast) to reach Darwin in the north or to reach Alice Springs to the west going through the Outback Hwy. Here in Winton we have the chance to make important reparations to our bikes and buy some provisions to go though the Simpson Desert. We also have a last chance to spend a nice evening in a cozy restaurant before the next difficult stage. We fill up our tanks of fuel and water and pack the provisions we bought. We fix the tires and get rid of few extra clothes we don�t need. The departure is as usual in the morning, not early, and when our companions (more efficient then us) have already prepared breakfast and fixed the luggage. We can really say that everything went smoothly till now. We only had small damages to the bikes like the breaking of the mudguards of the trolleys, few punctures and the blockage of the gas filter: common hitches easily resolvable. After a hundred km we notice that one of the trolleys (Peter�s) has a crack on the shaft. The risk of its total breakage and the imaginable consequences for those riding behind it were clear so Peter moved his position to the end of the line, in this way the risks were limited. We manage to make a temporarily repair secure enough for us to be able to reach a place where the right repair could have been done. Sadly, one of our carriers got broken too. We decide to stop in Middleton, the only point of reference between Winton (170km far) and Boulia (almost 200km far). The city of Middleton can be found on any map and if you picture it as a city, a town or a village you would be disappointed. The whole town consists in a road house with restaurant & bar, few cabins to spend the night, water and fuel supplies, workshop for repairs but most of all great managers. Those who knows maps are not surprised about it because even a small reality like this one has great importance for people riding these trails, most of all for us in need of a refuge, some help to fix our PAV trolley and a place where to rest our sore bones. Inside the road house pictures turned yellow, paintings, papers cuttings, old and rusty finds are all pieces of history of this isolated place. Everything is there to mark the quiet passage of time while somebody tells us about the Boss, an expert camel�s conductor who won many competitions: a real myth in the entire region. He will say goodbye to us friendly cracking his whip. He does that even to busses when the tourists riding in it are fascinated by this magic place and spends there more time than what they are supposed to. In front of the road house there�s an old beautiful carriage by Cobb & Co., a company that until 1926 made transportations possible between Winton and Boulia. Nowadays it�s a touristy attraction to photograph together with a loquacious parrot and a puppy kangaroo. Nadia will obviously fall in love with the puppy and wish to bring it back home with her (� but what would our cats say about that?). Our trolley has been fixed so we can go back to our journey on the way to Boulia. A sign tell us that the trail we�re getting on is open only for high vehicles: what about our scooters? They�ve never been seen on these roads and we�ll be the first to ride the Outback Highway with our Lambrettas! The road is not that bad and after visiting the Min Min Hotel ruins (the remains of an old postal station) we continue our journey arriving in Boulia during the evening. The Simpson Desert is in front of us and a billboard at the entrance of the village tells about the explorer Burke and his friend Wills as a warning to travelers: they stopped to the river (that will be named after them) to fill up their water-bottles but at the end they died in the desert of hunger and hardship. As the story suggested we�ll spend a cheerful evening at the restaurant!! The restaurant as well as the pub is a very important point of aggregation for the inhabitants of this region; breeders and land-owners (from 50 to 100 km far) meet here, contacts are exchanged, purchases are made. People can simply meet here and listen to music and most of all can eat the delicious �T-bone� steaks. The next morning we refill our fuel and water tanks and buy some food; we check the scooters and screw well all the bolts because we�re about to face a stage 250km long: the longest without the possibility to find supplies. The road-bed is sometimes rocky sometimes sandy and our Lambrettas maintain a speed from 25 to 65 km/hr leaving behind a cloud of dust that seems to enter everywhere. Sometimes Kangaroos run with us as in a race made of harmonious jumps 2 meters long and often they go faster than us. Like Kangaroos our Lambrettas easily jump on the road hollows: it�s not the same on muddy intervals created by the heavy rains of the past days. Unprepared we all fell down but Bill, who will pass the slippery stretch showing an unexpected balance endowment. Falls caused no damages to the bikes; on the other hand we got covered in mud. We�ll stop for the night halfway through the 250km that separates Boulia to Tobermorey. Tobermorey is a �Cattle Station� organized to give shelter to travelers; we camped there, bought food and fuel and most of all made small repairs to our scooters. We�ll also fix the inner tubes and the accelerator wire damaged by rocks and we�ll clean the air filters. The night hasn�t been one of the quietest: the diesel generator kept working all night and for that reason we couldn�t sleep�. Bill�s Lambretta gives up. There�s a power fall due to the dust entered through a braking in the filter. The wear and tear caused by it will make Bill�s bike stop after 100km, the engine stopped due a lack of pressure. The small breakings, the silent block and carriers fall and the engine stop convince Bill that the Simpson Desert crossing couldn�t be done. Silent blocks are one of the most used parts in a scooter traveling on trails like this one. Fortunately during the preparation of our scooters we decided, with our friend Stefano Balboni, to change the silent blocks with a different and more dependable system. The best idea we came up to has been to use some well tested silent blocks from India that were known to be dependable enough to let us reach the destination with no problems. Arrived in Alice Springs Bill will go back to recover his bike well hidden between the bushes and the three of us continued the trip to Jervois. The road gives no brake to us or to our Lambrettas. Around us the desert landscape often changes: arid dunes, forest of xerophytes and spinifex bushes, shrubs, wild camels, kangaroos, eagles, parrots; we even encounter a brown snake, one of the most poisonous snakes of this desert. Camels have been introduced in Australia in 1840 and already in 1860 they have been used by Burke and Wills in their unlucky expedition. Giles too used successfully camels as a way of transportation. He reached the Olgas after a trip of 220miles and the Queen Victoria Springs from Bumbury Downs after 17 days riding for 325 miles. During the following years connection were possible using caravans of camels: some of them were sent free and became wild starting to populate wide areas of the desert. They now amount to 600.000 and bred for food exportation. Lots of camels were also used to build the Adelaide-Alice Springs railway called �Gan Rail� in memory of all those camels from Afghanistan (even if they really came from Pakistan). Enough of camels. We arrived in Jervois at sunset hungry like wolfs. Nadia will cook for us lots of delicious spaghetti �Italian-way� as guests of two Telstra technicians there to install an antenna for telephone connections. Jervois is also a livestock collection point; the owner of the roadhouse has more than 100.000 animals by himself. There�s a gas pump, it�s possible to spend the night in a tent or in some essential cabins and have water supplies. The lady working at the gas pump looking at our shabby faces and clothes suggested us to stock up on water because that would have been the last opportunity to do that for at least a hundred km. We thank her for the kind attention given to us, we fill up our tanks and say goodbye. 200 km separates us from Gem Tree, the next point of reference where we want to spend the night. Unfortunately on this track the shaft of Peter�s trolley gets broken again therefore it needs to be abandoned. Peter leaves us too. We arrive in Gem Tree when it�s dark already, cold, tired and hungry but most of all sad because the Guthrie brothers are not with us but going back to Sydney. We still have 3000 km to ride. We are about to reach Alice Springs halfway through our journey. We find ourselves on the Stuart Hwy, road that connects Darwin with Adelaide, undisputed reign of the Road Trains and we ride for about 80 km on this asphalted road in no time. The legendary Alice Springs and Uluru, the red heart of Australia Alice Springs, positioned at the center of Australia, is now a small modern city of 20.000 inhabitants. We cannot talk about it without telling about the Overland Telegraph line owned by Charly and Alice Todd and about the Scottish explorer John McDonall Stuart. Stuart leave Adelaide and arrive in Port Darwin (now Dawin) in 1862 horseback riding through the Australian continent that was mainly unexplored at that time. He said that the same distance covered by him could have been covered by a telegraphic line 3176 km long and then, using an underwater cable from Port Darwin to Singapore, would have been possible connect Australia to the rest of the world. The first message was sent from Adelaide to Great Britain the 21st of October 1872 and Charles Todd at the head of the telegraph and postal services was acclaimed, with his crew, a hero. Todd organized the construction of the telegraph line for the stations in between; he found the right places where to build water wells necessary for the hundred of workers used in this exploit and provided the 36.000 poles necessary to support the line of a single cable made of steel. Chronicles of that time emphasized the fact that only six men died during the constructions, a low number of losses considering the arid conditions of the deserted areas crossed. Beside the communications with the old continent, the telegraphic line with all the stations in the middle and the water wells have been for years the only connection and support to installations as well as a security for sheep-farming activities, travelers and pioneers. The history of Alice Springs and the history of all the structures that formed the actual city can be found at the Old Telegraph Station, now a museum. The telegraph station was run by six men responsible of the maintenance of the line for 290km and responsible for the connections with the rest of the country. The connection we can say with the civilization was carried out in the beginning every two months by postal convoys pulled by camels. Trips became more frequent when mining and sheep-farming activities rose in that area. From 1926 the service was carried out using motor vehicles. In 1932 due to the new communication technologies and the air connections, the telegraphic station was no longer the most important point of connection in central Australia. Alice Springs was already a small village by then and part of the legend. Nowadays Alice Springs is an important tourist town where people coming from the north or from the south can find anything they wish; even us, coming from Sydney with our Lambrettas through the Outback Highway, are looking forward to spend a nice time here to clean up, reorganize the luggage, check well the scooters, change a tire and most of all get rested and get in shape to face the second part of our journey. Here we�ll meet our friends Bill and Peter ready to leave for Sydney and visit the Kings Canyon with a likeable group of tourists. We ask for the necessary permits to go through the Aboriginal Lands and, after seeing our Lambrettas, they are given to us with evident perplexity and only with our declaration of total responsibility since our scooters were not believed to be right for the roads we were going to ride. Our mythical Lambrettas unsuited? Please�. No jokes! The thought to leave or change our itinerary never crossed our minds, neither for a second. We leave Alice Springs behind us with a good supply of gas and lighter luggage to ride on the Stuart Highway and reach Erdunda and from there to Uluru (Ayers Rock) on the Lasseter Hwy for a total of 450km in only 2 days. No matter the weight and the unfavorable aerodynamics due to the luggage holding out, we ride fast on the Stuart Hwy maintaining a speed between 100 and 120 km/h and sometimes faster than that. We appreciate the absence of engine vibrations due to right setting of the rocker arm and to the generous flywheel mass of the crankshaft used. The electronic timing adjuster ignition setting by itself according to the number of spins allows a more fluid power supply. Gas consumption is acceptable too. On our way Stuart Well, Mt Ebenezer Road House, and Curtin Spring: places we have already seen six years ago during our previous trip in Australia. Rising from the lowland, it's the square looking Mt Ebezener and then Mt Connor. The Uluru (Ayers Rock) suddenly appears: The big red Heart of Australia is in front of us in its majestic greatness and its magic meaning. translation by monica@monimax.net Journey from Sydney to Perth through Alice Springs and Uluru: an adventure 6.000 km long through the Australian Outback with the mythical Lambrettas. ULURU, THE BIG RED HEART OF AUSTRALIA Our two Lambrettas ride West through the Gibson Desert We are glad to be back in Uluru (aboriginal name from Ayers Rock), the biggest monolith of the world both for its meaning and its beautiful landscapes. Yulara, in the National Park of Uluru-Kata Tjuta is one of the most visited attractions in Australia and Uluru is a natural monument and a religious symbol dear to the aborigines. You can arrive there from Alice Springs; cars can be driven there thanks to the paved road, organized excursions and flights connections are arranged from all the cities of Aussie. We arrive there with our Lambrettas too and enjoy the great organization for tourists that Australian guarantee at a good level of quality. There are a lot of tourists and a lot of young people from all over the world; we decide to spend the night at the Pioneers Hotel where we spend a nice evening writing postcards and listening to a good rock-band. Going west through the aboriginal lands We leave the day after, going west through Kata Tjuta (aboriginal name from the Olgas), a mountain less known as Uluru but with equally beautiful landscapes. We know that leaving the rounded shapes of the Olgas to our shoulders, we�ll have a hard journey ahead of us of about 2000 km. Being alone, Nadia is riding in front of me since she seems to better recognize the road conditions and adjust her riding rhythm as she like. I follow her with great anxiety most of all in those moments I see hew wind. I am relieved every time I see her getting back on track, km after km. Our lights are always on even during the day so that we are always visible in the mirrors fixed on the frontal luggage carriers; a great solution to always keep a good field of vision with following vehicles. A bad fall The track from the Olgas toward a place at the limit with west Australia called Kaltukatjara (Doker River) is really hard. It is in this leg that Nadia, maybe due to less concentration or maybe to the fatigue, falls with her bike. First of all we check nothing got broken and we pick up the Lambretta. We hoped it was just a painful hit but the pain to the shoulder followed Nadia until the end of our trip. Back in Italy she�ll need to go through many treatments and at last even through a tiresome surgery. The important thing is to arrive, even if slowly� Reaching Perth is more and more difficult. Cruise speed is not faster than 25 km/h. At this speed and using the 4th gear, the engine doesn�t work at its best but its balanced enough to pick up gradually at the beginning and pick up better later when gas is supplied. We need to be careful and try not to go too fast because we could loose the control of the bike when riding on ruts, on sand bumps or on sandy and gravelly tracks. In these conditions, we are not able to reach every time a nice rest area where we can both buy gas and spend the night. In this season it�s already dark at 7.30pm but we need to stop an hour before that because the sunset in front of us unable us to see clearly all the obstacles on the road. As soon as the dark comes, it gets cold and the only thing we can do is try to eat something like some tuna with some bread, some Hungarian salami and some milk. We decide not to light the fire because spinifex bushes contain resinous inflammable substances that can cause fires in the near undergrowth so we take refuge in our small tent using our wind jackets as pillows. There�s total silence around us and during the night we can hear small rodents around our tent but that�s not all: even a snake get close to our tent and leave traces of its passage on the sand. The morning finds us cold and our tent is wet of dew used by some thirsty birds of the desert. Once our Lambrettas are loaded and our tanks filled up, we check as always our tires and everything it�s useful to safely continue our journey. La tole ondulee Before Warburton on the Outback Hwy there�s a stretch of road called by the French �la tole ondulee� that means �corrugations� in English. The surface of the road looks like a corrugated sheet-iron due to the constant passage of heavy means of transport. It�s a real torture for vehicles going through these roads and a torment for suspensions, tires, frames, bodyworks and for our arms that need to hold on firmly the handlebar and at the same time try to be elastic following the corrugations of the road. Pieces of bodywork can fall down easily, leaf springs can get broken and frames (even the most robust) bent. Those who rode the African tracks in the Hoggar and Tassili (just to mention the most popular) know well what I�m talking about. Rusty skeletons of abandoned cars, rims and broken tires, engines, axles and other parts are the sad proof of unfinished journeys. People welcome us with kindness and wonder in Warburton and we�ll spend the night in the comfortable Road House taking a regenerating shower and having a good dinner. Many in this region are the volunteers that with great determination are involved in the instruction and sanity of the aboriginal population. Attention is paid trying to stop problems like alcoholism and fuel-sniffing and for these reasons pumps in gas stations are often armored in cages locked with big padlocks. People that stop in Road Houses are often technicians that travel for work while tourists prefer the camping areas. Even in this stretch of the Outback Hwy we only cross 8/10 vehicles per day and when we meet we often exchange news about road conditions. Everyone is surprised to meet us; people often ask us if we need something and after being reassured that everything is ok, they say goodbye and continue their journey. Solidarity here is a tight rule. Warakurna and Warburton are stages too far to be covered in one day so we spend few nights out in the Gibson Desert in complete solitude. Renato is waiting for us in Laverton We are slowly reaching Laverton and another Lambretta rider is going to meet us there; he left from Perth driving a three-wheel Lambretta FD, a bike used for lightweight transportation and well known during the fifties and the sixties, even in Australia. It�s Renato De Pannone; like may Italians he came here in Australia with the classic cardboard suitcase, great will and talent to be successful. He worked as a technician for the Lambretta import company and then as teacher of technical subjects. Nowadays he�s retired; he collects and restores Lambrettas and gives assistance to many Australian Lambretta riders. He has a beautiful home and most of all a big and great family; he�s one of the many Italians that took part in making great this country, he�s a pioneer too after all. We reach Tjukayirla, an area with an aboriginal unpronounceable name even by the aborigines�. We only know that this is a very small area indicated as the smallest and isolated of Australia but where we�ll be able to find food, water, fuel and a bed where to sleep. Here we meet a group of Italian tourists from �Avventure nel Mondo� traveling on comfortable cross country motor vehicles; they greet us politely surprised to find a couple of Lambrettas in this remote part of the world. Our aspect isn�t too good so covered in red desert dust. Our jackets are dirty and torn but for motorcycle riders their own jackets are like flags: the more they are worn-out, the more they can tell about great adventures, journeys and sometimes falls. From Cosmo Newberry, road conditions are getting better and few kilometers before Laverton the road is back to be asphalted. We stop and hug each other, happy to be arrived unhurt (or almost) to Laverton and be able to meet Renato. Renato and his friends Bob and Kevin are waiting for us there being arrived the day before. We celebrate the meeting with a good plate of spaghetti and coffee �Italian style�, like we planned. The golden mile and Modesto Varishetti Laverton like Leonora, Menzies and other cities of this region grew at the beginning of the century with the gold discovery and with the opening of mines to extract the precious metal. We stop in Menzies; here too we find signs of a past connected to gold mines. At the beginning of the century the population of Menzies amounted to 15,000 and most of these people were miners. Nowadays population number is around ten and one hotel, the last of nine. These mines were reached by men coming from old empty mines of Victoria, California, Nevada and Klondike. We�ll visit a mine in Kalgorlie under the open sky and still working. Pieces of history and relics are collected in a museum in Coolgardie, city that was an important mining center. We�ll tell you about one of these mines, one for all, since its protagonist has been an Italian man that became famous in those days. Modesto Varischetti was a miner coming from a small village in the valleys surrounding the city of Bergamo. He was working in Bonnievale in a mine 320 mt deep when he got trapped by the water flowing from the pits due to heavy rain; that day, the 15th of March 1907, it rained as much as it usually would in an entire month. Varischetti was, as the newspaper of that time reported, �In the Devil�s company for seven days�, with the water to his throat and using an air-pocket to breath in the bowels of the earth. A special train left Perth taking two volunteers divers named Berne and Curtis; another miner and ex diver named Hughes volunteered to try to save him. Out of curiosity, the train traveled night and day with absolute priority covering the distance in time of record. This record remained unbeaten for many years. Once he was brought back on the surface by his rescuers he was acclaimed a hero and after few days of rest he went back to his work in the mine like always. Nowadays miners still know Varischetti�s story. Renato is riding in front of us with his three-wheel scooter. He assembled on it bigger tires so he�s now able to go as fast as 80 km/h. On an asphalted road we can ride for 300/350 km per day easily. We�ll stop in Southern Cross and then in Northam where Renato�s son Mark is joining us with his Lambretta. Few kilometers before the capital of Western Australia a group of Lambretta riders is waiting for us to enter the city and reach symbolically with us the Indian Ocean coast after a journey 28 days long. We�ll spend few days with Renato and his family and we�ll check our Lambrettas for the next trip in Australia. Conclusions We told you about this journey dreamed for long writing about it with our inexperienced hands hoping to make feel some of the sensations, emotions, joys and sufferings to those that (like us) are fond of motors and find pleasure in traveling to reach new places not always easy to reach but for this reason even more beautiful. We wanted to find that pioneer spirit that characterizes this part of the world and I think we found it day after day. We also had the confirmation that the success of an exacting journey like this one depend on a good organization, a meticulous mechanical preparation of the bike and most of all on a good dose of determination. Important are the new experiences we made and that are part of our personal knowledge, the new friends but most of all the new technical knowledge we have about these incredible, untiring, mythical Lambrettas. We would like to thank the Consul General of Italy in Sydney Antonio Verde (a Lambretta rider too), Stefano Balboni for the attention dedicated to our scooters, Toni Brancato, Bill and Peter Guthrie, Bob and Kevin, Renato De Pannone and his family for the kind hospitality; the �Lady� and the Telstra�s technicians who supplied food to us at Jervois. Pictures (the most beautiful) are from Peter and Bill Guthrie; Bill is professional photograph in the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force). Words by Tino and Nadia Sacchi, hoping we didn�t annoy you. Some numbers � Distance covered: 6120 km (equal to five times the distance between Milano and Reggio Calabria) in 28 days. � Fuel consumption: 400 liters each Lambretta � Medium consumption: 1 liter every 16 km � Punctures: around ten � Damaged tires: 4 � Damaged rims: 2 � Damaged frontal shock absorbers: 4 � At the arrival, Nadia�s bike suffered insufficient compression caused by the entering of some sand in the damaged filter. � No problems with my Lambretta. � A journey 6000 km long on these roads is equal, in terms of stress and mechanical wear and tear, to a journey of about 70-80000 km made on European roads. Some technical data � Model Li 125 la series 1959 � Model Li 125 lla series 1960 � Cylinder and piston diameter 64 made of aluminum Nicasil type Mugello 186cc � Drive shaft model Dodicimila stroke 58, solid engine shaft balanced with tungsten inserts 2500gr in weight. � Carburetor Dell�Orto PHBH diameter 28, air filter by Pollini � Electronic timing adjuster ignition Varitronic 12V 90W � 5 disks clutch and lightened clutch case special type � Silencer Clubman/A.F. Rayspeed � Chain adjuster Nylon Quick Slip � Frontal and rear luggage carriers model Australian by Cuppini � Power 16 CV � Speed at full load 125 km/h