Long w/e ride to Esperance via Hyden/Norseman Rd

[BillB]

Heading off Sat for a bit of adventure riding and bush camping back Tuesday. Day 1 camp McDermid Rock, Day 2 Esperance, 3 Denmark 4 Perth.
If anyone wants to tag along PM me. Leaving Perth about 10am.

[BillB]

I Headed off by myself on Saturday for a ride to Esperance via Hyden then along 190 km of dirt road to Norseman. I had planned to camp overnight at McDermid Rock then head from there down to Esperance the next day ,staying in Esperance overnight then heading to Denmark for a farm stay sleepover on the Monday and back to Perth Tuesday.
Well plans change. The weather forecast suggested a severe storm front approaching Esperance on Sunday and Statewide storms around the rest of the lower West Australian State. So when I got to the Hyden Norseman intersection, I weighed up if it was still a good idea to travel the 190kms of dirt road with this weather and a fairly worn Karoo3 back tyre or stay on bitumen and head south towards Ravensthorpe and stay at the Lake King Tavern overnight instead of the bush camp at McDermid Rock. I think I made the right decision. Sure enough on the Sunday the forecast was correct so I decided to visit Esperance another time and hightailed towards Denmark, out running the storm front which followed me to Albany. I arrived in Denmark only with 3 or 4 drenchings. The forecast wasn’t good for Perth either for the Monday so I decided to spend some time at the farm till Tuesday when the forecast indicated more favourable weather. I left Denmark at 8 am this morning and only managed to have a couple of drenchings, arriving in Perth at 12 to clear skies and sunshine. There is a severe storm warning later this afternoon. The Karoo3 still has some tread left but will be getting a new back tyre ASAP. It definitely loses some tracking properties when the knobs wear down. The back wheel has a lot more sideways movement on dirt.

[BillB]

Storm front heading west. Not a good idea heading into that