It’s hard to identify the precise point in time when I realised I was riding in a fair dinkum BMW Safari GS Enduro. Was it day two, while punching out 570km of unforgiving dirt roads smothered in hand-sized rocks, sand pits and endless bulldust holes? Or was it day three, when forging deep river crossings and punching along endless twin-trail on a huge cattle station the size of a small country in Europe?
I’m now sitting in Darwin, still astride my BMW R 1250 GS Trophy, looking down at my tripmeter that reads 3,344.4 kilometres. I’m still recovering from what was arguably one of the best day's riding I’ve had on a Beemer. Miles Davis, longtime BMW off-road guru and master route planner, had cooked up a mighty crescendo for day seven, the final leg of this Cairns to Darwin ride.
Day seven had every riding condition imaginable for an adventure, and it highlighted the versatility of my Rhino, as the mighty 1250 is so lovingly known. It started with a 200km blacktop section that we legally — the speed limit is 130km/h — covered in around one hour and 40 minutes. Then we hit some amazing, twisting black-top through open farm country before we settled in for the main meal: a blast through a private cattle station on billiard-table smooth dirt that was four lanes wide, with sweeping corners perfectly designed
