Section five began with a change of pace — and company. Sally flew in to join me in Broome, and after fresh set of tyres replaced the original set worn flat in the centre from thousands of kilometres of straight outback bitumen, we turned south toward Barn Hill Station.

 

The turn-off delivered ten kilometres of corrugated, deep red sand — and an unexpected lesson in electric motorcycling. With traction control off, instant torque and total throttle control let the loaded bike paddle through the sand with none of the clutch-and-throttle juggling a manual bike demands. No engine heat radiating back in 35°C conditions made hard work feel almost easy.

 

Barn Hil Station delivered its own drama: deliberately lit bushfires closed the Great Northern Highway the day after arrival, smoke hanging over camp all night before an early, smoky departure past fire still burning to the roadside.

 

What followed was a run of testing WA charging infrastructure. A planned Level 1 top-up at Barn Hill paid off when Bidyadanga’s fast charger turned out to be offline; Sandfire’s ran at a fraction of its rated output. It became a recurring theme — chargers at Ngumban Cliff, Broome, and beyond all underperforming, some blamed on cooling faults, others unexplained. A known Chargefox billing-timeout glitch, confirmed via the Tesla Owners Club of WA, added another layer of friction. None of it stranded the bike — its modest ~19kWh full charge meant even a crawling 8kW top-up was usually enough — but the gap between EV and driver expectations was plain.

 

Port Hedland brought scale: the sheer industrial size of the Pilbara’s iron ore export operation dwarfing anything seen since leaving Sydney. We hired a car for the trip to Karijini National Park for a,few,days off the road to mark 41st wedding anniversary among the gorges. We returned to Port Hedland, then got back on the bike through to Karratha (and a side trip to see Dampier’s Red Dog statue), a two-night stay at Bullara Station, and two more days off the road at Coral Bay — whale sharks, humpbacks and calves, glass-bottom boat reef tours.

South through Carnarvon, Denham (dolphin feeding at Monkey Mia, a lucky afternoon charge ahead of a six-hour blackout), Kalbarri (Skywalk cantilevers over gorge country reminiscent of Moab USA ), and Cervantes (The Pinnacles Desert), the charging plan ran close to faultless — fast charges timed to meal breaks, overnight charges improvised via balcony cables and flyscreen gaps when needed.

 

Along the way, social posts sparked real debate: a remote solar charger’s modest 45-EV monthly usage drew online criticism that missed the point of remoteness itself, while a video contrasting queue-free motorcycle charging against a roadhouse fuel queue became the trip’s best-performing post — 110,000 views and over 1,000 comments in 24 hours, proof that EV scepticism remains loud even as the technology and infrastructure keep improving.

 

Section five closes with Perth photo stops and a final stretch to Kalamunda, where Ed catches up with a good mate and a group of EV enthusiasts who have been following the trip. Sally flys home back to Sydney while Ed continues on with section 6 following the coast from Perth to Sydney for 6,000km taking in the vast open spaces of the Nullarbor Plains.