Amazingly, the difficulties with the Canning Stock Route in the last few weeks have been to do with too much water, rather than too little.
Two Poles – Aga and Mateusz Walligóra, who set off to ride North-to-South (as have the 3 previously successful unsupported riders) a few weeks ago, ran into un-pushable mud at well 46 (there were 51 functional wells originally, and the landmarks now are often described by well number – Well 51 is the most northern). This delayed them to such an extent that they turned back as their food wouldn’t have lasted them the full distance.
Scott and I have been giving this potentially repeatable scenario much thought, and have concluded that riding South-to-North gives us the best chance of making the whole distance, but also gives us an escape option without having to backtrack fully. The community at well 33 has access from the west/coast/highway. Jan and Jeremy of Global Gypsies have been invaluable with their advice about track conditions in different weathers.
Scott arrives in Perth in just under two days, and my Telethon Adventurers page shows an amazing total of $5200 already donated to Childhood Brain Tumour Research. We’ve got a few days to top up our food supplies and make sure the bikes work properly before we head up to Wiluna to start riding.
bicyclenomad 
I’m waiting with bated breath to see how it goes! I hope it dries out before you guys get to the potentially muddy bits. (I had a couple of kilometres of muddy pushing and pulling yesterday, myself.)
Can’t wait to hear how it goes. Hope this strange dry season weather isn’t too much of a problem. On the plus side, all the swimming holes around Halls Creek were full and not too cold as of last week.
Safe travels!
Thank you – glad to see your Flathead Valley trip went well :-)
Thanks Tom. We’ve had unusually wet weather this summer in Western Canada and the resulting flooding has resulted in dramatic changes to typical riding conditions. I hope things dry out for you guys when you get to the North end of the CSR. At least you’ll have lighter bikes and be in the “zone” by then.
I watched Scott unpack and repack his bike yesterday for the inspection at the airport. The whole box did not fit in the X-ray machine. The inspector was convinced that there should be CO2 cartridges in the box.
He emailed me, but didn’t elaborate as to the inspector’s motivations :-)
Wishing the two of you good luck on this very exciting adventure and am looking forward to reading all about it.