Well, I gave it good attempt and did my best to head north....but as you may have guessed I just happened to time my trip with the worst weather Australia has had for decades.I got a few 100kms North and then started running into increasingly deeper road washouts until it got to the point where there was nothing that could be done.....so time to spin the bike around and head back to Rockhampton and plan the next stage.

Amie had received a surprise invite from her sister who had been out in the States studying for the past year or so and had met the man of her dreams and decided to marry. The invite was to spend the coming full month out there preceding the wedding and some time after.

She asked me If I wanted to come with her for a couple of months.....and after thinking about it for a few days, I worked out that I just could not go for various reasons...she was dissapointed but understood, as it was totally unplanned. I then stayed with Amie until she flew out ( just under a week ), she even offered me her house to stay at while she was gone.....amazing offer for someone who you have only really known for a month...but I could not accept such an offer.

There are not many decisions or choices I have made in my time that cause me problems..I have made right choices and wrong choices, but have the attitude that " what is done..is done " and live with those choices.

I have never made a choice that has caused me so much regret afterwoods by not going to the States with Amie, It still keeps me awake some nights and I have to give myself a good slap to stop thinking about it.We still keep in touch....from the other side of the world, but in hindsight I was a bloody fool to keep travelling at this point.

Here are some pretty pictures, before this ride report sinks from view from pathetic self-pity.

I took a aimless and slow meander down the East coast and just explored and stopped off at a whim for the next week, every cove was a sight to behold and it dified belief that an even more beautiful feat of nature lay ahead.....this area is blessed with its terrain.

It was comfortably warm, the rain had stopped and that lovely salt air tang filled the air that you do not realise how much you have missed it until you taste it again.

On a technical note.

At this point I gave away my one man tent to a charity shop as I had started to develop a nervous twitch whenever I built the thing....it was truly like crawling into a coffin every night....

And splashed out on a K-Mart $25, 3 man dome tent!

Nuts..here are those photos I was supposed to post.

Nicely described! I liked reading your journey and seems as if you had quite an amazing days through out your journey and thank you for providing us lots of information.

an amazing read.. keep em coming :thumbup1:

subscribed

cheers
Geordie

Bunderberg.
 

Time to be heading south and the first natural stop was going to be Bunderberg.

Famous for its Rum and where it produces said rum and also the untold millions of fruitbats that inhabit the surrounding forests and take flight at every dusk and dawn, this tends to be a bit of a backpacker magnet due to its location and because of its size as a town.The original plan was for me to spend a while here and take the chance offered of learning to scuba dive....quite affordable to train up as a acomplete novice.

I have worked in confined spaces and have worn a respirator/gasmask with no problems at all for days on end....as a work requirement and not some strange fetish I might add. But as soon as I started to don all that cumbersome gear for scuba diving I was getting out of my comfort zone.

I also soon found out that an after effect of getting into brawls when I was younger was that I could not shut off the breathing through my nose....not a very useful ability when underwater and trying to breathe with a mouth feed only.

I have never had a panic attack in my life until this point, but being weighed down with equipment and having water trickling down my nose and breathing it in was an utter horror.....I was not cut out to be a diver for sure.

Fruit Bat Bomber Command
 

I would have loved to post a few thrilling and scenic pictures of the waves of fruitbats rising from their roosts and ascending into the orange skys...I really would.

However, this was not to be.

Bit of random knowledge for us all here. Fruit bats when they awaken tend to do what most animals do and urinate before getting to work hunting and in the case of bats that means immediately after they have taken wing.

Underneath the roosts on their flightpath are the dozens of tourists taking photos, and having observed this airbourne attack ahead of me ...like a instant cloudburst of reeking,rancid rain soaking them....I did a very quick U-turn and headed for tourist information centre which was the one and only cover nearby. And spent the next 10 minutes watching tourists running around in franctic circles and getting soaked in bat urine.

I personally think that this should be number one on the list of things to see before you die.......really, you have not lived until you see a few Korean tourist girls running around in a field, covered in bat wee.

Random Photo time.

Flooded road North of Rockhampton....took me ages to find a semi-naked Australian girl and throw her in the river to get soaking wet before I could produce this picture for you.

I think for most people, If you do not have a substantial amount of time to spend in Australia....this is the point of the journey that would be worth travelling.

The other places are stunning and filled with adventure ( or mis-adventure ) but....by God...there are some big distances involved and unless you are flying/railing across the country, it is a tad impractical to expect to cover much of this stunning land in a month or less.

The East side of Australia is the most populous and the vast bulk of the tarmac roads are here as well as the cities, its a beautiful place and everything is pretty much achievable without going all survivalist/expedition mode to see it.

The climate is not a massive problem ### this is back in 2009 before that horrendous weather hit recently #### and you would not need anything more impressive than a dual-sport or even a road bike to see this gorgeous place.

Mitta Mitta
 

When I first flew out to Australia, I was aware that there was going to be a HU meeting in the coming months and if I kept an eye on my route...I could arrange to be at the meeting. Never managed to get to any HU meetings back home because of the horrendous 100 hour weeks I used to work.....this would be my first!

Still several weeks ahead and a fair distance I set my self a winding and pretty much random route that would cover a lot of the coastline and then swooping back into the inland areas to see things as I wanted at a whim.

Time to put my new budget tent to the test and wallow in the delight of actually having room enough to move inside it......First things first, a good old meal of spam and fried egg.

After moving down the coast and visiting the almost traditional places to see like Hervey Bay, Fraser Island and the Gold coast......The terrain was now moving into a more familiar look of what most of us in europe would be used to......lots of farmland and rolling hills, woodland and more tolerable temperatures for us lily white skinned Brits.

Still keep an eye on your UV exposure though, the temperature might be lower now but the sunburn risk is still far higher than anywhere I can think of back in europe.

Every once in a while I would see a place name that appealed to me and cause me to dart in land just to see it....Toowoomba, Goondiwindi,Bogabilla etc etc, To find some roads that were a great pleasure to ride upon. A nice hilly tarmac road can be a treat after months of gravel riding.

And have a quick guess at where I stopped to do the touristy thing from these photos.....first person to get it right will be bought a pint at the next HU meeting in Ripley....it is a hard question though.

I Stayed in Brisbane for a few days in the AYHA hostel to basically have a good wash and meal after camping out for the week, several nights on a pretty impressive national park by the sea....and to dump the fresh pineapple that I had bought about 2 weeks ago and never got around to eating.....possibly because I started talking to it at night in my tent, and it would feel like canniablism.

It was at this point I was first exposed to the somewhat ' them and us ' attitude to the adventure biking out here.

I had met a fair few bikers out here already ( that I have not mentioned in the story, sloppy writing ) and they proved to be a varied but great bunch of people. A road rider I met in Coober Pedy was riding all the way to Darwin ( road ) from Melbourne to see his sister and celebrate his 50th birthday on a Kawasaki Ninja 600. I met a few in Alice Springs, off roader lads with KTM's who were happy to stop and chat and many others.

Brisbane AYHA had a few overland type bikes already there and as bikers do, you tend to park up next to the other bikes.After booking in and dropping my kit bag off, I then went back downstairs to do my routine maint and check the bike over like every night......To find that the other bikes had been moved and parked again in their own very neat line a few spots away.

' 3 fully dealer specced ' brand new BMW R1200 GSA's with a rather impressive assortment of various aluminium panniers and gubbins sat a dozen feet away and almost glowered at my little DR650 sat on its own.

Later on while sampling a rather fetching local wine in the bar, my ninja like perception alerted me to the 3 riders as they walked in covertly still dressed in their full motocross gear ( at 10:00 PM ) and as misfortune would have it sat across the bench from me.While eating my dinner ( lovely steak and chips ) and doing some paperwork I had the chance to overhear, well everyone was meant to overhear I think their opinion on the ' wannabe bike ' in the carpark amongst other stuff.....yep that would be my bike then.

Normally at this point I would have just stamped all three of them into to floor just on principle and also to improve the evolutionary gene-pool....however as I had mellowed out on this trip, I did not.....and even politely answered a question from one of them.

One of the gentleman enquired If I was travelling by road as he had noticed I was completeing a route map ( distance and bearings etc )...

" yes indeedy " says I.

" I am riding that little pretend bike out the front next to yours "

" It is a ride for a charity that has helped me and I want to help them back.....Sociopathic Dislocation and Paranoid Rage Society " .......I continued while letting a little bit of drool, dribble down my chin.

" I have ridden across Europe,Africa and swum to Australia and I just about to complete my 7th complete circle of World " ......if you would hang on, I will go and get some of the photos.( I may have lied a little here )

They did not want to be my friends and avoided me for the next 2 days.

Snowy Mountain Highway
 

Named possibly because it is a highway up in the mountains that gets snowy.

Great area to have a play on, the national park roads wind up and down and across gorges, with views over landscapes of forest and hills.There are dozens of rivers to just amble alongside and well thought out camping spots in the trees to camp up if wanted.

Another bonus is that it is getting a tad cold up in the hills....well compared to the rest of Australia ...a welcomed and blessed variation on waking up and spending the rest of the day baking and sweating .I really enjoyed this part of the trip...except for the lack of cold weather clothing, but the wax-cotton ranchers coat was worth its weight in gold here.

I cannot even recall the rough route I rode for the next few weeks, it was just random stuff down any track that caught my eye, stopping off to grab some food and fuel and camping in the woods...awesome stuff for a loner.

For those of an astute eye, you may have noticed that by following a map..this trip appears to be a little disjointed in its geography.

Two Reasons

1) There are parts of this trip that I cannot quite recall with any great accuracy in relation to timeframe.....highly likely to getting into a party mood/drunk on a regular baisis.

2) Some towns or cities, I just did not like the look or the feel of the place.....Sydney being a prime example, and simply avoided or bypassed them.

Sydney was the first proper sized city I had driven in for over a year ( being in the middle east prior to trip ) and it was an utter culture shock trying to fight through the city traffic..ergo, I did not even try and just turned round and left Sydney in less than an hour.

Location.

Somewhere heading south from the Snowy Mountains towards the blue mountains by the off-tarmac roads.

I had been riding all day and apart from a fuel stop and resupply of some meat for my campfire dinner tonight at a backroads servo, the route had been completely deserted until I met a couple of lads just pulling up next to me.

Dave and Brian as they introduced themselves were on their way to a weekend off camping up ahead on the route...something they have been doing as youngsters and an ever increasing number of friends had joined them until it became an annual event.After a beer and a bite to eat and a chat, They invited me to the event and gave me the rough location as on their map and bid me farewell.

Just a case of following these damn enjoyable dirt tracks through the hills and following the rivers until I found dozens of bikes parked off to the side, a few bonfires and hopefully the smell of roast pig wafting through the air.

A full three days of mellowing out, drinking beer/wine/mead, eating good food and completely removed away from any towns and worries.....and a freshwater river next to it safe to drink from.

Met a lot of good people, happy to natter and share tips and info about Australia.

Most of the bikes were standard road bikes and the lads and lasses riding them had no travel whatsoever in getting into the hills, I looked for any HU stickers and found none, but this is the exact kind of thing these fella's were into.

Just to prove that I was not going crazy.

Here are the photo's of the giant concrete sheeps genetalia that I happened to pass in a rather surreal part of the journey.

Mitta Mitta
 

It was time to head for the Horizons Unlimited meeting at Mitta Mitta.

Positioned in a rather impressive setting that was cradled by hills and wooded areas, this was a refreshing ride to reach.The site was the extended back garden/lawn below a pub in the village of Mitta Mitta that had a river flowing at the bottom and a Bar-B-Q stand rather generously provided on the river side.A fair distance to reach away from any main towns......and that was all the reason I needed to eat like a king for the next 4 days in the pub.

I arrived early on the day before the event and pretty much had a free hand in where I wanted to place my tent.A corking little spot was located that was equal distance to the Bar-B-Q stand...the Pub...and had a good shelter of trees and was on firm,level ground.

Tent was struck, Bike was de-kitted and then it was into the bar to regale the locals in my well practised story of how I was travelling the world and working as a pole dancer to fund the trip.

A smattering of bikes were starting to arrive through the night.

Mitta Mitta
 

Having crawled into my tent at some unknown hour, fuelled by a few sociable beers, I had a very content and sound sleep.....in fact by the time I woke up, there was a fair amount of bikes parked up and a virtual tent village in half construction that I had slept through.

Poking my head out of the tent I was met by the immediate site of seeing a German registered bike and then another, a Brit plate and a smattering of others....

I had been told so many stories by ' people in the know ' about how much of a nightmare it would be to bring my own bike to Australia that I excepted their words as wisdom. Here infront of me was the proof that that was utter tosh and people can bring their bikes here if they desired....in fact most of the bikes had actually ridden here overland from various countries of origin.

The rest of the day was pretty much people settling in and basically meeting and greeting that seems unique to HU events, these meetings really do appear to be a cut above in the way people can immediately just strike up a conversation and get along.

The Aussie lads next to me also had my love of making huge breakfast on the Barbie with obscene amounts of sausages....so things were looking damn good.

My little K-mart $25 tent deserves a whole posting to itself.

This cheap as chips budget, 3 man dome tent had worked without fail/leaking and was a real morale boost in terms of having room to stretch and actually move. The heavens opened over Mitta Mitta and stayed open for most of the four days, this is not the kind of weather where you want to find your gear somewhat lacking.

To combat the torrential downpour, I needed to do no more than attach the hoochies to the surrounding trees to act as an additional water break....and to dig a drainage channel in front of the tent to divert the literal deluge of water running down the hill.

Point of note.

You do not want to place your tent downslope from a run-off gutter, as a couple of unfortunate people found out when they found out that their incredibly expensive tents were actually starting to float down the river.

The next 4 days were the almost traditional approach of an informal talk and discussion amongst friends that to my eye, is what sums up HU meetings.

A mixture of tips, advice, suggestions, adventures and misadventures that makes every event unmissable and unique....riding in Mongolia and travelling across china and beyond on a scooter stick in my mind.

A road-run up to the nearby dam for a rather impressive photo location to finish off.

I wake up and you have made four new posts! Excellent, BBB!

After the fun at Mitta Mitta It was time to move on to pastures new which in this case was a slight roundabout route to the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are so named because of the evaporating eucalyptus oil from the forest's that stretch as far as the eye can see.Normally early to mid-day are the best viewing times, which little lookouts or purpose built viewing platforms put in place for this purpose. The effect is like a shimmery grey ( or blue ) mist that rises into the air and of course you get the smell of the forest as well, the area is very impressive in an unspoilt way.

I was feeling lazy at this point, and booked myself into the Katoomba YHA hostel...big place, well equipped and they were happy for you to park the motorbike round the back so they could keep an eye on it.This was my basecamp for the week and enabled me to take an unladen bike out and explore the roads.

Big Mountains...Check.

Twisty roads.....Check.

Fat Bloke..........Check.

Absolute fun and games hurtling around these roads and at one point I ended up in a massive convoy of Harley Davidsons heading towards a town ( agh..name escapes me ) where they have their annual meeting.

Parked up and had a good wander around the place, nice people to chat. . I even found the Australian Trail Rider Magazine stand where I wasted a while talking to them about the trip, They asked me to knock up a ride report for them.....which I never did, totally my fault.

Jenolan Caves
 

Jenolan Caves

No this is what I would call a technical road.

Very steep, and quite narrow for two lane traffic and extremely twisty from the top of the mountain road all the way down to the bottom of the gorge where the caves themselves reside.

Best approach was just to cane it all the way down....in hindsight, that was possibly not the best thing to do.

However I got there in one piece and spent the best part of the day walking up cliffs and gorges and climbing down caves and all the touristy things that go with this place.....Not cheap.This is one of these undiscovered areas as such that proved massively popular to the Victorians who really embraced the place.

Here we have some pretty photos.

Scaring the hell out of random people

As per usual when off exploring away from my bike, I tend to wear and/or carry all my riding gear.....this certainly comes from being British and having your formative years in motorcycling tainted by living in a nation that will steal anything and everything not bolted down. Hence the reason why Brits always carry those sodding great big chains and locks around with them all the time.

Almost finished exploring the caves for the day when I noticed a opening just off the path leading into a deep, dark tunnel....leading where?


Time to explore.


Putting my helmet back on, as I had retrofitted a bespoke illumination system to it ( taped a headtorch to the top ) I lumbered off down the tunnel, which after only a matter of a few feet started to get noticeably smaller in width and height....tight....but still ok. With all my bike gear on ( armour/equipment jacket ) I took up the entire width and height of the tunnel so decided that the only way was forward.

After about 60 foot, the tunnel went into a series of blind corners and turns until ending up against a iron grate with the placard " closed " on it....ah well, that was a quick adventure. Shuffling around to head back I had a great idea of switching my torch to infra-red and using my video camera in night mode to do a creepy record of the return trip.

All was going fine until I reached the first corner in almost pitch blackness where upon something hit me smack bang in my chest and screamed in a high pitched unearthly tone....quickly followed by a whole chorus of screams from an unknown number of things in the tunnel....instinct kicked in and in this case it was for me to bellow as loud as I could and grab whatever was against me and lift it up and push down the corridor......absolute bedlam....amongst the screams I could hear lots of feet running away at least.

Lots of screaming and bellowing continued until a white light appeared and fully lit up the tunnel to reveal 2 Asian girls crying and cowering in terror on the floor ( one of which had the light ) and another Asian girl crying her heart out.....held in a bearhug immobile against my chest and her feet dangling about a foot off the floor.

A group of Tourist's ( maybe from Japan....they were incapable of speaking after this to confirm it ) had noticed me going into the tunnel and assumed it must be another tourist cave so had followed me in a minute later and found themselves in a pitch black narrow tunnel.The first corner they hit was where they met me and they only saw a very large shape with a red glow around it come barreling into them out of the dark.

The boys in the group had screamed and then turned around and ran out, leaving the girls trapped in the tunnel with me.....methinks, they are not going to be forgiven for that one.

Andy,
Brilliant ride report and great writing style. Just reading it is enough to get the wanderlust bubbling up again. If you're still around B'stoke I'll buy you a jug of mead!
Ed

Excellent BBB. Can just picture the chaos :clap: and then the entertainment value afterwards

Thought I'd met you on the road somewhere BB and now it clicks.

That scooter is off to Oodnadatta over easter so it looks like I will be following in your footsteps soon. :thumbup1:

Sounds like you had a great ride and we definitely need you back here to keep Amie company long term. :cool4:

Mate just a few things, Your report is the first I have ever read all the way through.

As a Ex bill Odie of 22 years, a lot of what you said of your self resonates through me too, I would love to of seen you route on a map to make it easier to follow for me pers, again a solder thing prob.

On a pers note: Well done, loved the report and the way it was written, & very informertive.

Edmac

Yes matey, I am still around Basingstoke...I ride a rather fetching Aqua and White BMW R100GSPD now.

Selous

I wish I kept my maps as well, I started off on the desert runs with proper ordnance survey spec maps and then bought a very good road Atlas for the rest of the trip.The Atlas showed fuel and camping spots and the general state of the road which was pretty much all I needed.

farqhuar

Good luck on your easter run, I was that impressed with your scooter I am trying to get a cheap one for a little excursion up to NordKapp in Norway this August.

Canberra
 

After the cultural misunderstanding beneath Genolan resulting in several Asian tourists going into mental collapse......I decided it was time to move onwards.A rather roundabout and random route was selected that would eventually bring me to Canberra by using the backroads and mountain roads to the west of the city.

The fact that the route would also be completely unguessable or impossible to follow by the Police...never even crossed my mind.

The trip took maybe 4 times longer than originally planned.....simply because the roads were amazing! I must have repeated a dozen sections due to the steep,twisty nirvanna through the mountains....even on a low powered bike like the DR, it was a giggle to travel them.

Eventually popped out from the mountain tracks to the west of the city, covered from head to toe in dust and sand and headed towards Canberra.

Mitta Mitta
 

Great ride report, during my time in the Australian Navy (24yrs) i try to ride to my new posting locations and explore Australia a bit at the same time, Darwin, Cairns, Melbourne, great rides and lots to see and do on the way. I noticed a few familiar faces in your pics of the Mitta Mitta gathering and then i noticed my bike in the background of your tent picture, i remember seeing you all set up down the bottem of the slope there. Sounds like you had a great time, well done.

awesome ride report
 

Hey mate, just wanted to say awesome ride report! I like your writing style as well, very entertaining :)

I spent two years in Australia (2008-09) traveling and working around the country, and god I just loved it! I'm looking forward to finding a job in the future and hopefully move permanently (I'm from Canada, the weather sucks here!).

Have you been to Perth by any chance? My favorite part of Australia was the southwestern part of Western Australia, around Margaret River, and a bit further east around Esperance, just before the Nullarbor Desert, but Perth is a great city too and the Indian ocean is gorgeous there. When I initially left Perth with my girlfriend, we were planning to perhaps find some work in the southwest and what not. We ended up driving around and not finding anything, so we decided to drive all the way to Melbourne. We weren't even aware that there was a desert (the Nullarbor) in between the two cities haha. We were lucky because our car didn't break down in the middle of the 1300km long desert :rolleyes2:

If I get the chance in the future, I'd love to drive from Perth to Darwin. Just on a side note, did you meet a lot of weird people in the really small towns in the bush? I'm kinda curious! You didn't talk too much about the general populations you met in the middle of nowhere (except for your few unappealing experiences with the aborigines), would be interesting to hear more about that!

Anyway keep it up, looking forward to read the rest of your trip report :)

I thourougly enjjoyed this trip report. Thank you so much, BBB :)

Ahem.....sorry for the haphazard updates....work got in the way for the last few weeks.

wakold

When it comes to meeting people out in the bush( or anywhere really ), I am at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to describing them accurately in a way that would resonate with other people. Almost my entire military/civillian proffesional life has been working in remote areas as such and working either in small teams or on my own and compounded with doing a big solo trip....that sort of effects the way you deal with people. You could say I tend to miss certain social pointers about people.....you could definately say I will pretty much speak to anyone and do not alter my own personae when talking with people.

Hence the regular occurence at my present ( heavily populated ) work where I tend to amuse/abuse/insult/flatter people at apparent random whim....not doing it intentionally, just the the way I come across when being honest.

" Do you think this approach is wrong ".....Manager

" Yeah, you are bloody clueless and could not organise a piss-up in a brewery " .........is apparently not the sociably acceptable response. Too honest.

Hence, I do not really describe people unless I have spent time with them..they are either alright or not, I get along with them or they are going to get on my bad side.

Wakold

Perth was to prove to be my own " bridge too far " for a few reasons.Namely my chaotic approach to trip planning ( I prefer the term Surprise planning ) and also because of the completely crazy weather that I just happened to have timed right to be stuck in.

With whole swathes of Australia being cutoff from land travel, it would have been pushing common sense beyond reasonable limits to attempt some parts of the trip...so to keep the trip going, I would just change plans as the situation arose.

Backup Plan Alpha would normally be to find a bar/pub/hostel and ' party likes its 1999 ' until divine inspiration hit me, or I had in insulted enough people that it was prudent to move on.

I seriously looked at the Nullarbor Desert crossing to get to Perth but as you know, this is some serious distance and in perfect isolation...especially off season. If I could have found a vehicle to tag along with to take all the fuel and water, I would have done it. But as I was solo.....the fuel stages of the trip would mean I would be travelling at 99%-100% fuel capacity ( including jerrycans ) and would leave a 0%-1 % margain of error for problems....pretty suicidal for a fat bloke on a little bike from England.

Canberra Part 2
 

This a very neat and well thought out city.

Anyone coming from ' Olde Europe ' will be familiar with the chaotic approach to building and planning that is prevelent in old european cities, understandly really....back in the middle ages you could not blame their lack of foresight in anticipating that London would have 10 million people living there one day and have 44,000kg trucks tramping everywhere.

New cities like Canberra have not got the 800-1000 years or more, cancer like growth of a city to contend with. Very well set out and reminded me of a lot of American type cities in its setout.

The Australian military Museum is a must see if you are here. Some especially moving displays and an incredible World War I depiction of a ariel dogfight with a full blown movie surrounding the stands.Apart from that I rested a few days and had a couple of meals, maintained the bike and felt the need to move on again....I have never really felt at ease in cities.

Traffic Wardens
 

The first and only place in Australia that I got a parking ticket.

The little DR650 is sat on top of one of its panniers to keep its backend up in the air while I trooped off to get a repair on the rear tyre.....pretty obvious the bike was broken and not just parked up....the clue being it only had one wheel!

Got back to a $100 ticket taped to the bike, well done fellas...nice to see that traffic wardens have the same approach all around the world.

Tasmania.
 

Sat on the Spirit of Tasmania on the forward deck passenger seats ( cattle class ) It occured to me that I had not read a newspaper, watched a news report or see anything at all about " home " for nearly seven months.....apart from a handful of phonecalls to my parents, I had been completely isolated from world events apart from the immediate concerns of weather reports for the next leg of the journey.

Information overload is a curse of the modern age, people assuming that you have to be contactable 24 hours a day is its sister curse.....how utterly refreshing to not be weighed down with those bloody mobile phones/text/twitter/facebook.

Tasmania plan of action

Ride off the ferry and turn right......then see where I end up.

Heading West.

Cold air, rain and wind.....Oh my Lord, how I have missed the feel of the old God Awful British weather.

Not knocking the Aussies and their gorgeous country, but........there is only so much warm/hot, dry weather that the average English chap can take. Having spent the last 7 months covering up my palid flesh in the manner of a Tuareg tribesman to avoid sunburn, to actually be able to step outside and feel cold wind is a blessing.

Following the costal roads west, and just diverting to take pretty photos or to explore an area on the map was the goal for the next week. The chance of wild camping was such that it was far less hassle to find a AYHA hostel of a registered campsite if I was not up in the wooded hills on my own. The only rule of thumb was that If I didnt like the vibe from an area of it was in the middle of town, I would give it a miss.

great thread! Many thanks for sharing!

H

Thanks
 

Have just read this from start to finish
I now have to get back to doing my accounts.doh
Cracking read by the way:D

Well.....how crap am I ?

I actually forgot to finish off my own ride report, and only realised when a mate asked me what I did in Tasmania.

Two year Gap since the last update....that is impressively rubbish even for my unorganised mind.

The first town off the ferry ( Devonport ) , had a nice little tourist information building. As was the routine, I popped in to have a chat with the nice ladies inside to see if there was anything special happening in Tasmania and get a general chance to browse their wall sized map and come up with a battle plan.

If there is one thing among many that the Aussies do well, that is to cater for tourists to an exceptional degree...I had yet to bike through a single town on the entire trip that did not have a useful tourist board or a manned tourist centre.

Outside while doing my little routine of trying to find my bloody notebook..that I had yet again packed at the very bottom of my panniers...I heard a nice sounding road bike pull up, nice little thump to it somewhat similar to an old BMW.

A young lady biker riding a rather nice and new looking Guzzi, kitted out with some panniers and whatnot,parked up and we got chatting.

Fran , had only very, very recently passed her motorcycle test and one of the first rides she decided to go.....a kind of baptism of fire....was to ride from her home near Geelong and do a tour of Tasmania. Including the WESTERN EXPLORER ROAD C249. This is/was a constructed road for access to the west part of the island that took a quite interesting kind of meander down the edge of the map, and essentially looked off the beaten trail.

Having already caught my eye, and having asked in the tourist office about this route....I was told it was quite challenging and consisted of compacted dirt/gravel with a very distinct bright white sand construction...apparently bad weather could make it a bit of a problem.
A lot of other times I had been told the same thing and the road would turn out to be a breeze.

After a cup of tea, Fran asked....Or I offered ( my memory is rusty at my age ) If I would travel with her for a little while, just as backup/travelling buddy. As I was going to do this route at some point anyway, we agreed to travel together over the difficult ( possibly ) part of the Island.And as everyone knows, accomodation costs shared are far cheaper than solo.

So after stopping at Stanley for the night, having some decent food and drink..we got some sleep, ready to crack on with the Explorer the next morning.

Had a slight diversion for some cream teas at this little place up in hills.

Just to put this point across fully.

Fran, had literally passed her test a few days before....she had gone and bought a new, very nice roadster Moto-Guzzi and panniers, and as her very first trip....was going to attempt an off-road/onroad tour of Tasmania on her own.

To my mind that is awesome.

The Western Explorer turned out to be a doddle, It started off with almost a gentle introduction to off-tarmac travelling and became a quite pleasent track that with a lot of slopes and bends, with the occasional bit more exciting stuff.

The road surface to my inspection appeared to be a glossy kind of white sand that compacted really well and created a very good surface, every once in a while this would result in a bit of a wobble for Fran, due to a heavy vehicle leaving hardened ruts and an unusual angle....but she appeared to be fully enjoying the ride and was getting very obviously smoother as she went.

I was thoroughly enjoying myself as well, I was enjoying actually helping someone out while doing a nice relaxing ride. A little treat on the way as such was a stopover at a river crossing..... The Fatman over the Pieman.....a little toll ferry with a place to relax and eat on the home bank.

After a couple of very enjoyable days just pootling along the back roads on the western side of Tasmania, we finally came back onto tarmac and Fran led the way to a town that she had prebooked a lodge in, the name of the town escapes me but it was very much like a fishing village that had been transplanted from Scotland and plonked right next to a river....complete with a paddle boat cuiser going up and down.

It was really pleasent to have someone to bike with for a few days, as you get a new perspective when you travel with someone new...and start to notice stuff that, maybe you kinda overlooked after travelling so loong.

We had a walk around the town, a few beers and a meal and decided on our plan of action.

Having left the off-road stuff behind, I asked Fran if she was fine with the rest of the roads as in my opinion she was a quite capable rider, and I really did not want to shadow her and possibly take something away from experience ....after a bit of map planning,she said she would be great, and we would meet up again in a few weeks time at her house.

Next morning I waved farewell to Fran and she headed South while I headed roughly north onto the logging trails and mountains.

Good Reading
 

Just read your adventure tales. bloody good stuff and some squaddie humour coming through. What happens in the end though, what are you doing these days.

Thanks for taking the time out to write about your travels.

Al bier

Now, I must admit I totally fell in love with Tasmania when biking through the hills.......coming up through a low lying cloud bank with a massive forest all around you, and the abundance of little logging tracks to deter down and get lost.

After 2 days of playing in the hills and camping, I decided to head for Hobart and make this my base of operations for the next week or so. I arranged to stay at the Hobart YHA and they organised a secure place to lock my bike up during nights, just inside their Bar's access alleyway.

I immediately set out and explored the area with quite a bit of enthusiasm and discovered that the road going up to the highest point overlooking Hobart was an absolute cracker of road, the views were great when clear and just as exciting when it snowed and the cloud cover was low....in this case it gave it a surreal kind of feel.

Hobart was my kind of place, I just really liked the layout and the mix of the places to see and eat at, the actual working part of the city such as the docks, and just felt at ease there.

In the interests of diplomacy I went out on a few drinking sessions with some nice people from the YHA ( quite possibly some German girls )....well these actually started as " cultural " type excursions to see various museums and attractions.....but by the time I impressed my fellow tourists with my very well rehearsed tall stories ( ie Complete Lies ) , such as my funding for the trip coming from being an exotic dancer / Being a proffesional camel spider herder etc....it turned into an excuse to go out on the lash..." get drunk ".

During our pub crawl, we discovered Hobart has got a motorcycle bar that has parts of bikes on every surface of the place, the drinks come out of engine components and from what I can remember...I had a very, very good time. If I could actually remember its name, inbetween my irregular drink induced flashbacks I would post it.

I liked Hobart.

Skywalk
 

I saw this advertised in the YHA and as it looked quite interesting and was not far at all, I rode and to have a look.

Set in a national woodland where it is managed and you pay to enter is a virtual complex of various grades of woodland walks. All set in heavy woodland with a dozen meandering rivers dotted about.....it is cool and shaded and so very, very relaxing.The main lure of the place however is the SKYWALK . This is an elevated walkway that gives the chance to do a circut up in the level of the treetops...about 30 metres high.The veiws are indeed worth it and give a great illusion of being in an totally unspolit forest.

## being an Engineer by trade , these structures always make me a little nervous...I always unconsciously keep looking at the state of the nuts and bolts, and for any structural fatigue##

One part of the woodland led out to ........

DID I JUST HEAR AN ICECREAM TRUCK !!

You bet your bloody giddy aunt I just did,getting a rough bearing on the truck I set off at a jaunty little place to quell my ravenous need for a 99 flake and cone ( please let them have one ) and came up to the final hurdle between me and my desire.

A rope Bridge...well technically it was a suspended walkway reinforced with SWR and an under support strut....however it looked like a rope bridge.

I digress.

I started jogging onto the bridge at a fair rate of knots and got to almost a third of the way across when I heard a very startled and increasingly horrified series of screams and other sounds of distress from ahead of me.....the couple ahead of me on the bridge appeared to be playing silly sods and were jumping up and down like on a trampoline, the young lady especially was getting quite a bit of height on each bounce.

On closer inspection they did not seem to be enjoying themselves and were looking at me in a kind of terrified accusing manner.

Very heavy bloke, wearing full offroad motorcycle gear and rucksack while running across the rope bridge was what had caused the problem....every single time I had stamped down while running had caused the bridge to bounce until the people ahead were literally almost higher than the guard rails......oops.

I did what any seasoned overlander would do when presented with such as situation, involving danger and distress.....I turned around and ran back and then hid in the woods laughing for 30 minutes.....which was about the time it took the young lady to let go of her man, who she was clinging to like a spider monkey.

Picture was before I tried to kill them on earlier bridge.