Thanks for all the encouraging support!
Yeah I do plan to travel Australia first. I'm travelling up to Cairnes for the solar eclipse end of this year, and that's no small ride!
I already have plans to sell the sporty but I'm not in a position to sell it yet.
Thanks guys and gals!

Hi mate! I guess you could say I'm in a similar position to yourself, and thought my experience and planning thus far might be helpful. Sorry if this takes an eternity to read btw!

I'm fairly new to the adventure/touring riding myself, having recently done a ride from VIC, through central NSW & QLD up to Bundaberg, and returned home via the east-coast. I spent 2 weeks on the road by myself riding a 2011 SV650S (stopped over at a mates place in Brissy for a few days), all in the name of sussing out if my ambitions of bigger and better rides were the thing for me. After touring up to Darwin a couple of years back in my old Land Rover, the outback travel bug bit me, so I figured why not combine my love of camping/travel with riding?!

I'd highly recommend doing something similar for a number of reasons. As mentioned in a previous reply, we're incredibly lucky to live in Australia, and is surely on most travellers "must do" lists. You will me amazed how much you never knew about your own backyard btw. Being locals, it's so simple, not having to worry about passports, carnets, currencies, language barriers, blah blah.

It's also a great opportunity to try out your camping gear, routines, test your riding skills/stamina, decision making, what gear was useful/useless, etc. You can certainly do all of these things with a sportsbike.

After you've have a crack at doing that, you'll quickly know what adventures you're likely to want to do, which in turn determines which type of bike you will want to buy. Then it flows onto what accessories, modifications and riding gear you'll need, etc.

In my case, I was hooked on the idea of venturing into more remote parts and avoiding civilisation as much as possible (courtesy of a 4x4'ing background). This means selling the sportsbike and getting an adventure/dual-sports bike. I've only ever ridden sportsbikes, and have zero experience with riding off-road (cue laughter from the forum lurkers!), but this opens a whole new exciting challenge. I'm lucky enough to have a mate who races long-distance enduro and is prepared to teach/train me. In your case, it might be worthwhile doing some offroad rider training days which DECA, BMW Aust, etc conduct.

Talking at length with another one of my mates who's in the exact same situation, a shared dream emerged, and we've agreed on riding over to the WA next year, taking the path least followed (lots of detours to whoop-whoop in other words!) and making it a proper bloody adventure along the way. The exact route is still being discussed atm, but we already know the types of terrain, weather, etc, and above all, what we want to achieve from this adventure.

After much shopping around we've agreed on buying BMW F800GS, plus have spent countless hours reading forums for opinions and reviews, so we now have a solid idea of accessories/riding gear needed. Most importantly, what equipment we intend on carrying. It's good to know what kind of budget we're facing, and are already plowing through our lists of things to buy and prepare. A fair few weekend trips will be done to build our confidence in a new style of riding over a variety of terrain, and getting to grips with the new bikes, not to mention doing a first aid course. All sensible ideas which will make the big trip more enjoyable. We're now all about fine-tuning details and saving the cash we're going to need to make this dream happen. With a deadline set, this is much easier to achieve.

On a separate note, I've also set myself a timeframe to send my bike over to South Africa in 2-3yrs max, and ride it all the way to France, so for me this WA trip will be a practice run for that, in the safety of my own country with a mate, tackling similar terrain and challenges, all while not being left in the sh*t if something happens. Depending how much of a success it is, he may very well want to join me for the SA-France trip...now that'd be really something!

If you have any questions, or need help with anything feel free to ask and I'll do my best mate! Who know's, we might even catch up for a ride at some stage down the track...