The Longest Friday

Life’s got its highs and lows and Good times come and go,….and these my friends are definitely good times.

I’ve just pitched a tent on forested ridge deep in the Blue Mountains.

The higher altitude here allows a crisp cool breeze to blow through camp,..a relief from the steamy tropical lowland.  It’s a campers dream out here! Its merely a quick hop onto dirt road to find yourself in open range. When there’s no fences on the sides of road you know your in ADVrider territory,..where you can bound off into the woods as far as your knobby TKC80 tread will pull you.

My technique is to take a dirt road, then a scout out a dirt track…then pull a 100meters off into the bush out of site and mind.  Not that any one comes down these roads anyway….or cares. One thing Australians are endowed with is space…the first pillar of quality life!

Cozy’d up in my fleece liner, I’m lean’n up against a gum tree catching up on this ride report…not easy with the pleasant distraction of a gorgeous sunset slipping below the adjacent ridge, wallabies hoping around camp and those wild looking Aussie parrots pumping out a Jurassic park sound track.

It’s been a LONG time since I actually had a real ride report to post,..thats actual riding..not posts about shipping, or taking up space in a hospital, or sorting through medical bills as I swap out ice packs.  I’m back in saddle…and its never felt so damn good.  I’ve always tried to keep pushing through even when things got mean,..seemed irrational..and cost deeply in all aspects, but its always paid off, and this is no different.

Following a route traced out by Locky(the OZ pannier guy), I rolled west from Brisbane into the Great divide mountains.  It was a much different way than I’d originally set out on so many months ago on that freeway through Tawoomba.  This time I traded fast highways for country lanes with no centerline,..roads that twisted in and out of mountains, through lush rainforest and over swollen rivers on creaky old one way bridges.

Due to my usual late start (always tough to get your kit right after being off the road for a while), I’d finally made camp well after dark.  As I expected, locky had set me up right,…a quiet spot along a river off the old Grafton road, a ways out from Glenn Innes.

This camp had A LOT of critters.  Under the light of my headlamp I was pulling my tent off the bike of the bike when I heard a rustle in the woods.  Glancing up I was alarmed to see a furry white thing twice the size of dog bolting right at me.  Totally spooked, I jumped to the side putting the motorcycle between me and the incoming creature.  It stopped just on the other side of the bike about three meters away from me,..staring me down and huffing a bit. Sure,..it was furry and cute..but it had .,..crazy eyes!  The cute furry ones are the ones you got to look out for …like those drop bears they keep warning me about J.   Realizing it was just a wallaby, I relaxed a bit and enjoyed the company.  I think it was maybe the light that brought him in, cus I turned it off and he bounced away.

Everyone I meet seems to have their own opinion on the bizarre behavior of kangaroos and wallabies or wallaroos.  Some say light makes them do weird things.  I met a guy that says he’s had 3 kangaroos hit his motor home.  He didn’t hit them,..they actually charged across the road and slammed into the side of his caravan.

Of course anyone that drives in the country around here has an enourmas roobar in front to fend off the ,.”the mongrels”…as one trucker refers to them.

Speaking of roobars…my buddy Perry recommended I strap a KTM to the front of my bike as a sort of modified roobar (good knock on KTM! I get enough jokes from them on my BMW…ahhh the pic I could pull together with photoshop!

I also had the pleasure of 4 foot python in camp the other day, as well aas a plethora of cool lizards.

When I walked over to this lizard,..he flattened himself on the ground, lifted his head and stuck out bright blue tounge.

I had the company of two other campers in the area.  Both of which invited me over for a “cuppa”. I’ve got hand it to the Aussies,…they know about camping.  I’ve seen camping rigs that put our land yachts back home to shame.  None of those low riding super RVs..what they’ve got out here is something better. Its camping with comfort, but with out comprisming on 4×4 capability.  Were talking,.. pop out tents,..big tires, snorkels,..extended range fuel tanks..and of  course the roobar.

The old Grafton road is ADVrider territory,.. remote, no fences,…so many good river front camping I gave up logging them into my GPS.

Following Locky’s route description I turned off the middle of the old Grafton to continue a 97mile dirt route through the mountains.  The road was a blissful track tracing ridge lines and offering expansive views of the river valley below.

In a full day of riding I passed 3 other vehicles.  As for people,..only a few ranchers working their herds by horseback in valley pastures.

The sunlight was fading fast as I hit the tarmac and rolled for Moonan Flats.

I’d been clued in that Moonan flats was a meeting place for ADVriders heading out to the rally at Karua River.  It’s a one horse town off a dirt road.  Even though it was 1130 at night and pouring down rain,..finding these boys was easy.  About 30 two wheel adventure machines were parked around a pub that was clearly the happening place.  I hardly had my helmet off when I found myself with tasty brew in my hand and surrounded by the sort of folks you might expect to run across in Aussie bar in the middle of no where…we weren’t short on character in this pub.  It was hand shakes, laughs and a lot of good natured jokes on me (you gotta expect a certain number of jibs when you roll around covered in BMW patches)

It was great fun,..with great people.  It was well after midnight when last call came and we stumbled through the down pour out to the tents.  I gotta hand it to these guys,..every year they come out here, to ride through the down pour and hold a soppy wet camping rally.   It rains every year, and they know it,..but it doesn’t deter them a bit….cus they’r dedicated riders

I had whole slew of new riding buddies by the next day…and just pulled in with them as we rolled up over the Barrington Mountains to the  Karua River Rally.  Was good to be riding in a group for bit.  The paved roads are full of bikers,..but its not every day you get this many duel sport riders together in one spot.  These guys were good riders,..pulling hard and fast around those gravel bends.

I was truly impressed with extensive assortment of bikes.

It wasn’t some flashy bike week rally,…where your kit consists of entirely of a towl and spray bottle to polish your chrome every few hours.  This was more about riding whatever you got…what ever appeals to your sense of adventure.  There were old BMW Airheads,…rocket fast KTM dirtbikes,…Hondas, Kawasaki’s, sidecar outfits, many that I’d never seen before….there was even a diesel drink’n Einfield.   There were two ways in,..both were back woods dirt routes through the rainforest.

While riding the pass I pulled over to help out an older fellow on a R80 who’d just taken a flat.  I pulled out my plugs hoping for a quick puncture repair, but he’d bent his rim on rock in a bad way.  Never having had to deal with this on my spoked GS rim, I figured he was in trouble. But the guy just grabbed a big rock…hammered in the rim,..and we used my compressor to blow it up.  To my amazement we were back on the road in a few minutes.  Leave it to the R80 boys to show you how to keep it going with a little rock bashing.

I haven’t been to many rallies, but this one would be one my favorites.  I couldn’t walk twenty feet without being invited over to a campfire to swaps stories, meet other riders,..and tell lies over luke warm beer….”No shit…there I was” type stories..the best type.

Its hard to imagine a better place to meet riders and make contacts. Invites flowed like the booze. I was offered places to stay all over, which ultimately led me to Perry’s place in Sydney following the rally.

Perry is a legitimate ADVrider who both rides and builds bikes.

Only he could turn a Ducati Monster into trail bike (I’ve seen the pics).  I didn’t know it when I met him at Moonan Flats, but Perry doesn’t have legs.  An accident with a train as a child left him as a double amputee.  This guy has done more in life than most folks who’ve got all their limbs.  Truly an inspiration!  And he can barbecue a steak better than anyone I know! Thanks to Perry, his wife, and two wonderful kids,  I had a very rewarding experience in Sydney.

I spent a couple days riding various dirt routes through the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

Aside from great rides, a big highlight for me was seeing a wombat (which no Australia experience would be complete without). OZ has a lot of nasty poisonous things,..but at least most of them are no match for my alpine star riding boots.

I’ve seen some wild look’n snakes,.,,but most of them crawl off the dirt road before I can swing back around and get a photo.  I was warned not to run over snakes.  Some guy out west ran over a king brown or something…. The thing got stuck on the undercarriage of the car…then survived long enough to get revenge at the next fuel station when the guy was refueling…he didn’t make it.  You only get stories like that out here.

Camping gives me that opportunity to witness what crawls around the woods out here.  As I was reaching for a my tea, my head lamp light reflected off two little eyes on a log next to me…..damn! they’ve got some big spiders out here,…never seen a spider with eyes big enough to reflect off my headlamp….I just tucked my pants into my riding boots,..dont need any 8 legged residences look’n for meal in my pants. If it comes any closer, I’m retreating to my tent.   I’ve also scored all sorts of new 6 legged stowaways on the bike.

They make good riding partners…never complain,…don’t weigh much,..always agree with me…and taste good when dipped in Nutella (okay…telling lies again…although inevitably something crunchy always ends up in my camp coffee).  Speaking of food,..check this out,..when you order a standard hamburger in Australia, you will find between the buns…a beef pady, lettuce, tomato,  pinapple, sugar beat, and a fried egg…..why…cus this is F*&*cking OZ…there’s no rules here!

Its no secret that one of the richest parts of traveling is meeting locals, being invited into their homes,..and getting a snapshot of their lives.  By chance I met up with Verity at a diner in Oberon.  Conversation eventually led to all my questions about local wildlife, and it turns out that she is running a sort of volunteer animal rescue at her home.  I was stoked to be invited to meet her collection of wallabies and wallaroos.

The wallabies, wallaroos, kangaroos..often end up as road kill cus they gravitate towards  the roads in search of the green grass that grows alongside( one theory)(the other being that they are just there waiting to ambush caravans)  So inevitably there is a lot of animal carnage on the roads.  Verriti has rescued several of  young from pouches of killed wallaby mothers.  Because she hand raises them,..they are super friendly…and absolutely love a good scratch on the chest.

As we went out back to have a look at her motorbikes, a big clidestale named Ben came around to check in on us.  I never thought such massive and powerful animal such as clidestale would be so social and friendly, I’d say it’s a credit to Verity’s skill with animals.

Her son Luke,…let me in on some his secret tad pole snaring tricks.

I’m now working out a  plan to head west towards Alice Springs with a few stops in between…its time to take the old girl to the desert.

you can always tell its my campsite due to the certain yard sale appearance.