Across the universe

Bali 2011

2011-12-05T23:42:00.000+11:00

It’s 5.45am early dawn high up in the central mountains of Bali and Kimie and I are off to climb an active volcano – Mt Batur.

The little red Yamaha Mio scooter is buzzing away at a heady 60kmh as we ride the empty roads through Penelokan, a mountain village with excellent views of the volcano and eponymous lake.

Penelokan is quiet at this hour, not even the dogs are stirring – or are they?

Over there on our right a mangy local hound drowsily picks itself up, shakes off the sleep and proceeds to slowly meander across the road. I slow down just to be sure, but expect that like most of the local mutts it will plonk itself down again a few steps later – most likely in the middle of the road and oblivious to passing traffic….

….. but no, he keeps coming so I slow further – down to around 30kmh now – when Fido decides to make an almighty dash to the other side and directly in our path. I hit the brakes hard but is too late and I plan for the inevitable collision and hope it is not going to be too painful – as usual, we are dressed like the natives and our shorts, teeshirt and thin rain poncho are guaranteed to shred themselves on the coarse bitumen along with the removal of several epidermal layers.

With a thud the front tyre hits Fido amidships and with a series of yelps he cartwheels into the air. My focus though is not on him, but on keeping the Mio upright. Amazingly the little Mio tracks true and wobbles to an almost stop. I ask Kimie if she is Ok, she replies YES and without stopping we continue on our way to our 6am rendezvous with the guide who will take us up the volcano. I subsequently check the Mio and it doesn’t even have a scratch – this is one of the benefits of a small bike, we hit the canine from below, rather than from above and didn’t end up bouncing over it.

Apart from this incident, the rest of our time riding in Bali was most enjoyable. We picked up the little Mio in Kuta on the morning after our arrival, and for the princely sum of $4 per day we immediately sped off for the 120km ride to Lovina on the northern coast of Bali where we planned to spend our holiday relaxing by the beach and enjoying the sights and sounds in the immediate area.

We had packed light with only two carry-on bags as our sole luggage and this allowed us to carry everything on the Mio without difficulty. With one bag upright between my legs in the step through area, and the other balanced on my thighs, the Mio was easily manoeuvrable through traffic. Once we had wended our way through the stop-go chaos around Denpasar we left the traffic behind as we started the long ascent along quiet country roads bordered by rice padis up to the cool mountain air of Bedugul before wending our way back down to the steamy coast and relative traffic congestion of Singaraja. On reaching the coast it was a quick 10km westward ride to the peaceful relaxed beach resort at Lovina.

We also enjoyed quite a few day trips along the coast and up into the hills, following 2 lane bitumen roads that slowly petered into single lane then gravel and then 1.5m wide dirt tracks whilst simultaneously getting steeper and steeper to the point where first Kimie had to hop off and walk and eventually I had to climb off and run alongside the asthmatic Mio as it struggled up the precipitous slopes and into the ever thinner air.

Riding in Bali itself is most unlike the Western experience and one has to contend with not only animals but also the regular array of vehicles - oncoming vehicles overtaking (requiring you to run off the road or stop), motorbikes in the millions zipping past you in all directions, and pedestrians oblivious to the traffic. Throw in the poor quality, potholed and bumpy roads and you have a true adventure. Despite all this, however, Kimie felt more comfortable on the little Mio than she did riding as pillion in Australia – , possibly due to the much lower traffic speeds. Most of the time she was more than happy to sit back and relax, without holding on to me or the bike, and make video recordings holding the camera as we rode along.

Overall, a very enjoyable experience for us and one we wish to repeat again soon – one tip though, avoid southern Bali! Anywhere south of Denpasar is simply traffic jam central and no fun riding at all.

Mt Terrible

2011-12-05T23:38:00.001+11:00

Take 1.
The Mt Terrible track is an off road adventure I first heard about from a group of 4WDers around 15 years ago. I had always planned to ride up there one day but had simply forgotten about it as a possible ride venue.

Earlier this year I decided to look at Google maps and find out exactly where this terrible mountain was and at that point I decided it really couldn’t be that hard to get to after all.

My first attempt was on a Friday (7th October) and given the unknown road conditions I elected to take the Postie Bike. The total round trip was around 350knm but this was slow going on a Postie bike that had a cruising speed of around 60kmh.

To get there I followed the Maroondah Highway out through Lilydale and Healesville then through the Black Spur, turning off the highway at Narbethong to Marysville and finally hitting the dirt just past Cambarville at the Warby-Eildon (Big River) road turnoff.

This was more like as the postie came into its own on the gravel. From looking at Google maps I knew there was a turnoff along this road on my right which would take me up to the top of Mt Terrible - unfortunately what I hadn’t counted on was the lack of signposting (or more correctly meaningful signposting), as the signs simply displayed the name of the track BUT not where they lead to.

As I passed more and more turnoffs the road became more and more a track till eventually it became simply 2 wheel tracks amongst the undergrowth and the inclines became more precipitous.

Finally I arrived at Enoch’s Point by which time I realised I had missed the turnoffs so I continued along the Big River road eventually hitting the bitumen again at the Eildon – Jamieson road turnoff.

From here it was a fast (for a postie) windy run to Eildon itself where I rode across the weir wall looking at the water which was full for the first time in over 20 years. I didn’t realise at the time, but 3 days later the authorities opened the sluice gates on the wall and released water over the top – something which was sufficiently momentous for it to feature on page 1 of our local Melbourne newspapers.

From here the 150km ride back home was straightforward except for having to ride with a missing right hand footpeg rubber – something which I had lost on the gravel, probably as a result of constant vibrations from the gravel corrugations.

Take 2.
Approx 6 weeks later (22nd November ) and it was time to revisit Mt Teriible but this time there were going to be two major changes. Firstly in order to make better time on the bitumen I was going to be riding B1, and secondly, I was going to do the trip in reverse to ensure I found the right track to the top of Mt Terrible.

Following the Eildon-Jamieson road I knew the Mt Terrible turnoff was approx 700m past the Big River Rd intersection, and I found the track without too much difficulty but once again it was unsignposted so I had to trust I was heading in the right direction. As I ascended, the track became progressively steeper and rougher with sharp rocks on the inclines which whilst providing grip for 4WDs, only made B1 bounce around and lose traction whilst simultaneously making it hard to retain directional control.

There were also lots of intersecting tracks and it was difficult to know whether you should have taken a turnoff, but I finally came across a signpost pointing straight ahead to Mt Terrible just at the point where I felt sure I should turn back. I continued on only to find around 800m later I had reached the top hut and the lookout tower – now I know why it is so easy to get lost in this area.

Sidenote: I did have my Garmin GPS and mobile phone GPS with me but the actual tracks and the GPS were never 100% in alignment.

After a brief rest and walk over to the lookout tower, and inspection of the hut, I decided to continue South where I expected to eventually meet up with the Big River / Warby-Eildon Road again. The first part of the track consisted of a fairly steep downhill section on slippery terrain and this was quite a challenge as B1 freewheels downhill at anything below 24km/h. I had good reason to thank B1’s left hand operated brake lever as this allowed me to use both brakes whilst putting my feet down (when needed) and also gave me much finer braking control (compared to a foot operated brake lever) such that I never lost control even on the steepest sections.

The road continued up and down ever more steeper and rougher tracks for another 20kmh until I looked down and realised B1’s engine was overheating - I had jammed the radiator fan against the radiator when I had bashed over some of the bigger rocks.

I stopped for 15 minutes to let everything cool down and then switched the motor off on the downhill sections to prevent a recurrence.

Half an hour later I reached the main gravel road and found the track I had ridden down was called the Hope Track. From here the road surface progressively improved and I saw my first vehicle for the day since venturing off-road and ¾ hour on I hit the Reefton Spur Road. From here B1 was in its element and we enjoyed the curving road – albeit a little damp in places – down to Reefton and Warburton.

From here on it was straight home, arriving tired but satisfied, after a pleasingly long day in the saddle and fulfilment of another riding goal.

Cape York and beyond...

2011-08-11T11:16:00.017+10:00

The day had started out cool and dry, but now as late afternoon approached the heavens had opened and water was teeming down. I stopped at Rolleston to replenish my fuel and under the service station awning I pulled on my yellow waterproofs. I knew they would keep my body dry but despite having applied waterproof wax to my gloves 2 days earlier I also knew there was nothing that would keep my hands dry once the deluge reached such torrential proportions. A quick check with the local constabulary (who was also sheltering from the downpour) confirmed I had no option but to press on through the rain as the alternative route led to the coast at Gladstone, and not North.

The road was a smooth one, however, and the next section to Springsure was only 71kms. I had only travelled 750kms today so I needed to get a lot more mileage under my belt if I was to come close to yesterday's tally of 1,200km.

The rain was coming down heavy now with streams of it running across the road and pooling in the wheel tracks left by 4 wheeled vehicles. However, the Burgie was revelling in the conditions, running smoothly on tyres that were new when I left Melbourne, whilst my screen extension was protecting my body from the worst that mother nature could through at it. The road gently undulated up and down hills as it simultaneously curved left and right.

As I crested the blind left hand uphill curve I gently counter-steered to the right to allow the Burgie to follow the curve downhill.

Instead of turning, however, time slowed down as the wheels slid out to the right – I was aquaplaning and my counter-steer had caused me to lose whatever little traction I had had! In the milliseconds available I groaned to myself “damn!”, before surveying the scene – coming towards me, maybe 20 metres away, was a Camry and I wondered whether I would do a low-side slide directly into its path, low-slide more quickly across the road so that I was off the road before it reached me, or whether the Burgie would high-side me through the Camry’s windscreen…………

... and thus I approached the end of Day 2 of what was to be a 9,200km 21 day journey from Melbourne to the Northern and Eastern most extremities of Australia .

Day 1 – Bastille Day (14 July), Melbourne to Walgett.
The ride had commenced the previous day at 6am when I got an early start from the threatening rain on a bitterly cold Melbourne morning. I turned up the heat on my Gerbing jacket and gloves to ensure I stayed toasty for the 12+ hours of riding ahead. With the strains of La Marsellaise ringing in my helmet I threaded the Burgie North through the Melbourne suburbs and was immediately surprised how busy the roads were at that time of day – being a humble office-worker I don’t often get to appreciate the early starts that tradespeople have to enjoy on a daily basis.

Once clear of Melbourne though, and as the day began to break it, was a smooth run under clear blue skies up the Hume until just South of the border where fog descended and seemed like it wanted to hang around all day. This was not a problem on a 4 lane highway but shortly after Albury I left the Hume to travel cross-country along the Olympic Way to Wagga Wagga and West Wyalong. At Gerogery the mist descended further, and light rain fell, as both visibility and road speed dropped markedly. This section of road was a slow one and it was not till I reached West Wyalong that conditions improved. It was, however, uneventful and stayed that way as I upped my speeds along the Newell as far as Gilgandra before turning North up the Castlereagh for the final 200km stretch to Walgett where I arrived under cover of darkness, and set my tent under the cover of the barbeque shelter of the public campground south of town.

Day 2 – 15 July, Walgett to Emerald.
The morning dawned bright and early to clear skies and the promise of a great riding day. My tent was quickly packed and I hit the road for the 300km section of road to St George – the first major town across the border in Queensland - was fast and smooth – interrupted only by the suicidal tendencies of the local bird population. Large flocks of emus were sensible enough to stay off the road but flocks of magpie larks (at least that's what I think they were) insisted on sitting in the middle of the road and then flying off at the last minute as I passed.

Four of them hit my fairing at high speed that morning – each a separate incident.

After St George I left the flat plains and the roads became slightly more interesting as I approached Roma, and then at Injune I entered the Carnarvon National Park and the curves (and the fun) began. It was very enjoyable riding until the turnoff to Carnarvon gorge when the road became damp and light rain began to fall. Just as I reached Rolleston the deluge began and also where our story began…

As I crested the blind left hand uphill curve I gently counter-steered to the right to allow the Burgie to follow the curve downhill.

Instead of turning, however, timed slowed down as the wheels slid out to the right – I was aquaplaning and my counter- steer had caused me to lose whatever little traction I had had. In the milliseconds available I groaned to myself “damn!” before surveying the scene – coming towards me was a Camry and I wondered whether I would do a low-side slide directly into its path, low-slide more quickly across the road so that I was off the road before it reached me, or whether the Burgie would high-side me through the Camry’s windscreen…………

I realised that there was absolutely nothing I could do about the outcome but I at least I knew the alternatives and waited whilst the Burgie decided what my fate would be.

As the Burgie slid over to 40 degrees from the vertical something surprising happened. First I felt (and thought I heard) the scrabbling of the rear wheel as it slid to the right out of the wheel track and onto a firm surface, this was followed milliseconds later by the front wheel performing the same feat.

I now had control of the Burgie again even though I was now in the centre of the road with the Camry only metres away. The Camry driver flashed their headlights clearly astonished at why this crazy motorcyclist was trying to steal their lane, whilst I gently eased the Burgie to the left and back into my own lane for the descent down the crest.

Usually after such pucker moments I can taste the adrenalin in my mouth and I need to pull over to relax, however, given the wet conditions I simply pressed on to Emerald – the next major town- where I looked for the cheapest motel ($60 and next to the railway station) so I could dry myself and my riding gear for the following day’s ride to Cairns.

Day 3 – 16 July, Emerald to Cairns
Day 3 was dry as I fueled up for the final leg to Cairns, which was the starting point for the Cape York "adventure section" of my journey. On the horizon though I could see grey clouds hanging and I knew I would be lucky to not have another wet day ahead of me.

The route was straight forward - continue inland to Charters Towers before heading East to Townsville then North up the coast to Cairns. Within half an hour of leaving Emerald I was pulled over to the side of the road donning my wet weather gear again and worried about the lightning in the sky - on such flat treeles land lightning is a concern as a motorcycle is the tallest object and the natural anode for any errant cathodic thunderbolt.

It had been almost 30 years since I had last visited Charters Towers and it was a pleasure to see it once again. As I aproached the town the weather also improved and I was basking in warm sunshine by the time I stopped for fuel and an early lunch.

From Charters Towers the road improved yet again as it followed the railway and started to climb up and down hills towards the coast.

The final stretch odf road into, and through Townsville, was extremely slow due to long delays from roadworks. I inadvertently upset a lot of car drivers by lane splitting to the front of the queue - something which is accepted by motorists in Victoria - and received tirades of abuse from quite a few vehicles.

North of Townsville I passed the cyclone hit areas North of Cardwell, still showing signs of Yasi's devastation. The rain joined me again for the final very slow 300km ride to Cairns - slow due to rain and continuous roadworks to repair the cyclone damage.

Just as the sun was setting I reached Cairns, and decided that due to the very high possibility of rain I would sleep indoors (in a local backpackers) again tonight, the Burgie odometer having clocked up a further 1,000kms that day.

Day 4 – 17 July, Cairns to Bloomfield
Day 4 started bright and rosy. After leaving the "castle backpackers" I headed North along one of my favourite stretches of road - the coast road to Port Douglas and Mossman. On this occasion I bypassed Mossman Gorge and headed directly to the Daintree ferry and Cape Tribulation. After a short wait I was able to cross the river but travel was slow as the FWDs meandered up the road to Cpae Trib. Before long it became apparent that the slowness was caused by a one way section of road where the by now ubiquitous queensland road works were taking place. Once again, as soon as the traffic stopped I proceeded to lane split past the other vehicles only to meet by howls of abuse for not waiting my turn. I ignored these and reached the front of the queue and was able to enjoy an open stretch of road ahead of following vehicles.

Shortly after reaching the Cape the road turned to gravel and I was then on the Bloomfield track itself. A few kilometres later and I reached the first water crossing - and made my first mistake. After having successfully travelled through flood zones in central Australia I assumed the Queensland river crossings would be similar - they weren't, these had uneven rocky bases - and figuring I knew it all I ploughed straight in, feet up on the Burgie's footboards. As soon as I hit the first rock the Burgie slid over on to its left side before I had chance to put my feet down and digested a fair amount of liquid before I had sense to hit the kill switch. Fortunately a couple of fellow travellers came to my rescue and pushed me out but when I hit the starter button it was obvious I had hydrolocked the motor - how embarrassing A couple of young "spectators" helped me push the Burgie out of the river and up onto the bank so I could commence work. Removing the plugs and hitting the starter button revealed there was a fair amount of water in the air filter and intake tract and eventually the Burgie started (albeit with a fair amount of coughing and spluttering) and I was off on my way North again. The Bloomfield track, however, is very steep in sections and each time I reached an uphill section the Burgie ran out of puff and it was clear a full cure was still required.

I stopped the bike to check out the problem and it would not start again, pulling the airfilter drain plug a torrent of milky water poured out and the Burgie started up again. This had been the problem on the uphill sections - the water in the filter was running into the intake tract as soon as I reached a decent angle of ascent - and B1 was running a LOT better now.. A few more river crossings, and up and down hill, and eventually I reached the dry aboriginal settlement of Wujal Wujal, a fascinating spot, and shortly thereafter Bloomfield itself - a one shop town - where I camped for the night and purchased more oil to give the Burgie a full oil change. This was an interesting night, camped alongside the Bloomfield river, watching the crocs eyes glowing on the river bank, and lighting a fire to keep nature away (didn't work real well against the brumby which invaded my camp at 4am) and dry out my wet boots and pants.

Day 5 – 18 July, Bloomfield to Laura.
The next morning was a slow start after draining the oil. As it turned out, it really wasn't necessary as the milky water in the air-filter was only from the oil mist from the PCV - no water had entered the motor itself.I wanted to make sure everything was fine though as I knew once I got North of Cooktown I would have only limited and intermittent access to repair facilities. Another 50km or so of good graded dirt tracks and I was back onto the bitumen again for the run past the Lions Den and then Black Mountain into Cooktown proper. Cooktown smelt of formic acid (ants) and frankly speaking, was a little disappointing. I purchased a few more provisions, had lunch then started on the journey proper to HopeVale along the last of the bitumen before hitting Battle Camp Rd, which would take me west to Laura on the Peninsula Development Road. The first major river crossing on Battle Camp Road was Isabella Falls and I had heard it could be tricky. So given yesterday's embarrassing experience on the Bloomfield I thought it best to be cautious, strip down to my shorts and bare feet, and walk the crossing first. As it turned out, apart from a little bit of a slippery bottom surface, and relatively fast flowing water, the crossing was pretty smooth and not particularly deep. Figuring I may need to put my feet down I left my boots off and hung them from the seat on bungie cords before starting the crossing. As it was, the crossing was a breeze, with only a relatively small mid-river bump to contend with. I stopped the Burgie on the other side and went to put my boots on .... except they weren't there?? it turned out they had bumped loose and as I peered 10 metres down the falls I realised they were lost to the world (* or so I thought, as it turned out someone else found them at the bottom of the falls a few days later and I believe they are now hanging from a tree above the falls). I then had no option but to wear my lightweight canvas shoes for the rest of the ride - in hindsight, not a good move as they offered very little in the way of protection for my ankles. As I proceeded along Battlecamp road to Old Laura the road became progressively more difficult with many sections of corrugations, ruts and soft sand in addition to half a dozen more water crossings. Along the way i was passed by Hamish and his team of riders (2 KTMs, a Kawasaki KX450 and Yamaha WR250) who pulled over to try and work out what a Burgman was doing outside of its usual city habitat, and I agreed to meet again them in Laura that night. Before reaching Laura (and the Peninsula Development Road or PDR) though I had to cross the Laura River and vist the Old Laura homestead. It was a rather nice camping area and I vacillated whether to stay but decided to stick with my original plan and press on the further 10km, cross the brige into Laura and spend the night at the Quinkan (local indigenous name for Laura) campground.

Day 6 – 19 July, Laura to Moreton Telegraph Station.
One of the beauties of the desert, and camping on the road, is that you go to bed early, have a relaxing sleep after exhausting yourself physically during the day, and wake early to the sound of birdcalls - in this case wheeling cockatoos and galahs. I rode over the fuel stop to find not only Hamish and his team preparing for the ride North, but a small group of postie riders heading south on their return journey from the Tip.

The trip to the Cape is not a challenge when it comes to fuel as the longest distance between fuel stops is only 200km - mind you riding in soft sand causes fuel consumption to rise dramatically so on the OTL, in particular, 200km was only just close enough.

The PDR itself was an interesting road; it is the regular freight and service access road to Weipa and as a result it carries a lot of road train traffic, as well as fuel tankers. On top of that you have all the tourist traffic in 4WDs, beaten up 2WDs and a sprinkling of bikes (powered and unpowered).

The road surface varies from waer crossings (a dozen or so easy ones) deep loose sand, heavy corrugations and loose rock to hard packed earth (my favourite offroad surface), and every 30km or so, a 5km section of bitumen for overtaking slow vehicles. Corresponding my speed varied between 20km/h on the worst sections to 120km/h on the good ones.

My intention today had been to head to Weipa,however, after leaving the aboriginal settlement of Coen the road deteriorated further and the corrugations were giving B1's frame a real bashing, so when I reached the Telegraph Track turnoff I elected to take that instead and rolled into Moreton Telegraph Station after dark with my first question being "do you have a welder" - sadly, they didn't.

Day 7 – 20 July, Moreton to Seisia
Perched high above the banks of the Wenlock river, Moreton Station is a real oasis, the campsite lush and green compared with dustbowl of the Telegraph Track. My day started bright and early as I did a quick check of the state of B1's frame - my rear topbox was drooping (which meant the rear subframe was bending) whilst at the front fairing mounting bracket had snapped and the whole front end was hanging loose - well what are cable ties for I ask? :-)

I rode the 70kms of gravel to Bramwell Turnoff - a good high speed section of dirt road where I coudl travel up to 90km/h in places - and the beginning of the OTL (Old Telegraph Line) - and was advised they also could not do any welding and my only option was to ride 10km off track to Bramwell Station. Much as I was tempted to ride North on the OTL I knew that the condition of B1's frame was such that I shouldn't risk it, so after fuelling up I elected to take the Southern Bypass Loop instead.

In hindsight, this was big mistake. The Southern Bypass soon degenerated into long sections of loose sand and the worst corrugations I can recall having ridden on - at times the juddering was so bad that I could no longer see . On top of this, the sandy sections became longer and deeper and harder to ride in. This was particularly bad on the inside of curves whenever the road followed the contours of the land. I struggled on for around 75kms until I hit one loose and rutted section - as I slowed from 40kmh, to a stop, my vision became a blur and I slewed into the deep sand not knowing what lay ahead. What lay ahead was even looser sand and as I braked harder (albeit very gently given the loose surface) the Burgie lost steering and traction and gently dumped itself on the right hand side, and on top of my unprotected (by a boot) right ankle . My leg twisted and I felt a sharp burning pain as I swung my left leg over the Burgie hump and on to the sand. B1 was fine except for a couple of scratches to the bodywork and a broken indicator lens.

As I picked up B1 and climbed back on board, I thought this was just a simple sprain, but the burning spasm returned and increased in strength - it's never hurt like this before, I thought, but said to myself it will have to wait till I reach a population centre before I can do anything about it.

From this point the road deteriorated further as I rode along in pain - my speed dropped considerably and it was late afternoon by the time I reached the Jardine River ferry and subsequently Bamaga / Seisia.

After this I was obviously not thinking straight as when the road forked I foolishly took advice of the signpost and followed the narrow fork to Bamaga - which was the final section of the OTL - instead of continuing along the bypass road to Injinoo. This 20km section of loose sand was tough going and it took a full hour to reach Bamaga. From Bamaga I continued north to Seisia and took advantage of the opportunity to camp alongside the beach (sadly no swimming due to the possibility of crocs) and enjoy the beautiful sunset as the sun set over the Arafura sea.

Day 8 – 21 July, Seisia to the tip
Thursday dawned bright and sunny - a typical warmish 27 degree day in the northernmost part of Australia. Seisia and Bamaga are torres Strait Islander communities and the locals are quite different to the aboriginal communities further South.

First activity for the day was to book a ferry trip to Thursday Island for the following day (Friday),next up was to find the local mechanic and arrange for him to weld up B1, and then head off to the tip itself. The mechanic told me he was busy that morning and to come back around 3, which was perfect as it gave me plenty of time to to ride/hobble the 30kms to the tip of Australia.

First I had to head back down to Bamaga then take the turn off North again. This road was a contrast. The first 15kms or so was a typical wide heavily corrugated track with 4WDs zooming along and raising clouds of dust. Midway along though, it changed to a single track and entered the rainforest such that I was riding under a low canopy of trees, this latter section was probably the most enjoyable section of road on the Cape and was very pleasant to ride, with a firmish hardpack base and no corrugations - it was also peaceful and tranquil under the canopy, with only a single water crossing to contend with

Shortly after leaving the canopy I reached the carpark/turnaround and it was walking only from this point.

By this point my ankle was swelling up and quite uncomfortable to walk on, so it was more of a "limp to the tip". After the customary look around, and photograph, I dipped my toe in the water and strolled back along the beach.

I rode back to the mechanic in Seisia, and the fun began with me stripping boywork off B1, including most of the front and rear plastic panels. With one mechanic welding the cracked Givi rack mounting plate and beefing up the subframe mounting brackets, the other got to work on the front end. Amazingly, the corrugations had vibrated the complete front fairing bracket loose and snapped the frame bracket - there was no option but to solid weld the fairing brace direct to the frame.

Sadly whilst all this work was going on I forgot all about taking photos of a great bunch of guys at work. Meanwhile a group of older Peugeots (l'aventure de Peugeot) had arrived after driving up from Wilsons Promontory and they were also in need of welding repairs.

Day 9 – 22 July, Thursday Island
Friday morning and I was up bright and early to catch the ferry across to Thursday Island. The ride over took around 1 and a half hours and it was pleasant to smell the salty air, enjoy the heat of the sun on your back sun and the cooling breeze from our speed across the water as we travelled through an archipelago of small islands.

The island itself is very much an islander town, quite different to the aborginal settlements further south, and despite my sore ankle I decided to hike to the top of Green Hill Fort - it wasn't such an effort, even for an almost unidexter, and shortly afterwards I was joined by many of my fellow ferry passengers who had elected to take the tour bus to the top. After exploring the fort I was able to enjoy the views across to neighbouring islands and down onto the town common where the primary school was holding its annual athletics day.

I then hiked back down cross country and into the town itself where sadly there was very little else to do to while away the remaining hours until the ferry made its return journey.

Arriving back in Seisia I decided to use the remaining daylight hours to head back tgo Bamaga and visit some of the old plane wrecks the cape is famous for - a DC3 and Beaufighter are surprisingly intact after close on 60 years resting in the jungle. Returning to the camping ground I was pleasantly surprised to find Hamish and his crew firmly ensconced. We spent the evening chatting about our relative experiences and they gave me some good tips regarding the OTL and my return journey. I now had the confidence to tackle the deeper water crossings with the exception of Nolans Brook, which they had to carry their bikes across.

Day 10 – 23 July, Seisia to Cockatoo Creek
Saturday dawned brightly and I was off early heading south to Injinoo and New Mappoon before reaching the Jardine ferry.

I refueled at Jardine and travelled approx 40km further south on the Bypass road until the turn off to the OTL proper. This provide quite a struggle as the track was unmarked, very narrow and very sandy and constantly changed direction, turning back on itself. Needless to say 15 minutes later I arrived back on the Bypass road around 50 metres further south than I had started. I tried a second time and this time came to a T-intersection with no markings - I headed right and after 1km felt I was not going the right way, I turned around to meet a 4WD who had been following me and insisted I had taken the right path. I convinced them not and we backtracked until we met another 4WD who told us that yes, we were now heading the right way.

After a couple of short (but deep) water crossings I finally reached the OTL proper, had a few more water crossings and shortly thereafter Elliot Falls.

Riding in the sandy conditions was quite exhausting and I knew I did not have a lot of energy in the event I got into trouble on the water crosings so I walked each first. The real challenge was the rough and rocky base - which meant large potholes - which I wanted to avoid. Having walked each it was obvious that unless I got it right I could potentially drown B1 again so I made sure there was another vehicle (or vehicles) around before entering the water. At the first, there were a group of around 20 DRZ400s heading north and they had a great time watching B1 struggle across whilst they zipped around me like a swarm of flies.

Once back on the southern leg of the OTL the track became increasingly sandy and there were long sections were I struggled to maintain speed (in order not to get bogged) but with minimal steering control. I eneded up laying B1 down half a dozen times before reaching the last crossing for the day at Cockatoo Creek around 5pm. Fortunately there is a newly erected huge picnic shelter there and I simply lay my sleeping bag on top of one of the picnic tables for a good nights sleep without fear of rain or predators.

Day 11 – 24 July, Cockatoo Creek to Bramwell Junction
This morning started with the challenge of crossing Cockatoo itself. Later the previous day a couple of hire 4WDs had arrived and they also planned to cross this morning. Cockatoo is quite a wide crossing with a fast flow of water. Walking the creek convinced me it was going to be both tricky and quite deep so I elected to fit my snorkel just in case (this was the first and only time I bothered with the snorkel).

With a couple of able bodied 4WDers on standby I slowly made my way across, keeping the revs high so as not to let water flow back into the exhaust (which was well and truly underwater).

Once crossed I then had to cross lots more narrow sandy sections before reaching Gunbarrel, the next crossing. Gunbarrel was a lot of fun - the real challenge is the entry and exit for 4WDs, but is not too bad for bikes. A group of 4WDers - who I had met travelling north - were camped there, and after the crossing we travelled north together, meeting up again at each of the water crossings.

The last, and trickiest, crossing was Palm Creek. The exit was very steep and ther was a lot of mud down the bottom so it was difficult to maintain traction for a run up. The 4WDs also struggled because of the lack of front clearance and they ended up being slowly winched up first.

Finally it was time for B1 and I had a group of burly 4WDers pushing and shoving to get me to the top. With a big cheer, it was time to push on the final 5km to Bramwell Station and the end of the OTL proper. I spent that night camped next to a 5m tall termite mound - one of the symbols of the cape.

Day 12 – 25 July, Bramwell Junction to Musgrave Station
Leaving Bramwell I said goodbye to my 4WD friends and headed south. My fist stop was Archer River where I hoed into one of their famous "Archer Burgers" - definitely a great feed! With my ankle aching more and more, and continuing to swell, I felt there was a good chance this was something more serious than just a sprain, so I also stopped in at the hospital in Coen, only to be told the doctor would not be visiting for another 2 days. I had no choice but to continue south and ending up setting up my tent at Musgrave Station where I bumped into the Peugeot team again.

Day 13 – 26 July, Musgrave Station to Cairns
This was going to be my last day on dirt roads and I was keen to get going and cover the final stretch to Laura.

Along the way I stopped for fuel and spent some time chatting with the local pet emu - as always, they are extremely curious creatures. Apparently it just walked into the station one day and decided to make it it's home - too many handouts from travellers I think!

After Laura the road construction was underway and I had intermittent sections of bitumen and dirt to ride on. The road finally turned completely to bitumen just north of Lakeland (the turnoff to Cooktown) and from there south it was a nice sweeping bike's road for much of the way. I continued south along the Atherton tableland to Mareeba and from there headed east to Kuranda and back down the mountain to Cairns, and then headed straight to Cairns Base Hospital.

The hospital provides exceleltn service and within 10 minutes of entering the emergency department I had had my ankle x-rayed and confirmed I had broken my ankle. The doctors wanted to put me in a cast but I was quite forthright in telling them I planned to ride back to Melbourne so they reluctantly strapped my ankle in compression bandages (to immobilise the break) and sent me packing together with a referral to the Alfred hospital in Melbourne.

I headed back to my friendly backpackers ready for a night of rest and relaxation now that I knew the hard part of the journey was behind me.

Days 14 – 21, Cairns to Melbourne
Today I left Cairns along the coast road slowly meandering my way south in order to meet up with Kimie on the following Saturday afternoon.

This is only the second time I had ridden down the Queensland coast road to Brisbane, the last time was in 1982 piloting a Kawasaki GPZ1100.

As previously, there was a lot of road work in the aftermath of the recent cyclones and it was slow going as the road was reduced to one way traffic. Highlights included a detour to Mission Beach, the giant gumboot in Tully, a very pleasant stay at a downtown backpackers in Townsville (the first time I have really ventured downtown as previously I had used Townsville as purely a base for departure to Magnetic Island), backpackers in Rockhampton and Hervey Bay (alas I did not have time to visit Fraser Island but did go as far as the ferry terminal).

The final run down through the Sunshine Coast hinterland and on to the gold Coast was all fast freeway and a surprisingly enjoyable ride.

After finding a hotel for the night in Tweed Heads I was reunited with Kimie at Coolangatta airport and we had an early get away to Byron Bay for lunch (I figured that I may as well try and cover two of Australia's extremities in this journey) before arriving in Coffs Harbour to enjoy Ian and Jane's hospitality at their new farm and country residence in Upper Karangi.

Whilst in Karangi we made many new friends including a pair of youngsters and a fair few animals (Kimie sends her regards to cow 2718), and have to admit the possibility of an early retirement in that part of the world could be quite attractive.

Given we were now pressed for time I decided to head straight back down the Pacific Highway as we knew we would be on the road after dark and I didn't want to risk sharing the same road space with other nocturnal creatures. This was just as well, as after a pleasant lunch by the beach in Sawtell, the warm afternon sun and gentle rocking of the Burgie Kimie was once again fast asleep in the pillion position after only 15 minutes in the saddle.

We stopped the night in the F1 Motel in Gosford and then spent the following morning in Sydney visiting our old residence adjacent to the Lane Cove river park, before hitting the Hume and plain sailing back down the freeway arriving home early evening, tired and weary (well me maybe, but Kimie slept at least half the distance!) but suffused with the warm inner glow of achievement one experiences after another long ride.

Why a Burgman of all bikes?

2011-06-29T17:07:00.010+10:00

Whenever I meet fellow riders in my travels a lot of them ask me why I ride a Burgman and not a bike that is more off-road oriented. Well the reality is that all bikes are a compromise, but as 75-90% of my riding on any particular trip is done on the road, I want a compromise bike that is going to work for me in the majority of riding conditions.

So in summary, this is why the Burgman is the right bike for me

• I like the fact that it has a nice long, wide and comfortable seat and I don’t have to compromise with a narrow one
• I like the fact that it offers multiple foot positions so I can shift my body weight to maintain comfort during long days in the saddle
• I like the fact that it is low to the ground and I can put my feet down to help when the track gets tricky
• I like the fact that it has a large fairing and windscreen to keep the wind off my body – much less tiring and much warmer
• I like the fact that the motor is covered and I am insulated from the noise and the heat
• I like the fact that the motor and CoG is down low which makes the bike easier to transition in turns and more stable in rough road conditions
• I like the fact that the motor is twin cylinder and doesn’t vibrate, so I can enjoy those high speed long distance highway stretches without exhaustion and discomfort
• I like the fact that it has an automatic clutch so that in sand/mud conditions I can focus on steering without worrying about stalling and/or being in the right gear
• I like the fact that I can store most of my luggage (55 litres) under the seat – nice and low, secure, invisible and waterproof
• I like the fact that it can carry a pillion with ease and comfort without stealing any of the rider's seat space
• I like the fact that it has high and wide bars that provide good leverage in tricky conditions
• I like the fact that it is economical and only uses 20km/l regardless of the road conditions
• I like the fact that my rear tyres last for 25,000km, and not 2-3,000km like dirt tyres
• I like the fact that it has plenty of power and is comfortable cruising at 130kmh hour after hour
• I like the fact that it has alloy wheels and not spokes - I never have tio replace broken spokes, and I can run tubeless tyres which are more reliable and easier to repair if I do get a flat

Oh, it seems I'm not the only one who likes Burgmen - I had a visitor last weekend who decided the Burgie's windscreen made a great home.

However, there is a flip side and some pretty big weaknesses I have to live with

• I don’t like those small wheels, because they don’t steer as well in sand and loose gravel as large wheels and I can’t find off-road tyres in a size that fits
• I don’t like the limited suspension travel and ground clearance on rough roads
• I don’t like to have to worry about getting water in my CVT during river crossings.

All in all though, at this stage in my riding the Burgman is definitely what works best for me.

Oodnadatta – Easter April 2011.

2011-06-28T00:00:00.003+10:00

After successfully completing the Birdsville track last year the next central Australian adventure for me was the Oodnadatta track which runs from Marree (which is the end of the Birdsville track) to Marla on the Stuart Highway (which is the main road north to Alice Springs and Darwin). However, my plan was only ride North as far as Oodnadatta then head South West through the Painted Desert to Coober Pedy.

The first day’s riding was 1,200kms direct to Orroroo along the Calder Highway to Mildura. I have travelled this route ½ a dozen times now and it is one of my favourites, especially travelling through Wycheproof with its railway line that runs down the middle of the main street.

Arriving at Orroroo I was surprised to find the camping ground full and ended up having to spend a surprisingly chilly night camped in the Pekina valley alongside the Big Gum Tree.

Heading off early next morning I soon reached Hawker and then to Parachilna where I bumped into a group of 10 or so Ulysses riders on HDs who were heading north till the bitumen ended at Lyndhurst. I dropped into the Lyndhurst service station hopping to say hello to the owner, who had helped me with my missing transmission oil plug 6 months earlier, but he was not around.

It was then a quick sprint on the bitumen and dirt to Marree before hitting full dirt for official start to the Oodnadatta track and the ride past Lake Eyre to William Creek.

Along the track there is some interesting “heavy duty” artwork which is well worth spending time close up and recording.

At one point the road crosses Lake Eyre via a causeway and I was stunned to see hundreds of seagulls diving to feast on the millions of small fish trapped by the receding waters. The water was so thick with fish there was literally more fish than water between each.

Around 100kms south of William Creek I stopped to camp for the night at Coward Springs – the site of an old rail stop on the Ghan line – and enjoyed the hospitality of Doug and Sue who shared their home cooked pot roast whilst also sharing stories of the road.

Next morning it was time to pack and hit the road to William Creek, but not before savouring the delights of the wood fired hot showers in the campground. The ride to William Creek was quick and easy with a couple of short creek crossings of no real challenge.

There were many 4WDs on this stretch of road as people were using the easter break as an opportunity to take a flight from William Creek over Lake Eyre. I was tempted, but decided the $300 for a 45 minute flight could be better spent and spent the day walking and exploring in and around South Australia’s smallest (pop 6) and most remote town instead. It has some very interesting history espec. given its proximity to Woomera, and the rocket and A-bomb testing which took place there in the 1950s and 60s.

The following day I had roughly another 200kms of gravel track to Oodnadatta. This section fo road was much rougher with many creek crossings although most of them were dry. A particular highlight was inspecting the remains of the Algebuckina railway bridge that are over half-a-kilometre long where it crosses the Neale River –it was huge undertaking when it was built at the end of the 19th century. For the Burgie and we had to ride across the causeway that crosses the Neale River – fortunately it was only a couple of centimetres deep it but it was covered in green slime and quite slippery.

From Algebuckina it was a relatively quick 60km ride to Oodnadatta and I was quite excited to make it to the town which I had passed through 31 years earlier when taking the Ghan back from Alice Springs with my then bike (Ducati 860GT) on board the train as the Stuart Highway had been closed due to flooding.

Arriving at the pink roadhouse I immediately rode around the back to check out the camping ground. As I entered the camping ground it looked deserted but lo and behold parked far over on the left outside a donga were two adventure bikes (owned by Frank and Frank, two QANTAS stewards). On spotting the bikes I did a quick left turn and hit the throttle not realising that I had just entered a sand hole (yep in the middle of the campground) and down went B1, much to my embarrassment. My only fall of the whole ride and it had to be right in front of fellow riders!

The two Franks (no, not their real names) had been on a tour of Australia for 6 weeks and were now heading back home to Sydney and Melbourne respectively. Frank 2, a relatively recent rider was on a KTM 950 whilst Frank 1 who was more experienced, was riding a BMW GS1150. However, neither one of them was enjoying the loose gravel roads, and they were keen to get back on the bitumen again south of Marree.

After a fun evening we all headed off early the next morning with the Franks going back the way I had come to William Creek, and I heading south west to the painted desert. At the roadhouse I asked the hired help (German backpackers) who had been out to the desert two days earlier what the road out to the Painted Desert would be like – their response “went out ther 2 days ago and it was a great road”. Cheered by this I let down my guard..

The route initially followed the road to Coober Pedy and was good riding, until the turnoff to the west at which point it became a bit trickier. Even trickier again, when the track builders decided it was economic to build it through a dry creek bed, but which was now a sea of loose sand/silt that had been swept by recent floods. The first hundred metres was fine and I kept B1 moving at around 30kmh without needing to put a foot down, I then rode through a shallow pool and the sand got deeper and looser such that I had to paddle initially, then climb off and push. After another hundred metres or so I realised it was going to be a struggle continuing so I turned off the motor and decided to walk the creek bed to see how far I had to go.

1,000 paces later and the track moved out of the creek on to a solid footing, by the time I’d walked back to the bike I was exhausted so I plonked my kit down under a tree and figured I’d wait for the next passing vehicle. An hour later I heard the distinct drone of a Suzuki DR650 coming my way and walked across to greet him as he paddled his way through the deep sand before coming to a halt. Sorry, I forgot your name mate, but I do remember you were from Canberra and I do appreciate your push to get me started and encouragement to walk the bikes (running alongside with the motor running) through together. After 200 metres or so Mr Friendly DR Rider figured the surface was getting a little better and he would try to ride it out so I did the same, and lo and behold, apart from a bit of paddling B1 managed to maintain sufficient momentum to pop out the other end.

It was then a quick ride to the painted desert itself and then a couple of more trips through similar creek beds to the turnoff to Arckaringa homestead and back to the main track to Coober Pedy and the a fast 110kmh run down the good gravel road to Coober Pedy itself.

On arrival I decided I wanted to enjoy the unique experience of underground camping (in an old opal mine) and headed south 4km out of town to the REBA campground.

The following day was spent exploring, relaxing and having my spare rear tyre fitted as the old one now had its tyre cords showing in parts and had lots of deep cuts from the sharp gibber rocks on the Oodnadatta track. I was very impressed with the service at the tyre shop – run by an old German immigrant who ran a great little workshop.

The ride down the Stuart Highway to Port Augusta was straightforward and I checked in to one of the Flinders Hotel backpacker rooms in the late afternoon – great value at $25 per night for a room of my own and a roof over for my head for the first and only time this trip – well apart from the mine roof in the underground camping!

The next day was going to be my last night on the road and I had always wanted to explore the upper reaches of the Murray in South Australia. I crossed Murray for the first time that day at Morgan and then crossed it half a dozen more times on ferries as I rode along the northern and southern banks, eventually stopping for the evening in an idyllic setting near Waikerie where I pitched my tent on the river bank.

The next day was spent meandering further along the river to Renmark then a quick scoot across to Mildura and straight down the Calder back to Melbourne in time for a late dinner.

The VJMC Rally Warrilla March 2011

2011-06-27T23:28:00.009+10:00

In August last year I had the opportunity to acquire a second mid-eighties Kawasaki Voyager 1300 6 cylinder full dresser (V2) in Tamworth NSW. During February I joined the VJMC I transferred V2 across to Victorian historic registration. The new club registration rules introduced on the 1st of February allow one to ride a 2year old (or older) vehicle for up to 90 days per year wherever one chooses, and without restriction.

The VJMC – full name Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club – holds a get together/rally each year and this year the event was held at Warrilla NSW, just south of Wollongong. Due to business pressures I had limited time available so the ride up was straightforward up the Hume then turning off at Mossvale to the coast via the Macquarie Pass.

After two very interesting days of drooling over some beautiful examples of Japanese classics and chatting their owners it was time to head home on the Sunday.

Now I am the first to admit that I will always take the hard way over the easy way when given the option, and I had always wanted to ride through Wee Jasper so it was home via Canberra for me.

Wee Jasper is at the bottom of a valley midway between Yass and Tumut where it crosses the Murrumbidgee river. The road in is good quality bitumen with broad sweepers over rolling hills until it tightens up as it descends into the river valley. Once it crosses the river, however, the road turns into a 4wd goat track until it rises out of the valley where there is another 60km of gravel until Tumut.

The road out of Wee Jasper

Usually I enjoy these sort of roads except that this time I was riding V2 , which at a portly 430kg unladen is the heaviest bike to ever come out of Japan. Surprisingly V2 handled the dirt with aplomb and gave me very little trouble on roads and conditions which it was never intended for.
After arrival at Tumut it was back to the Hume where V2 was back in her element and purred her way along the blacktop home again..

Riding in Langkawi Malaysia - December 2010

2011-06-27T22:57:00.002+10:00

Well it’s really time I brought this blog up to date so that means going back 6 months

After my ride along the Birdsville track I had the opportunity to visit Malaysia for business and chose to take an extra week visiting Langkawi – a small island on the north east coast of the Malay peninsula and straddling the Thai border.

Classic old British bike in our hotel reception area.

Langkawi is a great place to ride with scooters and bikes available for rent for $4-5 per day. Kimie and I rented a small 110cc Karisma for 3 days and crisscrossed the island in every direction.

Kimie in the rider's seat.

It was very pleasant taking it slowly, riding in the tropical heat amongst the luscious vegetation and local fauna.We did manage to get caught in a tropical thunderstorm though - had to seek shelter under the nearest roof and spent almost 2 hours waiting for the sheets of water to ease off - now you know why everything is so verdant!

Friendly local fauna

Beautifully green rice paddies

Water Buffalo

Time for a different set of two wheels.

2010-11-15T14:01:00.005+11:00

Yesterday was a special ride day on the Eastern Link tollway. The tollway, including tunnels were closed in aid of a charity for homeless individuals. My son Julien and I chose to ride in the recreational category - a 38km route through both tunnels - followed by a further ride home of around 15-20km.

To say my derriere and thighs were sore is a fairly strong understatement!, especially since I started running again only 2 days prior (after a 5 month hiatus) and have stretched quite a few muscles which have been allowed to otherwise remain unused.

Still it was a good opportunity to try a different (much larger) set of two wheels in preparation for my forthcoming business trip to Malaysia next week.

3rd time success – the Burgie finally makes it to Birdsville!

2010-11-10T12:01:00.008+11:00

…. and what’s this about the pink tutu tourers?

Well, I wasn’t sure whether I was fated to never achieve my goal of riding B1 to Birdsville but on Monday 25th October I am pleased to announce I arrived in town and had a celebratory pint of VB in the Birdsville Hotel.

Getting there, and back, though is a far more interesting story.

Wednesday 20th October started off cool and fresh as I headed on the 3rd annual Suzuki 1400 MCR ride to Bathurst. This time there were only 8 of us, heading East to Bairnsdale and over the top of Mt Hotham before arriving for our first night on the road at the Tallangatta Hotel. It was an inauspicious start as not more than 100km down the road in Yarragon, a fellow rider noticed my handbrake hanging loose from the rear brake calliper – a 12mm nut and washer was sufficient to get me going again, but did cause me to have a few niggling doubts about whether I had sufficiently tightened everything after my rebuild of B1 with its replacement motor and drive train.

It was a chilly start to the day and on the long boring stretches of the Princes Freeway it was good to be able to crank up the heat in my Gerbing’s gloves and enjoy some toasty warmth.

From Bairnsdale things started to get more interesting as we followed the river valley North from Bruthven to Omeo and on to the top of Mt Hotham, before descending to Harrietville, refuelling at Bright and taking the back roads to Tallangatta.

Now for this ride, which included a group of by-now-well-known-to-each-other regulars, we had decided to have a pink tulle tutu made up, and it would be worn by each person whenever they performed an act sufficiently foolish to deserve the privilege. I was fortunate enough to not need to wear it till we reached Bathurst, but more on that later.

The following day we left Tallangatta bright and early, following the Murray Valley Highway over the top of Mt Granya and then down to Corryong before taking the Alpine Way to Thredbo for lunch. The ride along the Murray was magnificent – albeit with a little threatening rain - and it was wonderful to see how much the river levels have risen with the recent rains.

Leaving Thredbo we headed North to Cooma and then East to the coast via Brown mountain – what a brilliant descent it is down a very tight stretch of road with challenging, but smooth, hairpin bends.

Thursday evening saw us once again billeted in the Tathra hotel for the evening, where we were rewarded by a special performance from Winkey* the whale.

* Tathra is one of the best locations in Australia for whale watching. If you want to know more about Winkey then check out the Tathra hotel website.

Friday saw us arriving in Bathurst around 5pm after picking up a couple of stragglers in Goulburn. This time our ride was without incident (unlike last year’s unfortunate accident with Fraser) apart from the heaven’s opening in a major way for the last 10km into town. The force of the downpour was incredible, like someone had turned a hose on you, soaking though most of our ostensibly rainproof gear.

After a late night of merrymaking and catching up with old friends from previous MCRs, I took my 1st rest day as Saturday dawned gently and we made our way out to Mt Panorama to await the core Sydney crew’s arrival.

Now at the top of the mountain there are some great viewing areas. I looked across the kitty litter saw a few 1400s parked the other side of it and figured I would take a short cut – I got around 5m before it was obvious no further forward motion was achievable.

Much to my ignomy, the attached video shows 4 of us retrieving B1, and that is the story of how I earned the right to wear the pink tutu!

After lunch we headed back up the road to Oberon for lunch, but once again we all ended up as drowned rats as heavy rain set in for the rest of the day and following morning.

7am Sunday dawned cold, wet and very windy – I was not looking forward to this as I had a ride of 1,200km ahead of me – but fortunately by the time I reached Dubbo 250km later the roads were drying out nicely, even if the sun wasn’t able to break through the clouds till much, much later that day. Following the same route North from Bourke as I took on my ill-fated August ride, I arrived in Quilpie just as the shops were closing for the evening, filled up with fuel and then headed back out of town to set up camp in roadside stop. It was a pleasant night – clearly a lot warmer than it had been on my previous ride up here and a lot warmer than it had been earlier that day.

From Bourke North it was clear that even though the roads and sky were relatively dry, the ground was still waterlogged after months of deluges, as evidenced by the sheer numbers of emus with their chicks. In the past when I have been through this area it has been mobs of ‘roos I have had to watch out for, but this time there were flocks of dozens of big birds standing by the roadside ready to race you down the road – in particular the mothers who would do anything they could to lead one away from their chicks. They were quite a hazard, requiring regular slowdowns to avoid a nasty incident.

Monday morning I retraced my steps past my earlier breakdown on the 250km ride to Windorah. What started as a monotonous, but relaxing, ride changed somewhat 25km South of Windorah when I reached the first of two causeways across the Coopers Creek overflow. These were around 200m long with a concrete base and water depth of 20-25cm – not much current, and a lot of fun, as the Burgie set up a bow wave spraying me from head to toe with cool, fresh water.

10kms before Windorah I crossed the Coopers itself which was running at very high levels and very high speed, however, it was still a good 30cm below the bridge so there no problems during the crossing. Windorah itself had a couple of surprises for me: firstly because of the solar energy farm they have operating on the outskirts of town, I’d never seen one of these before; and secondly the owner of the local garage – a blind gentleman well into his 70s who operated independently despite his handicaps. The first indication that he was not fully sighted was the mental arithmetic he performed in adding up my fuel and food bills before entering the amount into his EFTPOS terminal. He was able to do this and also run the entire place independently – the only thing I saw his wife do was call out to him the amount on the bowser after I filled up.

I subsequently discovered he is also the garage mechanic – amazing. What struck me the most though was his positive attitude to life. He genuinely loved his work, and loved to chat and meet people – his parting line being ‘well, better get back to work otherwise I’ll lose my job and where I am going to find another at my age!’

From Windorah, it was time to head West. After 120km of bitumen I reached the turnoff to Birdsville and 270km of gravel on the Diamantina Development Road. It took me around 15 minutes to become comfortable with the changed road surface and I was then able to maintain a comfortable 80-90kmh once B1 found its ‘dirt legs’. There was a fair amount of traffic on this road – approx 1 vehicle per hour – including two triple-bogey road trains running empty to pick up cattle in Birdsville, which I had overtaken just prior to the dirt section of the road. I placed cat and mouse with this pair as we passed and then re-passed each other for the remainder of the day, whenever I stopped for photos or a food/drink break.

Overall this road was in very good condition, with only a small number of easy creek crossings and a few detours around the larger mud holes. Speaking of which, I managed to seriously get one of these mud holes badly wrong – preferring to stay dry rather than ride through the slop.

As the video below shows, by trying to take the dry surface to the left of the main track I ended up in a form of quicksand where the more I tried to push the Burgie out, the deeper it sank. By mid afternoon temperatures were up to the mid thirties, and pushing the Burgie whilst wearing my full riding gear caused me to rapidly start perspiring and lose electrolytes. Knowing the risk of this (as per my experience a year earlier on the Tibooburra Road) I thought it wise to sit it out and wait ,rather than continue to struggle. Fortunately 20 minutes after getting stuck a young couple heading East in a 4wd stopped for me and together we managed to free B1 from the glutinous slime.

150km East of Birdsville, near Bettoute I passed the turnoff to Cordillo Downs and Innamincka, via the gibber plains of the Great Stoney Desert – this was the route I had planned to take last year from Cameron Corner..

After that it was plain sailing for the rest of the run into Birdsville as I decided to plough straight through the middle of any wet sections, instead of trying to find a drier route.

Arriving in Birdsville you first pass the racecourse and then the turn-off for the Birdsville track. The racecourse is quite impressive for such a small, remote township and it is easy to see why the race is such an important event on the town social calendar. Unfortunately this year the races had to be cancelled due to the waterlogged track, and this did not bode well for the next stage of my ride - South along the Birdsville track to Marree.

After a refreshing ale in the Birdsville Hotel I checked into the local camping ground at just on 5pm. The manager and his partner had just taken over a few days earlier for the summer season (in outback centres the business owner/operators tend to fly out to the coast for the 6 months of the quiet season and put in part-time “summer managers”). The “summer managers” are typically grey nomads who have stayed at the camp during their own Round-Australia tour and are looking for a different experience, after one season most have learned enough to realise they don’t wish to repeat the experience. Due to their newness the managers were still very enthusiastic, friendly and helpful. The caravan park itself overlooks the local ‘billabongs’ (cut off meanders of the Diamantina river after it changed its course, and where you can rent canoes) and has plenty of space to accommodate the huge crowds that swell to over 3,000 over the race weekend. I camped 50m away from another pair of grey nomads in a Toyota ‘Troopie. After politely saying hello, I had a brief chat, discovered they had just come up the ‘track and asked them about road conditions. Sadly, the female partner in particular, was quite disparaging about my plans to take a ‘scooter’ down the track and regaled me with all the reasons why I was a fool to attempt it, including horror stories of long and deep water crossings, a muddy track and few vehicles on the outback roads now that the tourist season had ended.

I tried to ignore it but do admit that her words did affect me and left me with a few doubts and an increased level of trepidation, so the following day (my 2nd rest day) I went down to the roadhouse, tourist office and police station for 2nd, 3rd and 4th opinions. Sadly, these were no better - all advice and the daily road condition status report, stated 4WD only, and the police suggested I delay as long as possible so that the road could further dry out..

Now in Birdsville they do have one great feature – a free DIY vehicle hot wash using high pressure water from a local artesian bore. That morning I cleaned all of the preceding days mud from B! and then went over her with a fine tooth comb – oh,oh – why is the rear engine mount bolt sticking 4cms out from the rubber engine mount? Looks like you’ve lost the nut Garry – hmm, well that one on the centre stand looks to be a good fit, and besides there is a cotter pin on the centre stand so you ain’t going to lose that bolt even without a nut on the end. Let’s look at how the rest of the Burgie is holding up – all seems fine so I reckon she’s as ready as she ever will be for the journey down the ‘track. I walked around town and lazed around the billabong for the rest of the afternoon before deciding a sunset ride to Big Red (the tallest dune in the Simpson Desert) would be in order – and likely a good test of what the real ‘track would be like. Big Red is roughly 37km West, and effectively represents the Eastern edge of the Simpson.

Unfortunately, due to flooding you can only get to within 5km of Big Red before the road stops abruptly at water’s edge. This is DEEP water and around 200m wide – directly across the water is Little Red, which the track traverses. Right at the water’s edge were parked two mobile homes. One with a mature lady enjoyed a nice goblet of chilled chardonnay whilst her partner was busy in the galley of the other vehicle preparing the evening meal – what an idyllic scene it was looking west as the sun set over Little Red and a 4WD perched atop it. The mobile home owners directed me to a 12km detour through soft sand to get to Big Red, I decided to attempt it but gave up approx halfway due to being waylaid by a 4WDer who spotted my China – Russia stickers, hailed me to pull over and quizzed me about the Burgie’s travels through foreign climes. With the twilight rapidly encroaching as the sun descended behind the dunes I turned around and headed back to Birdsville and my camp for the evening.

That night I lay awake pondering the next day’s 350km ride down the ‘track to Mungerannie and wondering how bad the road conditions really could be.

Well they were, and they weren’t that bad. It was certainly a lot slower and tougher going than the road into Birdsville had been, particularly in the soft sandy detours around the original route which with the recent rains was now part of a swamp.

Leaving Birdsville at 7am (Qld time – 6.30am SA) it was clear most of the track had dried out quite nicely, as there were lots of hard sand sections with deep tyre tracks baked into the surface where other vehicles had slithered their way along whilst the track was till waterlogged. There were numerous long and deep sections of water where the road passed through what were now small lakes with plenty of waterfowl swimming across the road! Based on what others had told me I knew these sections weren’t too deep and they had lots of gibber on the bottom to provide traction.

I would have much preferred to have had another vehicle following me but alas I saw only 4 other vehicles on the track that day so I was obliged to just give it a go regardless. Now the big concern was not personal – I could easily walk out, albeit somewhat muddier – or even push/drag the Burgie out, but more what would happen when the water was above the CVT intake and exhaust and entered the CVT itself.

As I went to enter the long and deepish water crossing I first had to traverse some wheel ruts through the mud, where unfortunately the gibber base had been pushed away by previous vehicles and replaced with pure slop. I gently paddled my way through whilst applying just enough power to keep moving forward – suddenly the rear wheel slid sideways and before I knew it B1 was going down. I stepped off to hold her up but in the slippery mud she just kept slipping down – right on top of my leg. So here I am, no one else to assist, sitting in a mud pool with my foot trapped underneath the bodywork. First thing is to get my foot out, second thing is to try and bring B1 back upright – easier said than done when she just slides sideways every time I try and raise her. Eventually I got her upright and then set myself the target of getting through 200m of muddy water that was who knows how deep. As it turned out, it was around 40cm deep and I could hear the flatulent exhaust struggling to maintain breathing efficiency as the water tried to enter. In these sections I knew I had to keep going regardless as any stop would definitely mean considerable water entry to the CVT and consequent Pulley Position Sensor failure – the CVT had a small drain plug and could handle small amounts of water without too much problems but complete submersion – as I had experienced previously – would have much more dire consequences. So there I went trying to hold a constant speed of around 25kmh, with a bow wave drenching me from head to toe and B1 threatening to buck me off as it bounced and jumped over the uneven base.

The above exercise was repeated at least 15-20 times that day, fortunately as I gained experience my confidence levels raised accordingly and by the end of the day I was plunging in without even first reccie-ing the crossings.

However, … there is always a however……., the last major mud hole crossing 25km out from Mungerannie – my destination that day - was the one that finally brought me unstuck. It was a 70m long section of heavily rutted thick sloppy mud and I made the same mistake as the day previously – rather than ride straight through it I chose to take the driest path. The reason for this was simple – if for any reason I did stop / get bogged, whilst crossing then my CVT would be filled with this mud – a situation even less preferable than having the CVT full of water - and I would need to tear the CVT down to remove all the slop, not something I fancied in the middle of nowhere.

So I elected to follow the wheel ruts left by trucks. The problem with this was that the wheel ruts were deep – around 35cm - and relatively narrow. I got halfway through when B1’s lower fairing simply jammed themselves against the walls of the rut and lo and behold to use a Rolls Royce’ism, B1 “failed to proceed”. Ok I thought, I’ll simply kick down the one of the rut walls so she won’t hang up. First task was to park the Burgie upright, which meant pushing her over on her left so that she could rest against the taller rut wall – easier said than done as B1 preferred to lay down her right side directly into the slop. Next was to take off my helmet, jacket and gloves as I was by now sweating tremendously in the late afternoon sun. Now to kick down the rut walls – ok, done. Finally to get B1 started and moving again – well she started fine, and I assisted the motor by slowly pushed her forward into the deeper goop with the muddy slop oozing over the top of my boots.

I managed to move her forward around 5m before B1 again lost traction and by which time I was once again exhausted. Usually what was left of my energy I propped B1 up against the wall of the rut again and went to sit down to recover my energies for a second attempt. 15 minutes later I was ready but what is that I spot in the distance? – two FWDs coming down the track from Birdsville and bearing knights in shiny armour!

After surveying the scene, one of the drivers reluctantly agreed to assist (quite understandably, he really wasn’t that keen in stepping out of his air-conditioned luxury cabin and into the hot, stinking ooze) and gave me a push to get B1 moving again. This time I got a further 10 metres before she once again lost traction and span her rear wheel in vain. Ok, another 5 minute rest and I was ready to sit astride B1 and with one final push she was free and I bucked and hopped through the remaining 15 metres of goop onto dry ground.

The final 25km into Mungerannie went smoothly and quickly, and it was sight for sore eyes to see my first man-made structure for 350km.

To say I had well and truly worked up a thirst would be quite and understatement, so immediately on arrival it was straight in to the bar and two cans of VB followed each other in quick succession down my throat.

Feeling a little more refreshed, I paid for my campsite and went to set up my tent by the lagoon which is fed by an artesian bore. There is a natural pool you can swim or luxuriate in - with its high sulphur content it’s a little smelly – and very hot (around 75C), but you can vary the temperature by mixing the cool lagoon and hot bore water. The birdlife here is prolific with hordes of swirling, screeching parrots and gentle sedate waterfowl, including pelicans, paddling peacefully around. A very relaxing night was had indeed, which put me in good stead for Thursday’s riding.

As I only had 250km more of the Birdsville track to go I decided to take a relaxed approach and it was close to 8am by the time I was all packed up and ready to hit the road again. By comparison with the previous day the first 60kms of riding was an absolute breeze with a nice hard packed surface that you could easily maintain 100kmh on, and minimal water crossings / bog holes. On the advice of the Mungerannie hotel manager I rode past the ferry detour sign and continued on another 8km to Coopers Creek. The track gently disappeared into the waters whilst the small hillocks that bordered the track continued out into the water in much the same manner as the silt arms of the Mitchell River in the Gippsland Lakes – quite a surreal picture.

Once back at the ferry detour turnoff the track became very soft, sandy and corrugated – the conditions I hate most to ride on. – for the rest of the way to the ferry.

At the ferry the Burgie was able to fit behind a LandCruiser and it was a quick crossing. The ferry operators were a great pair of blokes but they have clearly been given some grief by the powers-that-be though, as they are most officious about ensuring you wear a life jacket during the crossing.

Once across the water it was another rough corrugated ride back to where the ferry detour joined the main track, then a fairly smooth surface all the way to Marree as a lot of the track had either been, or was in the process of being, graded. This graded surface was not the best for the Burgie though as B1’s small front wheel tends to dig in as soon as the surface is either loose or soft, so speeds were kept well down. In addition, there were still quite a few corrugations and chopped up areas, which caused the Burgie’s back-end to hop out and give me a few heart-stopping moments.

I thought the hopping out was a little odd, however, especially the way it caused bump steer in the ruts, and initially I thought must have a flat tyre, but then realised I must have spun a rear wheel bearing again – a result of the hammering the rear wheel was taking on the corrugations. The bearing was definitely gone, but not too bad especially later when I got back on the bitumen - as it was, it got me all the way back to home (another 1,500km) but only just, as the whole bearing had disintegrated apart from the inner and outer shells. In addition, the corrugations had caused the frame - fairing mounts to crack again. Now with a spun wheel bearing and a loose fairing I decided to drop my speed and take things a little easier, doing this though I noticed something unusual – the Burgie was running hot, much hotter than it usually would in such conditions, even with the relatively high inland SA temperatures we were experiencing. Each time I stopped I noticed the radiator fan would continue operating for a minute or so – hmm, that’s strange I thought?

Now things got even more interesting. When I reached Marree (the beginning of the Oodnadatta track) I pulled up to the general store to ask if they had a mechanic shop (to help with replacement of the wheel bearings – I was carrying spare bearings but realised I would need a puller to get the old ones out as tapping them out would not be achievable if the inner and outer races had separated). Alas the nearest workshop was 110km further South in Copley.

I walked back out to the pump forecourt where B1 was parked and saw a small pool of oil on the ground directly under B1. Looking underneath I realised the transmission drain plug had departed somewhere up the track and I was running with no oil in the transmission – I now had an explanation of why B1 was running a bit hotter than usual with no lubrication for the transmission (Note: at this point it is important to explain that the transmission in the Burgie is not likely a regular transmission. It is simply a set of two cogs acting as a reduction ratio from the clutch output to the gear driven final drive). There was nowhere I could buy a replacement fine metric bolt in Marree and decided to risk riding slowly South whilst stopping frequently to avoid further overheating. I got as far as Lyndhurst (turnoff for the Strezlecki track to Innamincka) when I thought I should fill up with fuel. I figured just for the hell of it I’d ask the store owner whether she sold drain plugs and before I knew it she directed me to her husband who was sitting enjoying a few quiet ones in the workshop out the back. Turns out he had a full workshop out there but had let the mechanic go due to the intermittent and irregular business requirements in a small town like Lyndhurst. Anyways, this gentleman (Neil) was great, made me feel right at home and suggested we use an old spark plug as makeshift drain plug as sparkplugs came in fine metric pitch sizes. He offered up ½ a dozen old plugs, one of which was a perfect fit. I put that in, bought a litre of oil from Neil, pumped in 350ml to the transmission, threw the rest in the engine and Bob was most definitely the avuncular old fella he is known to be, from that point forwards. I am sure Neil would also let me use his workshop to replace the rear wheel bearing but decided I had already troubled him enough and did not want to take advantage of his hospitality and overstay my welcome.

From there it was a fairly straightforward ride down to Copley (a town with a sad and disenfranchised indigenous population), via Leigh Creek coal mine to check into the local caravan park and then into the local pub (named the Leigh Creek Hotel but situated in Copley – yes, there is a history to why this is so) to take advantage of their huge Thursday $12 schnitzel specials.

Friday it was a straightforward run down the bitumen past the Flinders Ranges, and across many sections of flood damaged roads, to Hawker (gateway to the Flinders Ranges) and Quorn – at which pint the heavens opened. I pressed on to Pt Augusta and walked into the tourist Office dripping and not even removing my helmet or gloves. They directed me to the local caravan park where that night I elected to rent a cabin rather than erecting my tent.

Saturday, another wet ride South to Adelaide and a downtown backpackers where the majority of guests were dressed up a zombies for an early Halloween celebration.

Sunday morning was also damp and I raced up Mt Barkley only to overtake 25 postie bikes taking part in the ‘Male Bag’ ride for prostate cancer research.

Crossing the border at Border Town I felt and heard further grumbles from the rear end as the bearing further collapsed and the balls started to pulverise themselves. I then took it fairly slowly the rest of the way back to Melbourne arriving home late afternoon.

The total ride distance was just over 5,700km (or approx 3,600 miles) over 10 days of riding (and two rest days), averaging 570km per day.

B1 has been cleaned washed, her vital fluids replaced and her rear wheel replaced with the spare I have – given the damage to the hub caused by the bearing failures in Kazakhstan and Marree I think it is time to retire it. The fairing mounts have been welded I have also swapped out a few of the badly damaged body panels with spares which I found on eBay.

B1 is all ready for her next trip, the question now is where? Why do I keep hearing that little bird whispering Oodnadatta Track and Gun Barrel Highway?

Help Needed - Stuck In Quilpie .... the rubber band snapped!

2010-09-16T09:05:00.000+10:00

22nd August 2010 - the story begins. On my way to Birdsville, the CVT belt on B1 snapped last night on the Quilpie - Windorah road. I ended up camping by the side of the road, surviving a massive storm, hitching a ride to Quilpie and then getting an RACQ tow back to Quilpie the following morning. I'm now trying to work out the best way to get the bike and me back to Melbourne. There is no way it is fixable locally as replacing the belt requires tearing the motor down - and besides it'll take at least a week to get a new belt delivered.

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26th August 2010.
In short my life over the last 5 days has been.

Day 1 - Saturday - go and vote (Australian Federal Elections - compulsory voting) then ride North - planned to get to Bourke but too many animals on the road so stopped in Cobar well before dusk. Bloody freezing night in Cobar and my self inflating mattress springs a leak.

Day 2 - Sunday - ride North to Windorah up through Bourke, Cunnamulla, Eulo and Quilpie - around 4.30pm riding across the floodplains to Windorah I accelerate out of a gentle creek crossing and the revs go sky-high whilst the Burgie starts to gently roll to a stop. Pull over and push bike off road, set up tent and the rains hit - in a very short period of time I start to realise that camping on a floodplain is NOT a good idea but I had little choice.

Day 3 - Monday - hitch a ride to Quilpie, call the RACV and get a tow back to Quilpie. Tow truck driver and I had a hell of a time winching the Burgie out of the mud which it was by now well and truly stuck in (as a side note, it's lucky I didn't get onto the actual Birdsville track as I would still be stuck due to all the rain/mud). RACV helped me out by paying for a motel for the night (first shower/shave for 3 days - I was reeking ) whilst I tried to find options to get home. Finally struck a deal with the local postie courier to put the Burgie in the back of his transit van to Charleville next morning.

Day 4 - Charleville. Postie dropped me and the Burgie off at Kurtz trucking depot. Tried again to get a car - AVIS offered to get me a dual cab ute in 2 days time - total cost for a one way rental to Melbourne including delivery from Toowoomba to Charleville and excess km charges (but NOT including fuel) would be $2,500! Instead I got Kurtz to put the Burgie in a cage on the back of a semi and send it to Rocklea (Brisbane) whilst I took an overnight Greyhound to Brisbane.

Day 5 - Arrived in Brisbane, totally stuffed with little sleep. Called up Kurtz whilst they tried various options to get the Burgie back to Melbourne. A lot of stuffing around because just about every trucking company insisted the Burgie be crated before they would ship it. Spent all day at the Brisbane downtown bus terminal trying to contact bike shippers - some successfully, most not. Kurtz came through with the goods around 3pm and put me onto a mob called CEVA who will collect the Burgie tomorrow and have it down here by Friday next week - only worry is to make sure they take my Givi topbox (which had to be removed by Kurtz to fit the Burgie into the cage) as it has all my gear in it.

Once the Burgie was sorted I then booked a Tiger Airways flight to Melb leaving 8.15pm. Took the train to the airport, checked and was told the plane would be delayed by an hour. An hour later, another hour delay - this happened 4 times till we finally left the tarmac at 12.15am Most of the passengers were totally crapped off and there was a big barney between the cabin staff and half a dozen more vocal passengers who had spent the last 4 hours in the airport bar. I was getting really worried there was going to be a riot mid flight and to add to it, the drunkest and most vocal passenger had the seat next to me.

Arrived at Tullamarine at 2.30am, crashed in the airport till 5am, took the airport bus to the city and then a tram home - quick shower and shave and back in the office by 8am. What an adventure!

... and one that really should not have occurred! I have a complete new motor/CVT/Drivetrain/Swingarm and rear wheel assembly for the Burgie sitting in the garage which I planned to put on once I came back from Birdsville. I just wanted to clock up 100,000km on the original before I did - the speedo is currently registering 95k km so as Maxwell Smart would say "missed it by that much".

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8th September 2010.
My son Julien went down to the CEVA logistics office in Melbourne ot collect B1 on the back of our trailer. It's amazing to think that a bike as big as the Burgie will fit in the back of a 6x4 trailer but it will - diagonally and with the tail gate open.

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15th September 2010
I wasn't able to do any work on B1 until now as last weekend I was away on a ride to Port Fairy on V2 with the Mild Hogs team.

Tonight I started stripping B1 down ready to remove the whole drivetrain/motor. It's just about the there and I expect to start bolting the new one up tomorrow night. Once I have the new motor in - ready for the 3rd attempt at reaching Birdsille in mid October - I wil start to strip down the B1 CVT and find out what caused the belt to snap - was it just age and a hard life? or was there something else which may have been the culprit? We will soon know (cue: Twilight Zone music).

Biking adventures – 1H 2010 .... disaster’s about to happen, and not just once ..........

2010-08-21T00:16:00.000+10:00

Firstly, I sold the ST 1100 in December last year and now dedicate my riding to Burgmans. Although having said that, I’ve also taken the Aprilia Mana 850 out for 2 test rides but it is very Burgmanesque given it uses electronic CVT technology licenced from Suzuki. If I was going to buy a naked road bike it would definitely be the one to go for but it is very expensive for what you get.

I also test rode a Buell 1125R – the last of the Buells are now being sold, the end of an era. The Buell is an in-your-face raw and visceral experience – VERY fast and powerful but an absolute dog around town. If I could afford an exclusive dedicated track bike the Buell would definitely be the way to go though.

However, Burgmen is I’m sure what you want to hear about so here we go.

After all the difficulties in getting B2 running after its immersion, which all boiled down to the CVT Pulley Position Sensor (PPS) being the culprit, it happened again! - would you believe it? In March there was a flash flood when I had B2 parked at a customer site and lo and behold the CVT flooded again! – what a coincidence! the bike has now drowned twice! Needless to say, the PPS died again and I had to get a new one.

Over Easter 2010 I decided to ride B1 up to the Flinders Ranges again and had a great time riding and exploring.

This time I elected to take the coast road west to Adelaide and then head north to Ororoo, rather than heading directly inland. In many ways, this was a reverse of last year’s ride.

The first day’s riding took me along Victoria’s famous Great Ocean Road, and B1 was in its element – swooping and diving through the tight turns, with magnificent cliff top views to add to the experience. By late afternoon I crossed the border into South Australia and camped overnight in Kingston S.E. Next morning I followed the coast northwards through the salt lakes of the Coorong National Park salt lakes before heading inland and taking the ferry across the Murray at Wellington (same ferry as last year) and then heading weat to Mt Barker and Hahndorf for some further swooping and diving through the Adelaide Hills before riding North up through the Barossa valley and arriving back in Ororoo and camping at the same campground as last year.

The next day I decided to do a full circuit of the Flinders. First stop was Wilpena Pound where I did a fast walk up to the top of Mary’s Mount – I was quite surprised how fit I was, climbing walking up and back in half the time of most other visitors. From Wilpena it was north to Blinman, and the road is now fully bitumenised with some nice corners as the road follows the curves of the hilly undulating countryside. From Blinman it was west to Parachilna through the gorge. This was around 50km of gravel tracks through some very pleasant hills and dales, across dry creek beds and around blind crests. A most enjoyable ride except for the dust kicked up by the ubiquitous 4wd drivers. Parachilna was quite disappointing – really just a rail junction with a hotel - albeit the hotel does a roaring trade in cooking native animals (ferall meals) with emu and roo being big on the menu.

The most important thing about Parachilna, however, is that from here you head North on the bitumen to Leigh Creek form where you meet the gravel taking you up to Marree and then on to Birdsville – so I will be heading back that way again in the near future.

From Parachilna I took the road south again back to my camp at Ororoo and next day left for Mildura and Swan Hill, where I set up camp on the banks of the Murray.

The following day was Easter Monday and I decided to meander South to Melbourne, avoiding the main highway as much as possible and taking as many gravel and back roads as I could.

At lunchtime I arrived in Bendigo only to find the main street blocked due to the annual Easter Parade. I had head many great things about this but in all my years in Australia had never seen it before. The parade is most famous for having the longest Chinese dragon in the world – and at an impressive 50m it really was.

What really stood out though was the community involvement in what is really a small town affair. In particular, the vast majority of participants were Chinese! It was most interesting to observe the amount of community involvement, effort and commitment that the Asian community had made, whilst by comparison the European presence was tired, lack lustre, and paltry. I do believe this says a lot about the way Australia as a country is heading and that hopefully the new wave of Asian immigration can shake up and revitalise the small rural communities that have been allowed to wither by the ex-convict Irish Australian stock.

The parade was a most enjoyable affair and after it completed I chose to continue my meanderings along the backroads. Little did I know what was in store for me as disaster struck!

I was leaving town heading towards Newstead following a P-plater driver in an old Holden Astra. She pulled over on to the left verge without indicating and stopped at the side of the road. I continued driving straight ahead when she suddenly did a right hand turn (no indicators) across in front of me into a driveway!!

I grabbed both brakes hard, locked up and low-sided down the road on my left side stopping a metre away from her car. I was still in my seat and astride the bike when I stopped sliding but my left foot was stuck under the body work so I had to enlist Ms P-plater to help extricate myself (that’s the polite version of events anyway). Turns out she had her licence only 3 weeks but blames me for the accident because I never actually hit her car! I ended up with scratches down the left hand side of the bike, broken indicator, broken screen and bent centre stand. Fortunately my clothing took the brunt of the damage to myself and I ended up shredding my leather jacket, pants and boots. Luckily the gear protected me well and all I had to show for it was a sprained ankle, a few bruises and grazes and a haematoma on my hip.

This was only my second motorcycle accident since 1978 (when I was in Africa) and like my other one in 1997 (where I had only owned my Suzuki PE250 for one day) it was directly the fault of the other driver – very annoying!

Like my accident in 1997, the insurance company ended up writing off B1 and wanted to me to forfeit her in return for a financial payout. I refused to do this and was eventually able to negotiate a settlement where I bought B1 back as salvage. With minimal replacement parts (indicator lens and screen) I patched her back up and went through the rather costly ‘written off vehicle’ inspection process to get her back on the road. So all ended up well ….. for the moment.

In the last week of May I decided to test her endurance and offroad capabilities again by doing a 600km day circuit from Melbourne to Licola to Jamieson and return to Melbourne. I had done a similar ride on B2 a month or so earlier, heading up to Jamieson via Woods Point, however, the Licola road is a lot rougher and higher.

The road was due to be closed for winter the following weekend so I knew it was make or break that weekend. A constant downpour ensured that I was the only bike on the road as I hit the 100km or so of dirt that heads up (and down) to the summit of Mt Skene at 1600m. The first 50km or so was fairly good going as I could power on up the hills and enjoy the rain protection provided by B1s bodywork. Once I hit the top though the road became muddier and slipperier – not fun at all under brakes, as the Burgie’s CVT dies not provide the low speed engine braking other bikes can. It took me 2 hours to cover the final 50km as I slipped and slid down the mountain.

The following weekend it was time for another road adventure as I headed off with half the mountain madness crew for a ride over the top of Falls Creek before that road was also closed for the winter.

The morning was a great ride and we stopped for lunch at Whitfield only to find Neil and Lorrain limping in with a flat rear tyre on their Triumph Sprint. I always carry a tyre repair kit with me and was able to put it to good use plugging Neil’s rear (tyre that is).

We made good time in the afternoon, crossing the Tawonga Gap for the run down into Mt Beauty, and then up the road to Fall’s Creek. The road was damp in parts so we slowed down considerably and as we took a hairpin left hander I spotted two lyrebirds walking by the side of the road. I’ve lived in Australia since 1963 and this is the first time I have seen lyrebirds in the wild – quite a magical experience.

On reaching the top of Falls Creek it started to get very cold – just slightly above freezing. Rather than waiting for the other riders to catch up I decided to lead the pack of bikes down the road to Angler’s Rest, and Omeo – our stop for the evening.

Now it is worthwhile to first say a little bit about this road. It is a tight, steep and windy road that has only recently been bitumenised (January 2009). I have ridden it twice since then, both times uphill and I did not like the road surface at all.

In the Alpine regions in Australia the road builders build roads in two stages. They first put down a bottom layer of rough bitumen and let it sit for two years before putting on the top layer of hot melt asphalt. In addition, the first layer of road surface uses a different type of aggregate – round pebbles instead of coarse screenings. What they did at Falls Creek though, beggars belief. They never swept the road after the first surfacing and as a result the surface is full of round pebbles just waiting for a bike to apply a cornering force and for them (the pebbles) to start rolling sideways.

Knowing this, I took it very easy as it is a most unsettling experience riding this road.

To cut a long story short, around 8 km out of Falls Creek I took a gentle left hander at around 50kmh. Before I knew what had happened, and without warning, B1 slid out from underneath me and I low sided on my left. My immediate thoughts were “Damn, not again…”, before the rear wheel gripped and I high sided over to the right.

My first action was to switch off the ignition (the tip-over sensors had done their job and switched off the engine) and then to run around the corner warning the other riders to slow down.

At first I thought I must have hit some ice on the road – so quick and uncontrollable was the slide – but on closer inspection I realised that the inside of the corner was covered in ball bearing shaped ‘white pea gravel’ that the road builders had put down and that the regular parade of passing vehicles had pushed into a pile.

Now to add insult to injury, not only had the pea gravel caused me to go down but it had viciously eroded and tore out huge hunks of B1’s bodywork and my riding gear – the damage was far, far worse than in the previous incident with a torn off mirror, bent handlebars and broken brake lever along with bodywork hanging off left right and centre – thank goodness for duct tape!.

As for myself, I came out of it totally unscathed with not a scratch on me……. or so I thought at the time.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and I returned to Melbourne safely. I elected not to claim on my insurance as I thought having two accidents less than 2 months apart would not bode well for my future insurance coverage. I ended up repairing / rebuilding the damaged bodywork myself … not quite as easy a job as last time as this time it wasn’t just scratches I needed to repair.

A few days later though I was reading a newspaper when I thought to myself – hmm, my reading glasses must be scratched because I can’t see through them properly. .

I thought nothing more of it until a week or so later I had cause to look at something with just my right eye and realised my vision was clouded and I couldn’t see any detail.

I went for an eye check and as it turns out I have a haemorrhage in the retina of my right eye – no doubt caused by my head getting tossed from one side to the other during the high side. It will take another 6 months or so for the blood in my retina to dissipate so improvement in my vision is relatively slow.

B1 now has over 93,000km on the clock and is my dedicated ‘adventure bike’, whilst B2 is my comfy tourer. However, I had the opportunity back in June to acquire an almost new K8 Burgman motor, CVT and complete rear end including swingarm and rear wheel/tyre.

My plans are to keep the new motor ready for swapping over once B1’s engine and CVT fail – in any case I want to see the magic 100,000kms come up on B1’s odometer before I consider the change. Hopefully that should occur before the end of 2010 so there will be plenty more adventures in store.

When in Rome..... (or more precisely, when in Thailand..........)

2010-02-25T16:37:00.000+11:00

Ride like the locals do!.

Ok, maybe not on an elephant (those beasties were large - that's why I was keeping a respectable distance away from them), but certainly on a bike.

Phuket is a wonderful place to be and it makes far more sense to ride two-up on a small bike - in this case a locally built 110cc water cooled FI scooter known as a Honda Click - than it does to rent one of the larger heavyweights which seem to be the preferred weapon for farang military on R&R.

LIke most Asian towns, the beach resorts on Phuket island are essentially wall-to-wall traffic going nowhere fast. The zippy little Hondas let you scoot in and around the otherwise congealed mass of bumper-to-bumper cars, trucks and buses. Surprisingly enough, given the congestion, lack of traffic rules and surprising number of North european farang who would not consider riding a motorcycle at home, especially wearing the mandatory non-ATGATT uniform of shorts, tee-shirt, sandals, sunglasses and no helmet; I saw no accidents.

Once outside the towns, and particularly out towards the small islands which dot the coastline of Thailand, riding becomes a pleasure as you hum along at a pleasant 80kmh underneath a canopy of trees passing through small villages and enjoy a little self-generated cooling relief from the warm moist air.

Definitely a ride we should all take at least once in our lifetime.

Mountain Madness 2010

2010-01-12T17:04:00.000+11:00

It never stops in the hectic world of motorcycle touring, and Kimie and I were off again on the annual Mountain Madness jaunt on the 1st of January. This is the 10th time this particular ride has been run and I've ridden around 7 of them - only missing out on the 1st and a couple of others due to unavailability / precarious licence situations.

This year was a rather gentler run than usual as we had two female riders in the group (one on a 250) as well as a support vehicle to accommodate those riders who were not up to the full ride (this included our illustrious leader Loyd who is still recovering from broken fingers on each hand as a result of an off-road tumble on his R1200GS a couple of months back). With a couple of late cancellations we were down to 11 bikes (or 10 bikes and a Burgman as some preferred to describe things) for this trip.

Day 1 started off bright and early as we had all made sure not to grow any cobwebs overnight by overindulging on New Year's Eve. Our route took us out through the Melba Highway to Healesville where the twisty sections of road began. I had prepped B2, my new Burgman, by installing YSS emulators up front and unfortunately I didn't get the settings quite right. Whilst the Burgie performed admirably through the smooth curves of the Black Spur it was not a bed of roses as soon as the road became a little bumpier. Nevertheless this didn't stop us having fun.

After lunch at Myrtleford the group split and Tony and I (and our respective pillions) did a quick ride to the top of Mt Buffalo whilst the rest of the riders continued over the top of Falls Creek (ski resort) to Angler's Rest. We finally arrived at Angler's Rest around 7pm, settling into our cabin, and having a quick meal, before the temperature dropped and the heavens opened.

The following morning it was a rather subdued ride to Omeo around what would otherwise have been fantastic tight curvy roads. The gentle rain, gravel and mud from water runoffs and tree debris certainly put a dampener on our enthusiasm but the Burgman once again handled the slippery roads with aplomb (due to the consistent power of the CVT) whilst the other riders had numerous scary moments as their bikes lost traction through the curves.

After Omeo it was an interesting ride through an erstwhile brilliant riding road down to Bruthven.

The rain continued off and on throughout the day and as a result the majority of the group elected to take the short cut down the Pacific highway to Eden from Orbost rather than the more interesting ride via Bombala.

By the next morning, howver, the roads had dried out nicely and it was time to make our way back inland to Jindabyne at the base of the Snowy Mountains.

We had lunch at the cheese factory in Bega and made a big mistake in not filling up as I thought I could buy fuel in either Bemboka or Nimitabel, but alas this was not to be the case as both towns have closed down their only service stations. This was particularly worrying as I had been pushing rather hard up Brown Mountain (as attested to by my well ground centrestand) and I knew I wouldn't make it to Cooma. Slowing down to 80kmh we attempted to eke the fuel out as far as we could only to feel the Burgie die 8km short. Tony had been riding slowly ahead and turned around as soon as he saw us stopping. A quick search of the roadside debris unearthed an empty mineral water bottle whilst Tony got started removing the tank of his Triumph so we could drain 1/2 a litre of petrol. This was sufficient to get the Burgie firing on both cylinders again and after putting things back together we rode the 5 minutes to the local Caltex in Cooma and filled up.

In Jindabyne we were spending two nights with a spare day to use at your leisure. Considerate of my pillion, Kimie and I elected to ride the short distance (40km) to the top of Charlotte's Pass and trek the 20km return trail to the top of Mt Kosciuszko - Australia's highest mountain. It was a refreshingly cool 14C day and we (together with many other hikers) thoroughly enjoyed the exercise.

The following day we left Jindabyne bright and early - stopped briefly in Thredbo so Kimie could reminisce about her first skiing adventures there 24 years earlier - and had a wild and woolly ride to Tallangatta as conditions varied between heavy rain with thunder and lightning, and 40C heat.

The Tallangata council pool offered much needed respite from the heat and we - unlike most of our fellow riders - were able to cool down sufficiently to enjoy a good night's sleep in our otherwise uncooled rooms.

The last day of our journey saw us stop off at Bonegila and Beechworth before a leisurely ride down the Hume to home, and an opportunity to relax in our regular surroundings.

Already planning has started for next year’s ride, with Loyd handing over the reins to all comers. Suggestions include a lap or Tassie – with or without a map – so stay tuned.

The Great Aussie Outback Tour – November 2009

2009-12-28T13:50:00.000+11:00

5,500km (3,500 miles) of the best that Australia can offer, over 11 days.

Day 1 – 600km, Melbourne to Tathra

With an invitation to attend the Suzuki 1400 annual MCR (Magic Carpet Ride) meeting in Bathurst it was time to schedule a ride a little farther afield and see a little more of this fair country. Birdsville was one place I had always wanted to visit, and although it was starting to get a little hot in that neck of the woods I figured it was nothing the Burgie couldn’t handle. So the plan was Bathurst, Broken Hill, Birdsville, Marree, Melbourne – and with 11 days in which to do it, why not.

On Thursday the 29th of October I caught up with the 1400 boys in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne before making our way out east along the Princes Highway as far as Sale. We then took a few meandering detours along some of the lesser user backroads before reaching Orbost for lunch at the local bakery. All had been fine to date except for a minor mechanical gremlin to one of the 14s, which was easily fixed.

At this point there were 9 of us, 7 1400s, a lone Fireblade (Honda) and lone Burgman (B1). From Orbost it was North East to Delegate along a fine stretch of over 100kms of twisty road.

This was the Burgie’s heartland, where it was able to come into its own by comparison with larger heavier 1400s. Its nimbleness allowed me regularly touch down the stands on each side whilst overtaking the bigger bikes on the inside of turns. At this point the group was running perfectly on schedule to meet up with Pete in Bombala at 2.30 … until we hit the dirt just before the NSW border.

Along with a few unexpected roadworks the delays added up to around 25 minutes but fortunately Pete was waiting valiantly to escort us the remainder of the way to Tathra and he’d brought with him this…..

… my new airbag jacket which I’d bought on sale marked down by 87.5%, or a whopping $700 discount.

After strapping it to the back of the Burgie we continued on for the final 100+km journey along the back roads of the NSW south coast before crossing the Princes Highway for the final leg to Tathra. This stretch of countryside is beautiful and would be a wonderful place to retire to. Warm balmy weather, lots of greenery and roads that twist around the waters of lakes and inlets sparkling in the sun before arriving at our hotel for the evening set high on a cliff top above the ocean with magnificent views.

Day 2 – 600km, Tathra to Bathurst

The day started off as clear and bright as the day before with most of us clearheaded after a fairly relaxing evening enjoying a few ales whilst engaging in the local pool and table tennis competitions.

First stop was a local beachside café before zooming through the hills out of Tathra and up through the cheese country of Bega, Tilba and Bodalla, past the beautiful Wagonga inlet and Narooma to Bateman’s bay where we collected another member of the 1400 group before heading inland for a fast twisty run up to Goulburn for lunch.

Leaving Goulburn we said our goodbyes to Pete (who headed back to Sydney) and it was then cross country through Taralga for the last leg of the journey to Oberon and Bathurst.

Along this route we kept our speeds down and played tag with each other, gently overtaking one or the other and enjoying the afternoon’s ride. The group had split up into 3-4 subgroups dependent

Around 10km before Oberon there were 4 of us riding together and we came up behind a long cattle truck. Two of the 14s overtook and one held back, I moved out slightly to see if I could still overtake before we crested a slight blind hill, decided that I could and went past leaving Fraser riding the 3rd 14 remaining behind the truck.

I passed the truck moved back in to my lane and as I crested the hill I saw a utility pull out of a driveway on my right and thought to myself that I hope the other 14 isn’t going to try and pass as it will be a tight squeeze between the cattle truck and the ute.

I thought nothing further though, and when we reached the turnoff at Oberon waited with the other riders for the remainder to catch up and make sure they took the right turn. 15 minutes later the others still had not arrived. I called one of the riders Mike and was surprised to hear him answer as he should have been riding.

Fraser had waited for the ute to pass before trying to overtake the cattle truck but hadn’t realised there was Mitsubishi sedan right behind it.

We headed back to find the road closed, ambulance and police in attendance, the air ambulance (helicopter) enroute and a group of motorists attending both him and the Car driver (who was jammed in his vehicle).

Fraser had hit the Mitsubishi head-on at a closing speed of 200kmh, sailed through the air for 10 metres before sliding face first down the road for another 50 metres. Although he was conscious we were quite sure he must have had severe brain and internal injuries but to our surprise he regained consciousness and even telephoned his wife to tell her what happened. Fraser was subsequently airlifted to a Sydney hospital and was allowed to leave 2 days later with nothing more than bruising to his right leg… surprisingly he fared far better than the car driver – most unusual for a car / bike impact.

.... and far, far better than his previously immaculate bike.....

On a subdued note we rode the final 50km leg in to Bathurst to meet our fellow 1400 riders who had ridden in from different parts of Queensland, SA and NSW. Whilst Fraser’s accident certainly put a damper on proceedings it didn’t entirely destroy the camaraderie and festivities we were able to enjoy over the weekend.

Day 3 – 200km, Bathurst and environs

Saturday was a day of relaxing and cruising around Bathurst. The day started with a cruise to the local Suzuki dealer, followed by a ride out the Mt Panorama circuit and a number of fastish laps – our lap speeds being tempered by the fact that Mt Panorama is a public road at all times outside of race days and has a posted 60kmh limit. The local constabulary were quite fair in ignoring reasonable breaches of the limit but 200kmh+ down Conrod Straight certainly would attract their eye.

Before leaving the circuit, judging took place for the best and cleanest bikes – taken out by two OCD members who are reputed to have shares in the Meguiars company.

We ended up sharing the circuit with the HONDA CBX (1000cc/6) riders annual convoy and a number of other solo riders.

For lunch we rode to O’Connell and then spent a lazy afternoon exploring the town before re-convening at the Vic hotel on Saturday night for our group dinner and goodbyes as individual groups headed off home in different direction the next morning.

Day 4 – Bathurst to Broken Hill – 1,000km

Today was going to be one of my longest days in the saddle and I was off to a good start leaving bright and early at 7am before the heat of the day could really hit.

Heading west through the rolling hills to Orange and Wellington before stopping for fuel in Dubbo and Nyngan. By Nyngan you definitely know you are on the edge of the outback and vegetation is starting to look pretty sparse.

Reached Cobar for lunch and the temperatures were starting to soar. It was then a leisurely – but very hot and dry ride out along the plains of the Barrier Highway to Wilcannia, with nothing more to entertain oneself than watch the fairly common willy-willies (mini tornadoes) build up speed and start to move across the road. There were a couple I got caught in, apart from the sheer dust and wind force they are not too bad though – it just pays to hold your breath to keep the dust out of your lungs whilst you are passing through one. Fuelled up again in Noona and briefly stopped just as you enter Wilcannia to take a photo of the Burgie atop the old bridge over the Darling river (which was looking like it was also suffering the effects of the heat).

Wilcannia is one of the few towns in Australia that is not a pleasant place to visit. The downtown looks like something out of a Mad Max movie with a lot of damage, vandalism and graffiti. Even the service station has an air of foreboding with mesh grilles around the cashier’s area. As a result I chose not to stop in town and continued west.

I knew that if I didn’t refuel in Wicannia I wasn’t going to make it to Broken Hill but my GPS told me their was a refueling point about halfway between the two and the owner in Noona had corroborated this.

I kept up a reasonable pace of around 110kmh until I got to the point where the GPS told me the servo should be, only to find ……… nothing.

Hmm, bit of a worry, better reduce the rate of knots and see whether I can eke out a bit better fuel consumption … according to my calculations I was going to end up around 50km short of The Yabba (Broken Hill) but with around a litre left in the Burgie tank a fuel stop /motel appeared like an oasis in the desert on my right.

After a brief stop I hit the road again as I was determined that there would be no riding at dusk in this neck of the woods as I knew the risk of unintended contact with large mammals would be pretty high once they started to come out for a feed.

Arriving in Broken Hill just before 6pm I went to my usual campsite only to have them recommend the other campground at the opposite end of town (Adelaide road). Checking in, I had the camping lawn all to myself and set up tent before heading into town to stock up on groceries for that night, and the next few days in the desert.

Day 5 – Broken Hill to Cameron Corner – 450km

Today was the day the real adventure started and my plan was to make Innamincka that night – a distance of around 800km.

It was with la ittle trepidation that I headed North up the Silver City Highway to Tibooburra. The first indication that all may not be what it seems is when I left the caravan park. I got chatting with one of the park attendants who told me that the road to Tibooburra was 50/50 bitumen and gravel - NOT fully bitumen as I had expected. Hmm, maybe I need to revise my travel schedule a little bit.

I fuelled up and headed North 175k to my first stop Packsaddle, which is the only refueling stop before Tibooburra. Around 15kms out of Broken Hill I hit the first short section of dirt at Stephens Creek and this was followed by further sections of bitumen and dirt each of equal length of 10-25kms, providing some initial relief.

Temperatures were starting to soar, however, and the Packsaddle stop was a welcoming sight.

As I rode in to the stop I spotted two Suzuki DL1000 V-stroms owned by two guys from Melbourne who had been to an annual ADVrider event in Pooncarie (Mungo National Park just west of the Mildura- Broken Hill road. There were many ADVers on the road heading home after the rally, and they all passed me at a fair rate of knots as I took it easy on the dirt. The DL riders looked stuffed and were vacillating about continuing North as they felt there 19” front wheels were too small for the soft sand that they were told constituted the road to Cameron Corner (they were right). I looked down at my 15”front wheel and thought what the heck!

A cool drink later and it was time to fuel up – not as easy as one imagined. The majority of vehicle sin this neck of the woods use diesel and the petrol pump only gets used once a day on average. This means the pump has plenty of time to drain back in to the underground tank and the fuel has to be drawn back up – this meant around 15 minutes of stopping and starting the pump, all in the blazing heat. Finally, just when I was ready to give up, the fuel started to flow and I filled the tank, said goodbye to the DL riders and continued North. Hitting the next stretch of gravel the corrugations became worse and I realised my bar mounted speakers were shaking loose – I had no option but to cut the wires and unbolt them before proceeding further at an average speed of around 35kmh to keep the shaking to a minimum. The DLs soon passed me as did a group of 5 offroad 250s, as I struggled in the sand and the heat.

The heat increased to the mid 40s and I was sweating buckets in my textile bike jacket, helmet and jeans. At one point I stopped for a quick breather and drink. I pulled off my gloves and to my amazement watched as a stream of my sweat flowed - NOT dripped – from my cuff to the ground. I realised that dehydration could be a big risk out here and continued on to Tibooburra with thoughts of staying the night.

The last 25kms to Tibooburra was smooth bitumen again and on arrival in the mid afternoon I stopped and drank a litre of milk and 600ml of Gatorade, as well as my usual quota of mineral water, to replenish my fluids and cool down somewhat. By this point I realised any hopes of making Innamincka were gone and I asked a couple of locals what the Cameron Corner road was like – well these guys all drive 4WDs and driving conditions for them can be very different to a bike. However, they gave me sufficient confidence I could make the 140kms to the corner that evening providing I left it till it cooled down a little.

I did and left around 6pm but wearing only a tee-shirt and no jacket. I figured I would be going so slow that a high speed off, or hitting an animal was an impossibility and it may actually cool a little once the sun started to go down.

Around 6pm I headed off directly into the West and the setting sun – visibility couldn’t have been worse and I needed all the visibility I could get to try and work out what the surface of the road was like – needless to say I averaged only 20kms per hour, saw lots and lots of roos and other wildlife, got stuck in deep sand a number of times (where I had to unload everything to push the bike out) and finally stopped for the evening close to midnight at Fort Grey, 20km shy of Cameron Corner. Given that I was going to move on early in the morning, it was clear cloudless sky, still warm and there was only one other vehicle in the camping area, I elected to forego the tent and stretch my sleeping bag/air mat out on the concrete floor of a tourist notice board. As my hot and weary head hit the floor it was not long before I was off to sleep and in what seemed like even less time, woken by the screech of cockies and other wildlife.

Day 6 - Cameron Corner to Innamincka – 250km

I hit the road bright and early but it still took me a good hour or so to reach the dog fence at SA border, a few hundred metres shy of the Cameron Corner store where I could enjoy a hot mug of tea. Today was Melbourne Cup day and the owners were looking forward to hosting a large crowd suitably sartorially attired for probably the biggest day on the local social calendar.

I went to fill up the Burgie and quickly realised a couple of things.

First it was hot and getting hotter, and I was getting parched. Refilling my two now empty 1.25 litre bottles of water were not going to be sufficient for the next leg to Innamincka.

Second, due to the soft sand and low speeds my fuel consumption was way up and it was unlikely I could make it all the way to Innamincka without additional capacity.

Fortunately the generosity of a fellow traveller in a 4WD solved both these issues for me. I was given an empty 10 litre plastic oil can which added a further 66% to my regular 15 litre capacity, and 5 litres of refrigerated (but not for long) spring water.

As I’m getting ready to leave I look out over the verandah of the pub and lo and behold what do I see – another of the ADVriders on a Honda Africa Twin. He had also camped the previous night on the road from Tibooburra but was traveling much, much faster than me as his 21”wheel gave him the necessary steering control in the sand that my Burgie was sadly missing.

Hodges (as he is affectionately known) was heading North to Noccundra before riding back to Brisbane via Thargomindah. We said our farewells and I hit the road.

This area is know as the Dunes Country and it is aptly named with the road slowly rising and falling every 300-400 metres giving you the false expectation, and vain hope, that the road may be getting better over the next dune.

In the sections between dunes it would be very corrugated but at the top of each dune there would be sand blown across the road and big bulldust holes which it was very easy to get bogged in. I got stuck a dozen or so times along this section of road but was usually able to power (with the engine) and paddle (with my feet) my way out. This was one of the great benefits of the Burgie – not having a clutch meant I could very finely feather the throttle between low walking pace speeds and just the amount to keep moving without digging a hole for myself.

Finally the surface started to firm up and the road became curvy, I was able to increase my speeds to between 70 and 100km/h for half an hour or so – this was fun – but before long the surface deteriorated again and it was back to the usual hard slog.

During the day a southerly wind had sprung and now gaining speed. Whilst I had been travelling west it was blowing side-on, however, as soon as I hit the old Strzelecki track and started to head North at Merty Merty it caused real havoc causing the sky to darken and blowing the sand in front of me, restricting my vision, further obscuring the track and making it harder to ride on, but worse it was backwinding the radiator. In effect, I was riding forward at 20-30kmh but the wind was blowing behind me at 60kmh meaning that there was no airflow through the radiator and the water temperature rose to the 5th bar (hottest) and wouldn’t come down again.

All this time my own water temperature had been rising too and I was regularly gulping down the spring water. Alas, because I had lost so many body salts the day before, the more water I drank the thirstier I became. This is a real danger in the heat of the desert – fluids alone are insufficient, you must replace the lost electrolytes so your body can use the fluids effectively to rehydrate itself.

I had hoped to reach Innamincka that night and was within striking distance but I realized it was going to be impossible with an overheating engine so I pulled off the road – not easy on the and surface – parked the Burgie side on to the wind and determined how best to erect my tent on the leeward side. First thing was to take all my heavy luggage and put it inside the tent on the windward side so as to keep it on the ground. The wind was really blowing a gale by this time and I was being pelted with sand so I had to keep my helmet whilst I busied myself. Eventually I had the rods in and the tent was up but it was too windy to put the fly up and I figured I would be ok for the night. I settled in to a meal of baked beans and sausages heated on my humble stove before an early night. There were no other vehicles along the track and it was quite a magical experience – lighting flashing across the sky, and the ongoing wail and howl of a high wind pushing low altitude sand, and high altitude clouds, to zoom past at a great rate of knots.

All tempered by the fact that the wind was trying to push my windbreak Burgie towards me and potentially cause its 250+ kgs to land on me during my sleep.

Day 7 – Innamincka – 100km

Arising early the next morning the wind had died down and all was tranquil. The floor of the tent was covered in a thick layer of sand and I wondered how the Burgie had fared. I replenished the tank from the oil container which had perched on my pillion seat and headed North. After 30km I arrived at a T intersection which was neither marked on my map nor showing on my GPS. No other vehicles around and which way do I go? I chose East and was rewarded with a vastly improved and wide road surface (built by the SANTOS engineers for the Moomba oil field project) and was able to smoothly hit 80+kmh again. Farther down this route there was a left hand turn pointing to Innamincka. I took the turn heading North, noticed considerable deterioration in the surface and dropped down to an average 40kmh over the corrugations before reaching Innamincka after passing the aborted experimental Hot Rocks Thermal Energy project which was supposed to provide free electricity into Innanmincka.

Arriving in Innamincka the first step was to have a hot shower in the centre of town – apart from the shower block there are only 3 buildings in Innamincka, the trading post/general store, the hotel and the restored inland mission which is used a local interpretive centre. I checked with the locals about continuing on to Birdsville but there recommendation was that there were very few vehicles on the road at this time of year (tourist season had finished a month earlier) and that I shouldn’t risk being out there alone – given that I was uncertain of the road conditions and was not sure if my extended 25 litre range would get me the 450kms between fuel stops.

After that it was off to the Town Common on the banks of Coopers Creek. What was really surprising was that in the 42C heat the creek was still full of water and was a beacon to all the local birdlife. The flocks of corellas, lorikeets, pelicans and assorted ducks was magnificent, particularly at dusk when they all wheeled around for over an hour, screeching and flying from tree to tree.

I cooked up a meal of sardines and with 4 cold tinnies settled in to enjoy the display, ending a relaxing day where I had been able to recharge my batteries after the hard slog through the sand.

Day 8 – Innamincka to Cunnamulla – 550km

The next morning it was up bright and early ready for the last stretch of sand before I hit the bitumen again. Filling up the oil container with spare fuel I was confident I would make the 350-400km stretch to Thargomindah with ease.

The first 40 odd km to the Qld border was rough going but then things got better as the Queensland road crews were working on bitumenising the road and there were intermittent stretches of new bitumen until around 150km later the bitumen became sold and I was back on the tarmac North of Noccundra.

I skimmed across the smooth road into Thargomindah, filled up with fuel, had a good hot meal and headed out of town only to find the Bulloo river was way up. Now this was a shock, here I was roasting in the desert heat and the road was blocked by fast running water. There were 3 stretches of causeway – the first only around 30 metres long and I gently rode through only to realise that shortly up ahead was a 100 metre section, considerably deeper. I kept the sped up a little higher this time to try and keep water out of my CVT as well as to counteract the current pulling me sideways, and ended up with a 3 metre tall rooster tail of water shooting over my windscreen and drenching me through, the next section was more of the same as it was now 400 metres long and really fast flowing.

I got through ok, followed by a small offroader who offered to follow me the 120km into Eulo in case the Paroo river was up there too (it was but not over the road). Continuing on I arrived a further hour later in Cunnamulla where I checked into the same camping ground I had stopped at 27 years earlier when riding a GPZ1100 from Melbourne to Mt Isa and Cairns. At the camping ground I met Rick Roser, a well known indigenous artist who was giving cultural study classes to schools in the neighbourhood. It was Rick’s last night on the road, after a month of travelling through the back blocks of Queensland, before returning to Brisbane. We had a good chat and I left him early the next morning to head South East to Lightning Ridge.

Day 9 - Cunnamulla to Lightning Ridge – 600km

Another day of smooth roads, beautiful scenery and interesting weather with the threat of rain and huge lightning bolts across the sky. A lot of wildlife by the road especially this bunch of emus, and I had to be ever alert to them galloping across the road in front of me. This was another relaxing day and by mid afternoon I had arrived at Lightning Ridge, put up the tent in one of the many camping grounds and was busy exploring the town, including a ride out to the local thermal springs which were signed in many languages including Russian!

I also found an interesting mix of products in the stores – Croatian mineral water sold by mixed Filipino – Indian shopkeepers. Lightning Ridge is by one of the most fascinating cultural mélanges I have visited for quite some time and I really felt at home.

Day 10 – Lightning Ridge to Dubbo – 400km

I spent the morning visiting the mines and doing a self-guided tour of Lightning Ridge – met a lovely lady in the local visitor centre who had had a galah walk into the office, perch on her desk and refuse to leave. It was clearly tame and allowed people to pat and stroke its plumage without concern.

The day was very hot and the Ridge is certainly dry and arid. Come afternoon it was a pleasant ride down to Walgett and on to Dubbo where I spent my last night camped by the banks of the Macquarie river.

Day 11 – Dubbo to Melbourne – 900km

My last day on the road, and a road I had ridden many times before. The day went without incident, temperatures were a little cooler but still relatively hot for this time of year. Crossing the Murray I was back in Victoria and the long straight stretch down the Goulburn Valley and Hume Highways. As always, arriving home is a mixture of sweetness and sadness. Good to be back and see my family again, yet sad to know the time on the road has ended once more….

So what next? Well I’m determined to ride to Birdsville on the Burgie and plan my next attempt over the Easter Break 2010 going up to the Flinders Ranges and tackling the route North from Marree along the Birdsville track. First, I have to find a 21” front wheel, knobby and forks and graft them to the Burgie though. A car rear tyre should improve tractive forces at the rear end and I reckon Birdsville should be a push over.

In the meantime though, Kimie and I are off on Mountain Madness 2010 on the 1st of January with the rest of the motley crew – more about that soon.

It's been a long time coming....

2009-10-07T16:56:00.000+11:00

Well, it's been around 6 months since I last made any postings here and I do have lots to tell - including, most importantly, the acquisition of a second Burgie into the bike stable at chez Farqhuar.

Yes, my original Burgie is looking a little forlorn as she hasn't been the unanimous recipient of my motorcycle care and attention - however, she is getting plenty of attention again right now as she is in a multitude of pieces whilst I rebuild the CVT. :(

Yes, it's a long story and one which I will soon be telling.

In summary, though, here is a brief rundown of what's been happening in my life, riding wise.

Early March 2009 - Kimie and I headed down South to Tasmania on the Burgie for a very enjoyable week of riding, trekking, visiting tourist sights and sounds, and taking it easy. One key problem we had was Kimie's propensity to fall asleep on the back of the Burgie - it's obviously a wee bit too comfortable.

Mid- March 2009 - Attended the annual HUBB (Horizons Unlimited) rally at Mitta Mitta, where I gave a short talk on last year's journey on the Burgman.

There were various daytrips including a run up to the top of Mt Benambra along some very rough, steep and narrow tracks - below is a view looking down from the fire look-out tower, then heading back downhill.

The ride home was great fun too, chasing cattle across the top of Falls Creek ski resort.,

April 2009 - Easter - 4 days in the Flinder's ranges camping at Rawnsley Park just outside of Wilpena Pound

Mid April - acquired a late model Burgie for John who generously hosted me in Daegu - and stored her in my garage awaiting his arrival in August

Late April - spent a week in the Philippines on business and rode down to Lake Taal from Tagaytay on the back of a Honda cub ridden by a local rider

Then went on to Malysia where I caught the bloody swine flu before coming home to spend a week in bed, lose another 5 kilos and take a further 2 months to shake-off the opportunistic asthma I contracted.

May - decided to add another big bike to the stable, in this instance a Honda ST1100 but alas, she won't be staying.

June - on the day before my birthday I found a bargain basement late model Burgie for sale which I could not say no to. Yes, there was a reason it was bargain basement which I will go into later.

July / August - tearing down and rebuilding the new Burgie and testing using parts from the original Burgie, with some unfortunate consequences for the original Burgie.

August - John came and collected his new Burgie before his marathon ride back to the Gold Coast

September - the new Burgie is on the road and time for a bit of fun - helmet wise. Yes, that is my Honda CT110 postie bike on the right of the picture.

October - rebuilding the original Burgie in preparation for the end of the month ride to Bathurst and then on to the Birdsville track for a little more bush bashing.

.....full details to come later....

The Burgie keeps on touring

2009-02-24T15:58:00.001+11:00

Since returning to Australia both the Burgie and I have continued to get away regularly for rides to distant locales, along with the daily commute to work.

The first major ride was from the 28-30 November last year. As an ex GSX1400 owner I am still a member of the local club and had the opportunity to visit Bathurst for the first of what will hopefully become an annual MCR (Magic Carpet RIde). Bathurst is the home of the Bathurst 1000, Australia's most famous car race at Mt Panorama - a 1,000km (625 mile) all day race for V8 touring cars, and sometimes even the odd kangaroo or two on race day . The Mt Panorama circuit goes up, down and across the mountain - the photo below was taken where the descent begins at a section of the track called the dipper.

Down the Dipper.

Given that the Burgie is so much easier to throw around tight corners than the 1400 (even though it lacks a lot in speed ) I took great pleasure in hunting down many of the thirty or so 1400s and overtaking them on the outside of corners etc.. My centrestand took quite a beating! Yes, even after the beating she took in Russia, and given that I am still running the standard suspension (and haven't even changed the fork oil), the old Burgermeister acquitted herself quite well on the day.

The ride back was most enjoyable, riding along mainly backroads from Bathurst down to Wagga Wagga, excepting for the insects. There was locust plague as the road ran alongside wheat fields and at one I was head down behind the windscreen to avoid wearing them in my teeth.

Interestingly enough, en route to Bathurst I went through Albury on the Thursday evening and was generously invited to stay over at the house of Dave The Canoe Guy from Horizons Unlimited (HUBB) . As a result of that meeting I will be presenting snippets of this blog and my travels at the HUBB general meeting in Mitta on the 15-17 March

The second ride is called Mountain Madness and is one I have done regularly for the last 7 or 8 years in the 1st week of January.

There were 13 bikes in total this year (the vast majority R1200GSes) but the quickest rider rides a VMax, of all things. All of us do regular track days and this time around a fair few of us (7) brought our partners along as pillions. This was also the first time my wife, Kimie, has taken advantage of the opportunity to come along.

Three quarters of an hour after leaving home we're into the first of the twisties, the VMax sets the pace and and I'm scraping beautifully through some nice 100kmh curves (known as the Black Spur and advisory signposted at 40kmh) wondering why Kimie (my wife) isn't beating on my back and asking to divorce me. Surprising enough she really enjoyed it and was not in the least bit perturbed that I had the Burgie at the limits of its adhesion.

As a matter of fact, later that morning Kimie was obviously feeling so relaxed that she fell asleep on the back for around half an hour, I'm glad the Givi topbox does such a good job of holding her up :-)

Over the days, the roads became increasingly bumpier and tighter and on one day we were powering through some back roads bottoming out the suspension, grinding both sides of the centre stand, scraping the side stand on the left and even boiling the brake fluid (yep, I lost the front brakes for about 2 minutes) on a quick down hill run. Kimie is now the ideal pillion passenger and she loves the Burgie by comparison to all the other bikes I have had her on over the years. The only complaint she had was that the seat made the inside of her thighs sore on day one, because it splays them so much wider than most bike seats.

We had a great week away and I can honestly say that my 6 year old, well worn, Burgie more than holds its own against newer, more powerful and better handling bikes (much to the chagrin of other riders who had paid 5 times as much as me for their motorcycling weapon of choice). I put this down to a number of factors:

1. The very low centre of gravity of the Burgie (due to the lay down cylinders and underseat tank) and the rake/trail of the front forks, which makes it so easy to throw the Burgie from one side to the other in tight left/right curves.
2. The "hand lever" operated rear brake which allows far more sensitivity than foot pedal. Using the rear brake in tight situations allows the bike to change direction even quicker.
3. The CVT means that you can forget about having to be in the right gear and instead focus exclusively on the corner itself.

Now all I have to do is solve the ground clearance issue - anyone interested in buying a "slightly used" centre stand?

Our third ride will be to Tasmania this coming weekend. Kimie and I will be taking the Burgman on the Spirit of Tasmania for the 9 hour voyage to Devonport. Once we hit the island we have 8 days to enjoy the roads, the scenery, the walking trails and history. I will be putting up a separate blog entry on this journey.

Two further rides are planned for the coming month and a half. The first I have mentioned already, the HUBB ride to Mitta Mitta on the weekend after we return from Tasmania, and where I am planning on some further offroading on the Burgie. The second is still taking shape but will involve a ride up to the Flinders Ranges over the Easter break.

At last, the truth about the Burgman subframe!... and off to Tassie.

2009-02-24T15:15:00.000+11:00

You may recall that I had problems with my subframe snapping in Kazakhstan and later on in Europe.

I had it rewelded on my return to Ozzieland but unfortunately over the last couple of weeks the sag in the rear end has returned and it was clear that it had snapped again.

I decided to purchase a used replacement rather than attempt a third weld. The replacement subframe arrived last Friday and it is from a bike manufactured in 2005 - my Burgie was manufactured in 2002.

There are two primary differences between the two frames.

1. The hanger peg for the fuel filler is placed higher on the new frame - I had to cut this off and instead rely on the body plastics to support the fuel filler hose; and

2. More importantly,the new subframe is reinforced at the point where my old subframe snapped. You can see this in the photos below.

Original subframe

Later model reinforced subframe

It seems I may not have been alone in having a frame snap and that the Suzuki engineers have corrected this for current models. This is good news for owners of new Burgies and it shows that Suzuki, unlike some German brands which shall remain nameless has recognised this and incorporated running changes into the model run.

Anyways, the good news for me is that I have hopefully resolved this problem once and for all.

The even better news, however, is that as of this Saturday the Burgman hits the road yet again and sails off to foreign shores (apologies in advance to all Tasmanians for calling you foreigners :-) on the Spirit of Tasmania. Kimie and I will be spending a week touring the island a' la Burgie.

…. and now for the subject of Ladas.

2009-02-11T17:46:00.000+11:00

Looking back on my time in Russia, I feel it is time to pay homage to that most ubiquitous of motor vehicles - the Lada. Originally a ruggedised Fiat 124 which was manufactured under licence by the Soviet AUtoVaz factory, Ladas have been available to the Russian motoring elite since the late sixties.

The name Lada, incidentally was originally just the export name for the Soviet built AutoVaz Vaz cars but over time it was adopted as the Russian local market name too.

Today, a Lada is to the average Russian what Holden or Chevrolet is to an Australian or North American driving public.

It is the classic western suburban working class man’s vehicle and as such, is a prime piece of machinery for the average male youth to spend all their time and money on “hotting up”.

Whether it’s simply a new set of seat covers, hub caps, fluffy dice or glow in the dark windscreen wipers, all the way through to hot motors, mag wheels and body kits, there is no such as a Standard Lada.

Cheap and ubiquitous, easy for the home mechanic to repair - yes, that is Lada below laying on its side whilst having a new floor pan welded in where the old one rusted through,

virtually indestructible and able to run on a variety of fuels (as low as 70 octane) and roads, the Lada is embraced by the proletariat and government officers whilst simultaneously snubbed by the nouveau riche and oligarchy.

The Volga, by comparison, was the vehicle for soviet bureaucrats and as such is still an aspirational vehicle, either as a stepping stone to the ultimate prize - an imported western vehicle; or as an end in itself – a smooth 6 cylinder limousine placing you one step higher on the social pecking order than the heathen Lada owner.

..... or maybe you're just a taxi driver?

However, the price of freedom for Russia’s alienated and frustrated youth has a much darker side.

Unable to afford the price of entry into an imported vehicle, your average Russian working class youth drives his vehicle as if he were a speed demon.

Never warmed up, poorly maintained with dodgy worn brakes, shock absorbers and bald tyres, and driven flat out at all times with absolutely no mechanical sympathy it is little wonder that Ladas grow old before their time.

I had the unfortunate experience of spending time in just such a Lada in St Petersburg.

The owner (of whom I have changed name and gender to protect their identity – let’s call her “Alice”) arranged to meet me downtown in St Petersburg upon my arrival from Moscow. After waiting for 1 hour I received a call to say that the Lada had broken down and they couldn’t get to our rendezvous point. I asked where they were, and what their car looked like. Somehow I managed to retrace my steps 5km back along the road and spot a pale blue Lada looking forlorn at the side of the road within its owner standing nearby with their head in their hands.

After an explanation of the symptoms I quickly determined that the starter motor was probably jammed (yes, I was unfortunate/foolish enough to own a couple of Fiats myself back in the seventies) I asked for the wheel wrench, gave the starter motor a couple of hard taps to free the engagement gear and stood back to watch as the surprised owner turned the ignition switch to hear their Lada roar back into life.

Alice then suggested I follow her the 8km through downtown St Petersburg back to her parents spacious apartment where they very generously hosted me for 3 nights.

Well, I’m not exactly the slowest driver around and the Burgman has rather sprightly acceleration compared to any four wheeled vehicle, never mind a Lada, but Alice seemed determined to lose me enroute. Belching clouds of smoke from the oil seeping past the badly worn cylinder linings and valve seals, the Lada erupted away from every traffic light, crossed multiple lanes of traffic without signalling, screeched around corners and squealed its worn tyres under maximum braking.

I had witnessed many, many instances of poor driving in Russia but Alice took the cake. Never mind Peter in Irkutsk who thought that his Honda City only had two speeds – stopped and flat out, or the crazy WRX driver who missed me by centimetres when he ran me off the windy two lane mountain road whilst overtaking a line of traffic over my side of the double white lines at a speed in excess of 150kmh. No, Alice was most definitely numero uno on my personal list of the worst Russian drivers.

We were half way back to her apartment when she tried to run her fourth red light, unfortunately the driver in front of her decided that they didn’t wish to do the same and the inevitable fender bender occurred. After examination of the damage to their respective bumpers, roubles changed hands and both drivers departed the scene quickly in order to avoid the involvement of the local traffic police (in Russian, DGA) who would shortly and inevitably arrive like vultures at the scene to ensure they shared in this exchange of roubles.

I figured that after this incident Alice would slow down somewhat, but no, it was as if a Fury had entered her body and taken leave of her senses, as she proceeded to wring out what little life was left in the Lada enroute to her home.

The following evening Alice offered to take me on a tour of St Petersburg. Reluctant, but not wanting to cause offence I experienced my most frightening nightmare on wheels ever.

For starters, it was wet night in St Petersburg. Nay, not just a wet night, it was stormy with water flooding across the roadway out of clogged gutters and storm water drains. I thought that Alice, being a an accomplished tertiary educated engineer would understand the basic laws of physics, including the reduced coefficient of friction between wet roads and bald tyres, but alas not. Initially we visited sights around town and were unable to get up to speed because of the traffic conditions and constant red lights. However, around 9pm, when I thought it time to call it a night, it was suggested that I be taken to the mouth of the Neva River and from there across the Gulf of Finland to Lomonsov where Russia meets the Baltic.

Well, a badly tuned, worn out Lada does not have much in the way of acceleration, but Alice made sure she made use of every single one of those worn out ponies in a life and death struggle to pass every other vehicle. Although we only ever reached a maximum of 120kmh (75mph) in those wet conditions, I was literally sitting in a death trap. Never in my life have I been more terrified (even in Chinese driving conditions) and I clung to my seat with my eyes closed waiting for it all to be over, whilst Alice proceeded to dodge and weave her way around all other vehicles on the road. Once we reached our destination I breathed a sigh of relief but knew I could not relax as we had to return the 30kms back to St Petersburg.

On the way back, Alice’s inner demons took over and if anything she seemed more furious than ever, violently slamming the gears down and breaking loose the wheels under deceleration, as I prepared for the inevitable.

Finally it happened, a pedestrian crossing lay ahead, the lights turned red and people dashed out from the side of the road in the rain. Alice didn’t seem to care, however, and proceeded through, at the final second spotting the woman in front, screeching to a halt and gently knocking her over.

At this point I just wanted to awaken from my nightmare and could do nothing but watch as the lady picked herself up off the ground and Alice took off as if nothing untoward had occurred.

That night, Alice and I had a long chat about her frustrations and how she shouldn’t take them out on the road, but to no avail. The following night Alice wanted to take me out on another tour of St Petersburg but I managed to find a suitable excuse which would not offend my Russian hosts, whilst allowing me to avoid another night of terror.

More random thoughts now I'm home again.

2008-11-18T12:31:00.000+11:00

Whilst I was riding on those long stretches of open road in Russia and Kazakhstan I had plenty of time to consider what I wanted to say about various aspects of my travel. Unfortunately as one approaches one's mid-fifties, one's memory is not what it used to be and given that I neglected to write them down those thoughts disappeared.

However, all is not lost, as one's mind also has that strange ability to retrieve random thoughts at the most unlikely moments and as each one pops back into a part of my brain that I can retrieve it from, I now have the opportunity to put pen to paper (metaphorically speaking).

The first of these thoughts is what I call avoiding "big ouchies".

A Big Ouchie is what my son Julien used to call a physically painful experience when he was a young boy. I can recall the times when as a 5 year old he would fall off the swings in the playground, or from his bicycle, and graze his knee and tell me it was a big ouchie.

Whilst I was riding the gravel road sections between Khabarovsk and Chita I was acutely conscious of avoiding my own big ouchie.

I was very fortunate that I never had a single incident during my riding where I physically fell off the Burgie. There were certainly moments of trepidation when it was very easy to lock up the wheels under braking or when the gravel was so loose and deep that you effectively lost steering control, or when the convoys of cars driven by the professional drivers from Vladivostok to Western Siberia would speed past at twice my speed, in groups of half a dozen or more, flicking up rocks and creating a cloud of dust that made the route ahead all but invisible. These cars were a big challenge for me as I often had to travel down the centre of the road to find the smoothest surface and to avoid loose gravel. In these instances I had vehicles passing me on both right and left and was blind to whether there were any oncoming vehicles or whether there was another patch of deep loose gravel directly ahead which I needed to avoid.

So during these times I would tell myself to avoid "big ouchies" and this helped me put things into perspective - i.e. I would slow down or take a slightly less risky path through the dirt.

After reaching Krasnoyarsk there was minimal gravel and dirt roads apart from Kazakhstan. I'd like to retell my experiences there when travelling South from Qustanay to Khromtau. This particular road was also under construction and there were long stretches where the old road had been torn up and the new road was being built over the top of it. The state of the road was such that the road under construction could not be ridden on and instead there was just a dirt track. Now a dirt track is not to difficult to travel on at slow speed in the dry, but when the heavens open up in the forceful manner they do in Kazakhstan then it quickly becomes a quagmire. Simply holding the Burgie up in these conditions was almost impossible and I knew I had met my match when the front wheel locked up with mud between the wheel and mudguard. This was more than exacerbated by the fact that I was trying to ride on a road tyre which had minimal tread left - very difficult going and extremely trying. I came so close to losing the Burgie on that day, that it wasn't funny. Having said that, perseverance, focusing on avoiding a big ouchie, and taking it relatively easy meant I could ride till 2am - having said this, I had little choice, however, as there was no where to stop and camp until I reached my first truck stop - see below. If I had I had tried to stop at the side of the road the Burgie and I would have sunk into the mud, and I would have had to pitch my tent in the mud too.

Just a quick note to let you all know that I haven't been able to add further posts to this blog because the Blogger SPAM robots have apparently identified me as a SPAMMER extraordinaire. Hopefully this will be resolved soon and I will again be free to add to the myriad of trivia available to us via the word wide weasel.

2008-10-26T02:10:00.000+11:00

A homecoming, yes, a homecoming. She’s taken me there… and she brought me back again. … and now I’ve brought her home too. On the 12th of October the Adelaide Express arrived in Melbourne after sailing from La Spezzia Italy on the 20th of September.

On the 16th of October the container (in which she had been travelling) was moved from the Port of Melbourne to Hoffman Freight in Newport, and unpacked.

On the 17th of October I visited Australian Customs in Docklands and obtained customs clearance – a surprisingly simple and civilised procedure by comparison with my experiences in other countries.

On the 21st of October I booked in a quarantine inspection with AQIS, fearing the worst and that the Burgie would need to have to be steamcleaned before she would pass quarantine inspection. On the 22nd of October I visited Hoffman freight, and set my eyes upon her for the first time in almost 8 weeks, to meet AQIS, only to find that AQIS had arrived 2 hours earlier and had already approved her for importation.

On the 23rd of October, Loyd and I rented a large trailer and collected the Burgie + crate to take her back to her home.

On that evening and on the subsequent day I removed the walls of the crate, bolted her back together (windscreen, bars, mudguard etc., reconnect battery, removed all my possessions which were still under the seat and in the Givi top box, and installed a new set of rear brake pads and air filter.

On the 25th I gave her a clean and today on the 26th I purchased 10 litres of fuel and filled her up prior to Loyd, Richard, Kimie and I lifting up her front end, bracing her with a hydraulic jack and putting the front wheel back on. By 2pm she was fired up and I slowly rode her out of the crate. I rode her around 30km to my parents and back twice today before changing out her vital fluids tonight. The rear drive oil was chocolate brown - yuk – but other fluids were not too bad. The rear subframe was also due for attention again as the welding I had done in Kazakhstan had not survived the rest of the journey.

This time I opted to remove the subframe completely, instead of doing an "on bike" weld, and took it round to Loyd's for him to show off his newly acquired welding skills.

Ok, so this was the historical tale but what is the real story???? …....

….well, I have to say that I truly enjoy being back in the saddle. Being back home again is great, but…. also a bit of a let down. It is oh, so easy to settle back into the rhythm of ones life, almost as if one never left it. However, I CAN’T do that – it would be WRONG to do that. I have to have something to show for my travels. I don’t mean in a tangible sense, I mean that I have to KNOW and UNDERSTAND what I have learnt, and I have to carry that with me throughout my remaining years. Being back on the Burgie encapsulates, and revives, that sense of exhilaration, and luxurious freedom, of the open road.

On the Burgie I feel once again that the road that stretches out before me has no end, and is mine to ride and live as I choose. She exemplifies to me the true existentialist notion of freedom – be decisive in my actions in the full knowledge of, and taking responsibility for, the consequences my actions. With her back it does make it easier for me to live for tomorrow, as much as today…. and with that I leave you for the moment.

On the road again........ NOT!

2008-09-08T12:29:00.000+10:00

Thank you to all readers. I am now back home in Melbourne and today I have returned to my office and daily routine. As you can imagine, it's quite a shock to the system to be back at work and I'm slacking off to update web pages, and the like, instead.

Altogether I travelled over 29,000kms on the Burgie, 7,500kms on the Haobon and another few hundred on the Honda in Vietnam, for a total journey of 37,500kms and 17 countries over a period of 4.5 months. I will now collate all photos and flesh out this blog (which is currently really just a skeleton) such that I properly describe all my experiences. I hope it will be interesting reading for many of you and will inspire some to take your own personal journeys.

The Burgman was crated on Saturday 30th August (at great expense by a local Italian dealer) and is sailing from Genove on the 17th of September. The photo below was one of the last shots I took of the Burgie, parked in the dealers workshop awaiting crating.

It will hopefully arrive around a month later. I will then strip it down, check all mechanicals, have the subframe trued and rewelded, and probably arrange a respray for the plastic panels. Wear items such as the air filter and brake pads are now due for replacement and I was fortunate that they managed to last the complete journey.

Some of you may recall that my biggest mechanical concern was whether I would have further problems with the fuel filter after it started to leak one week prior to departure. I had the filter plastic welded but also elected to purchase a spare and have it shipped independently to Korea. Well, in a classic example of Murphy's law at work, the fuel filter was shipped back to Melbourne, still in its original packing, untouched and unused. I gurarantee that if I hadn't brought it along though, that the original would have started leaking again somewhere in the backblocks of Siberia and I would have been up the creek without a paddle.

.... and in the end....... i'ts not the end at all.

2008-08-25T19:24:00.000+10:00

Well I arrived in Palermo - strange city that it is - only to find that I can't actually ship from there directly to Australia. I have been told to head back North to either Roma or Genove.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that in August the whole of the Italy shuts down for summer vacation (holidays) and then there is also the language problem (no parlo Italiano).

So here I am Roma after another fascinating ride through Southern Italy, this time taking in the volcanoes,

both extant (Etna),

and extinct (Vesuvius)

and the cobblestone streets of Napoli (think Napoli, think very bouncy cobblestones). The street scene below is straight out of one of Sophia Loren's famous '60s movies such as Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow or Marriage Italian Style.

Now I am Roma though, I am still finding it difficult to locate a shipper. If anyone with local knowledge is reading this and can assist me it would be very much appreciated.

LA STRADA (with apologies to Fellini)

2008-08-18T17:30:00.000+10:00

Hi all, I'm safe and well and have just arrived in Ancona Italia.

Just having a nice relaxing ride South - so many bikes on the road including many Burgmen of all denominations.

Since my last posting I have travelled through the Czech republic (Prague has the best beer in the world!),

Austria,

Slovakia,

Hungary

and Croatia.

I'm now getting close to my final destination (Palermo Sicily) and am enjoying it so much I feel like turning around and doing it all again. The road gets into your soul (the journey is the destination) and the Burgie has been a faithful companion to me, albeit a bit worn and tired after all I have asked of it.

Soon, alas, it will all come to an end but in the meantime I will try and prolong these final days as long as possible.

The Italians are an interesting people - easily excitable and lively, but also very helpful. My final task will be to get the Burgie safely on board a ship back to Australia. I am not looking forward to this as it is going to be a challenging and onerous activity, and it aso represents the end of my time on the road.

Norwegian Wood - isn't it good.

2008-08-03T07:00:00.000+10:00

You will all have read in my previous post about how I fell in love with Norway, but I have left out many of the details of my journey itself, so this is quick attempt to fill in the gaps.

During my very enjoyable stay at Chez Magnus, Magnus arranged for me to make a guest appearance in the local newspaper in Kalix Sweden, see below for details.
http://www.kuriren.nu/nyheter/artikel.aspx?articleid=3983048

Hitting the road I left Kalix to head back to where I had been - Finland - to head North into the Arctic Circle and up to Nordkap. The roads through here are quite smooth, albeit a little damp, and those reindeer warning signs are not put there for nothing. My first experience of a stag with enormous antlers trotting towards me down the centre white line, as if he owned the road, was one of awe and wonder - what a magnificent creature. He was the first of many though, and as I crossed into Lapland and then into Norway proper I saw many more of both sexes.

Stopping to take photos was almost out of the question, however. The mosquitoes in this neck of the woods are plentiful and voracious - apparently that is why the deer come on to the road, to escape the mozzies. Tempted as I was to toss the poor suffering reindeer my can of Aeroguard, I needed it for myself.

I stopped for fuel once I crossed border, paying §3 per litre and enjoying my first $25 service station hamburger (yes, it is true what they say about Norway being the most expensive country in Europe)

Before long though, as I continued North, the winds grew steadily stronger and the night (although it was bright daylight) grew steadily cooler. I finally reached Nordkap, after travelling through 6 tunnels - the longest 7km - and windswept fishing villages, around 12.30am with many other tourists (including 2 Goldwings and a Triumph Sprint) enjoying the view from the clifftop. The wind by this stage was blowing a gale and one of the Goldwing riders needed us to rescue him as his bike was blown sideways and over by one huge gust (think how heavy a Goldwing is folks, and think what wind force is required to achieve that!).

I decided it would be inappropriate to try and erect the tent in that location so headed back 15km South to the lee of cliff face and set up camp around 2.30am (again in broad daylight). That was fine until around 5am when the wind changed direction slightly and I ended up with a flattened tent and a broken fibreglass tent pole to show for my efforts.

By 7.30am I was ready to get back on my way and continue South along the fjords, but first I had 2 or 3 mountain passes to cross. With altitudes up to 1,500 metres and plenty of snow, mist and rain it was truly desolate and bloody cold. Believe it or not though, the conditions may have been hard for me but I passed at least 50 hardy souls on bicycles all heading North into the gale up to Nordkap.

I finally reached Alta, to joke with the two service station attendants about what a miserable summer they were having (I can't believe anyone voluntarily chooses to live in such cities as Alta, Hammerfest and Tromse where for 2 months each year they see no daylight whatsoever!), before continuing down to Narvik where I had a most enjoyable stay in the local Youth Hostel.

Next day I continued further South along magnficinet roads and vistas, taking ferries across fjords, passing the maelstroms near Bodo, and crossing out of the polar circle again, to camp for the night alongside a fjord near Mo I Rana ( I figured camping was the easiest way to keep my costs down). It is here where I believe I caught the dreaded lurgy.

The following day was similar riding alongside fjords and up and down mountains. This part of Norway is only 6km wide at one point and I reached Dovre (the troll capital of Norway) to find all accommodation booked out and having to set up tent again 2 metres from a wonderful fresh flowing river.

After an early start I headed off to Sogndal via the Jostedalsbreen glacier and the magnificent UNESCO listed Geiranger fjord ferry - what magnificent riding.

I have told you about my unpleasant experience en route to Oslo, and from Oslo I was feeling quite under the weather fro the ride down into Sweden and into Malmo where I spent a morning in the local hospital before crossing the bridge into Denmark and Copenhagen. This evening was spent in a beautiful farmhouse hotel in Kosor on the Danish coast and the next day took me to Kiel in journey - a short days ride but added to by 200km of recrossing my tracks endeavouring to find a camera that may have bounced to the road somewhere along a 50 km stretch of freeway.

This evening was spent camped at a Rast Platz alongside the autobahn as all accommodation was booked out in Kiel.

Yesterday I took a short ride to Hamburg and arrived early enough to take the last bed in a backpacker's lodge in St Pauli (a great bohemian location near the Reeperbahn) and today I have arrived in Berlin in an attempt to understand the changes that have occurred since I last rode into this city in October 1977 (and there was a big wall around it :-)).

Tomorrow it's off to Leipzig to visit the Stasi museum and then off to Prague and Budapest to see a little more of Eastern European history.

Heaven and Hell in Scandinavia

2008-08-02T04:23:00.000+10:00

I have been to paradise ... and it is in Norway.

From the wild and woolly north to the milder southern climes, this is a land which has been blessed with beauty.

Every corner you turn, your eyes are peeled back with the most wondrous sites - from a stag reindeer standing in the middle of the road with its massive antlers, to ominous dark clouds and foreboding skies with grey clouds moving past a light speed, to the howling gales at Nordkap - the northern most point in Europe with daylight at 2am, to mountain glaciers with clear bright snow, and pools of reflective ice, silver cold cascades tumbling hundreds of metres into clear mountain streams turning into rivers, and ending in Fjords with massively vertical sides and massively deep trenches. Even the lush verdant fields and pastures, and old cottage towns which usually do not interest me, are so perfect that it takes your breath away.

It is land of indescribable beauty, and you want to cry with joy as the winding roads show you yet another aspect of this land of the North.

There is no stopping it though, when you think you have seen the best, and it cannot get any more perfect, it does, and keeps on doing so. When Tolkien wrote the 'Rings' it is clear he based the geographic setting on Norway.

.... and I have not even begun to describe the motorcycling side of things. With my new Bridgestones installed the Burgie was literally gliding through the turns as if on a cushion of air (sorry if that sounds a bit magic carpetish guys!), whether on drenchingly wet roads in the mists of the mountains, or whether sweeping up and down fjords with 20 linked hairpin bends, the Burgie could not put a foot wrong. The roads are cambered precisely such that your body movement is sufficient to have the bike turn in exactly as needed for a flowing entry and exit.

Ah, paradise......

I have also been to Hell in Norway (it's around 20-30km north east of Trondheim on highway E6 if you wish to check your atlas), but my personal Hell was my experience with drinking the local water. Now Norway has some of the coolest, freshest, cleanest and tastiest mountain water I have ever tasted (yes folks, it's on a par with Siberia), however, I seemed to sample a bad batch of the stuff somewhere South of Narvik.

At first I had a little stabbing pain which I put down to having skipped lunch. On day 2 the pain persisted but was not particularly troubling. On day 3 I woke up at the youth hostel in Sogndal and went down to enjoy the usual marvellously fresh and wholesome Scandinavian breakfast which is included in the tariff. After finishing breakfast I went down to the Burgie to perform a little preventative maintenance (check oil levels etc.) before starting the day's ride to Oslo. I finished this, walked back to wash my hands and immediately vomited. I did so twice more before starting the ride but wasn't feeling that bad and put it down to maybe a reaction to the nip of vodka (from my stash from Russia) the previous evening.

I figured the fresh air on the ride would clear things up and managed around an hour in the saddle before I had to take my first break - well to use a 'Monty Python'ism, whatever was wrong with me had opened the sluice gates at both ends!

Back on the bike again, the day was getting warmer and I managed a further hour in the saddle before having to stop and lie down in the shade. I lay down and promptly fell asleep, only waking when the heat of the sun increased as the sun moved across the sky. I woke up and promptly vomited another 6 times (it was a real eye opener to see how little of my breakfast had been digested in any meaningful way).

I was totally and utterly nauseated by now and could do nothing but sleep a little longer finally waking to see how the sun had travelled significantly across the sky and I needed to get a move on if I was going to make the relatively short distance to Oslo before nightfall (which is around midnight this far North). I groggily roused myself, vomited 3 more times and crawled onto the Burgie. By this time I was feeling really ill and knew I was in no fit shape to ride, but hoped a bit of a cooling breeze could do me no harm. I rode 20 metres out of the roadside rest spot onto the highway and realised I was blacking out - all went dark and I had no control whatsoever. Thank goodness there was little other traffic around, as I wobbled sideways across the road before managing to get near the side of the road and barely hold the Burgie upright for the minute or so whilst my swoon passed.

Figuring I had sufficiently embarrassed myself in front of all onlookers I determined to keep on riding and made another 5km towards Oslo before pulling over, throwing up again and sleeping for a further period.

On awaking, I knew I wasn't going to throw up any more but the urgent feeling was now below the waist line.

Four days have passed since that dreadful day and I am only now starting to feel truly better. I visited the hospital the following day in Malmo Sweden and they were most reluctant to prescribe antibiotics to assist. My motions have improved from water (20 times a day) to soup (10 times a day) to porridge (5 times a day) and finally today to nothing, so I figure I'm over the worst of it.

The worst aspect though, and I put this down to my debilitated state and temporary loss of faculties, was losing my camera three days ago in Denmark. From what I can recollect, I left it sitting on my luggage when I left a rest spot on the freeway between Nyborg and Odense. The loss of the camera is not really a big deal but what is, is that the SD card in it contained all my photos for the last 3 weeks. :-(

Whilst I am hopeful of possibly recovering some of those taken in Russia, the Scandinavian shots, alas, are gone forever. I guess this shows the positives and negatives of digital camera ownership. In the past we could only take 36 shots on a roll of film, but if we lost a camera we only lost 36, instead of 360 photos.

The lesson is learnt, though, and I will ensure I regularly swap memory cards in situations where I cannot easily get Internet access for uploading.

Goodbye to Russia and hello to Western Europe

2008-07-23T16:42:00.000+10:00

Firstly, apologies to all readers for my lack of updates. Internet access has been a trifle difficult in Russia and it is only now, in Sweden, that I can easily access all the sites I am used to. This is not because the sites are blocked in Russia (as they are in China), but simply a case of me struggling with Cyrillic keyboards and Russian language Windows messages which are indecipherable to me, and just the sheer logistics of finding an easily accessible Internet cafe.

Heading north from Sochi my first surprise was to find the local bus stop populated by cows, instead of people!.

Continuing on my way north further surprising sights were to be found.

Ex Aeroflot plane used as a restaurant just south of Tuapse.

Beachside resorts north of Sochi.

More natural obstacles on Russian roads.

After leaving Sochi I headed North for the final leg of my Russian journey. The roads were mainly excellent, however, my rapidly balding rear tyre was a major concern and dwelt in the back of my mind all the way through (not without good reason either - I had my first puncture on the Burgie,

which I repaired myself, but the tyre damage was such that the repair was not permanent and I had to add more air every day otherwise it was flat in 2 days).

Only 1,000 km to go to Moscow.

First stop was a camping ground outside of Roston on Dov

and I had my first experience of nearly poisoning myself on Russian vodka. Now vodka is cheap in Russia ($4 for 0.5 litres) but very sneaky in the way it goes down easily (and makes you feel like death the next day!).

Harvesting in the massive wheat fields of the caucasus.

I ended up writing off a whole day before 5pm before I was ready to pack up camp and hit the road. Hit the road I did though and was soon on the outskirts of Volgograd (ex-Stalingrad), scene of the bloodiest battle of World War II.

City limits sign on entry to Volgograd

Riding into the Volga valley.

I visited the war museum and have tremendous respect for the Russian soldiers and civil ans who participated in the drawn-out conflict.

Next day was off to Saratov - home of Yuri Gagarin - and the university which is named after him. Regrettably, after another incident with the local constabulary I was too frazzled to find the Gagarin museum but did get to enjoy the city.

For the remainder of that day it rained and I had a rather unpleasant night finding a secluded camping area, and more importantly, slithering and sliding my way through the fields to a copse of trees were I could camp without being noticed by all and sundry travelling down the main highway.

It was then off to Moscow

to meet Anton of the international Burgman community.

Anton proved to be an energetic and gracious host and I spent 3 days of enjoying the sights and sounds of one of the most exciting and beautiful cities I have ever visited. The motorcycling community is huge and I saw more Honda Goldwings than I have ever seen in my life.

Parking in Russia is very relaxed.

Along with half a dozen other Burgman riders

we got to enjoy a myriad of activities including, believe it or not, downhill snow skiing in the middle of 32 degrees July (Moscow, like Dubai, has a very impressive year round indoor skiing slope).

After 3 days of 4am/6am bedtimes, including a 4am visit to Red Square and the kremlin,

and very hot days,

it was time to say goodbye to Anton and his fellow Burgman owners - many thanks guys for all your support - I had a great time

and head up to St Petersburg.

en route I passsed a funeral.

In St Petersburg I was kindly hosted by Anton's friend Alex, and his family. They have a wonderful old huge flat in downtown St P, and a country dacha which I had the opportunity to visit.

St P has many great sites and sounds (as the site of the October revolution) which Alex and family showed me, but the really enjoyable part was the visit to the dacha with Alex's father Pavel.

Never have I had such tasty and delicious fruit and vegetables before - organically grown and absolutely delicious.

Unfortunately all good things have to come to an end and on the 19th July my visa was expiring so I had to set off on the road north from St P to Finland.

The road was good and ride uneventful except for my final run in with Russian bureaucracy. When I had re-entered Russia from Kazakhstan it seems that the customs officers in Astrakhan had put the wrong date on my motorcycle papers. I was told I couldn't leave and asked (rather brusquely) why I had overstayed my welcome. I said that it was their mistake, not mine, but they would have none of this. Finally, a kindly female customs officer took me to a private room, handed me a pen and paper, and in a Kafkaesquian twist, dictated to me what I should write (that I was ill and couldn't ride and this is why I didn't leave on time). I said "do you want me to lie?" but she simply said, this is Russia, do as I ask and you can leave straight away otherwise it will take a day to clear you if you insist on telling what really happened.

I thought this incredibly funny and for a moment thought about insisting on doing it right and seeing how the system really works, but time had the better of me and I chose to write what she dictated and 5 minutes later I was on my way into Finland.

Finland was great, fantastically clean country, but a little sterile.

Two days ago I arrived in Kalix Sweden to enjoy the hospitality of Magnus (from the Suzuki GSX1400 club, and his family (1 set of twins and 1 set of triplets).

Midnight sun in Sweden - 50kms south of Arctic circle

Magnus and his wife are famous throughout Scandinavia for their family and I had a great time enjoying the company of three 3 year olds and two 6 year olds.

After replacement tyres, new rear wheel bearings and oil and filter change I'm saying goodbye and leaving this morning for Nordkapp - the Northern most point in Europe and the wild and woolly scenery and roads of Norway.

Bye folks, many thanks for your hospitality.

Norway here I come!

Feeling pochee in Sochi.

2008-07-07T20:15:00.000+10:00

Here I am in Sochi, beach holiday capital of Russia on the Black Sea and similar to most resorts around the Southern mediterranean.

5th July - Pyatigorsk to Sochi - 600km.

After my two day sabbatical in Pyatigorsk (don't worry about the different spellings - the Russians aren't consistent about it either) I left there on Saturday the 5th of July for a magnificent ride over the mountains to the Black Sea Coast .

This part of Russia has some of the most interesting and diverse scenery I have seen. Around 50km out of Kislovodsk the road heads up and crosses a North-South mountain range (of which Mt Elberus is the highest peak in Europe) just North of Dombai. The views of the snow covered peaks are magnificent but you feel the cold on a bike - I even rode past a ski resort. I met a group of Russians who were planning on doing some hiking and they helped me out by donating a 10 year old Russian road atlas - I now FINALLY have a Russian road map (it was impossible to buy one in Australia and my GPS is not exactly reliable as indicated in my earlier posts).

After crossing the range I still managed to lose my way to Maikop (pronounced make up as in "kiss and ....") as I missed the sign ****, but soon found my way back on track after taking some back roads through rural villages. The villages were a wonderful sight - ducks and geese wandering across the road, cows and goats ambling down the main street - and a I truly love the simplicity of life that they suggest - it's almost like a time warp back to when I was a boy in the '50s, and lived on the outskirts of a country town in Northern England, playing in wheat fields and cow pastures whilst riding my bike along country roads to go horse riding.

Once back on track I then had to cross the final ridge of mountains (which border the Black Sea) to Tuapse. This would have been a fun ride around switchback corners but (there's always a but...;-)) it was 20km of boulder strewn dirt and very steep. After reaching Tuapse (on the sea itself) around 9.30pm I then had a 120km ride South to Sochi along some great tight 30-40kmh corner cliff top roads ( a little like a combination of the Great Ocean road and the Dandenongs all rolled into one, except tighter. longer and more curves, for you Aussies), except (there's always an exception...:-)) it was dark, the bitumen is pretty rough, every drunk Russian and his friend was out driving too (it's Saturday night remember) and most importantly after 17,000km the rear tyre on the Burgie is now pretty much square (which means that as I turn the tyre "topples" off the square edge, rather than rolls gently, to the side) so it's not quite as much fun as it should have been.

At midnight around 35km from Sochi I called it a night and pulled to the side of the road, found a clearing where I could put up the tent in a reasonably secluded spot (not easy to find when the road has been carved into the cliff side and there is no extraneous flat land to speak of).

I woke up around 8am to the sound of a tour bus operator disgorging his load of passengeres around 5 metres from my tent - apparently I was camped on the track down to the beach.

6/7 July. Sochi.

Sochi s the venue for the 2014 winter olympics (together with Krasny Polyana - the ski resort in the hills above Sochi). I've been here two days now relaxing at a homestay run by a little old Russian babooshka lady (the locals rent out their bedrooms in summer to make a little money.

She is sleeping on the kitchen floor, and I am sleeping in her bedroom for $40 per night.

Sochi is chock-a-block full of tourists having fun and enjoying the rocky beaches and thunderstorms (yep, it's wet here all right - when it rains it REALLY rains HARD).

For me this is a brief respite before I hit the road up to Moscow via Rostov-on-Don. I now have less than 2 weeks left in Russia and want to make the best of it.

**** there is a reason I missed the sign, I was a little shaken up from an encounter I had in a local cafe where I had gone in for my usual lunch of borsch and coffee. This is a highly islamic area, and after I ordered my meal a couple of big burly chaps came up, grabbed my arm (to shake hands), slapped me on the back and wished me salaam. They then went off into a cubicle in the cafe and asked me to sit with them. Before I knew it, they had whipped out a bottle of vodka and insisted I join them in a drinking session. I should have known what was going to happen because the waitress called out to the pair, basically yelling Nyet, nyet (no, no)Now besides the fact that drink/driving is highly illegal in Russia, the last thing I wanted was to get involved in one of these drinking sessions (where you essentially keep drinking till you drop). However, it is very hard, and considered very bad manners, to say no.

At this point they started to demand money, and as they had me wedged into the cubicle it was impossible for me to get out without climbing over them. One of the fellows, Akmet (fine islamic name, but muslims aren't supposed to drink, but of course, this is Russia!) then got out his passport and started to show me the stamped pages - he then asked me to show him my passport. Now the last thing I was going to do was to risk having my passport stolen, but it gave me an opportunity to escape what was becoming a tense situation. I gesticulated that my passport was in the top box on the bike (even though it was in my pocket) and that I needed to go to the bike to get it. Reluctantly Akmet let me go out (he even held my arm) and once I was outside I did so more swift talking beside the bike and manged to convince him that I really had to go.

That was one of the swiftest takeoffs I have done on the Burgie yet. :-)

From Kazakhstan (to Russia) with hope!

2008-07-04T17:41:00.000+10:00

Hi all, I am now here in beautiful downtown Pyatigorsk in the Southern Caucasus (between the Caspian and Black Seas). Around 100km away from the trouble spots of Chechnya (which really is a tiny country) and Northern Ossetia (which is even tinier).

Pyatigorsk is in the mineral springs area of the Caucasus and has many sanatoria - it is where the Soviet Union used to send all its workers who became ill from working in toxic industries for rest and recuperation. Just down the road is the Chrome Workers Sanatorium - I can imagine what their lungs must look like!

So what have I been up to over the last few days.

Well first up I had to resolve the problems with the drooping Burgie back end and then basically its been 6 days on the road as follows.

29 June - Oral to Aqtirau - 500km.

On Saturday I disassembled the Burgie to discover that indeed, as I expected, the sub frame now consisted of twice as many components as the Suzuki design engineers had originally intended.

I spent 3 hours riding around on Sunday morning on a NAKED exposed Burgie (with all the plastic panels removed from its rear end) attempting to find a repair shop that was open, and finally found an old Russian welder who was quickly able to insert a couple of reinforcing rods and arc weld the frame back together.

It seems to be holding up fine but because the frame is now slightly longer by around 5mm the panels are a bit of rough fit with a gap between the top and side panels.

After that it was time to head back to the hotel, check out and spend approx 2 hours reassembling the bodywork before hitting the road.

Before I left town I had my usual mid day meal of borsch i chiteri kleb i coffee chernai and then went to fuel up. Well, I had heard stories of fuel hoses with a mind of their own but never experienced one up until this point. In Russia/Kazakhstan the rule is that you pay for your fuel before pumping. You pay your money to a disembodied individual behind a mesh grille and state the number of litres you require. They then turn on the pump for you, this time, however, the attendant said I should first put the nozzle into my tank. Now due to the shape of the fuel filler orifice on the Burgman this is not possible, so I paid and waved off the attendant's concerns.

I walked back to the pump and as soon as I removed the nozzle a jet stream of pressurised fuel erupted and started spraying everything in sight. I got the shock of my life! Fortunately I had the nozzle pointed upwards and away from me so I didn't get any in my eyes but I certainly gave the Burgie and the forecourt a good dousing before the attendant got his wits about him and remotely shut off the fuel.

I then marched back to the attendant fully expecting him to charge me for who knows how many litres of wasted fuel, I was lucky though and he rather embarrassedly gave me my back my tenghe.

I managed to find another service station but found that none of the service stations between Oral and the Russian border had anything other than 76 octane fuel available, so it was on a steady diet of Lada juice that I made my way South West.

This was truly a welcome change and one of my best rides yet - utterly smooth bitumen the whole way South and took me only 5 hours in the saddle, averaging 100kmh. The ride started out with a little rain (I have had rain every day for the last week and a half) before becoming warm and dry as I travelled further South. The landscape is basically semi desert and one of the things i have to say, disappointingly for me, is how similar it is to outback Australia - not that there is anything wrong with outback Australia but I have seen it all before if you know what I mean. However, one of the things you don't get to see that often in Australia (although they do exist) is the herds of camels!, which added an exotic element to an otherwise fairly mundane trip.

Arriving in Aqtirau it is clear why the town exists - the whole city smells like an oil refinery (it is the base for the HUGE Kazakh oil drilling operation in the Caspian Sea, and it is quite western (with western prices too!).

I ended up staying in a hotel 100 metres away from the Halliburton office on the banks of the Ural river.

I spent a fair bit of a time taking photos of the office and fully expected to be questioned and detained but I'm obviously not the sort of security threat they have in mind.

30th June Aqtirau to Astrakhan - 450km.

I originally intended to spend a couple of days in Aqtirau but quickly realised there was little point so I headed for the Russian border in search of the Capsian Sea, which turned out to be a fruitless search. The sea itself does not have a defined edge - there is a lot of swamp and mangroves and lakes and you can't actually stand on the edge and look at it (unlike in 1977 when I stood on the Southern edge of the sea in Iran).

.

The road West from Aqtirau was a return to the rough and uneven Kazakh roads I had learned to love (not!) and after a few more offroad adventures looking for the Sea,

I eventually reached the border and decided, what the heck, I may as well cross anyway.

This would have to be my worst border crossing experience yet. The Kazakh customs officers were like big children and insisted not only in fiddling with every control on the bike but also demanding that they be allowed to ride it. After my prior experiences with the steering lock episode, I was clearly most reluctant and had to literally pull their hands off the bars whilst shouting "nyet!" loudly. I felt really bad about losing my temper but this bunch of buffoons was acting like a pack of baboons and I was more than happy to risk arrest (which they threatened), rather than let them take the Burgie for a ride and inflict more damage.

One and a half hours later I had cleared Kazakh customs and immigration and was riding the 8km west to the Russian border post, where the officers acted refreshingly mature and facilitated my re-entry post haste.

The remaining 70km to Astrakhan was completed quickly and included a "bailey" bridge (literally a floating pontoon steel bridge) crossing of the Volga delta into Astrakhan.

I settled myself in to the hotel Lotus and enjoyed a fantastic view of the Volga only to have it further enhanced by fireworks and rockets at midnight.

1st July Astrakhan to down south in the Caucasus (approx 200km)

Now I was back in Russia I wanted to relax a little bit before heading North to Moscow and easing myself back into a European pace of life.

I spent the morning and afternoon exploring Astrakhan and was ready to leave when the daily thunderstorm hit. This lasted around 2 hours and as usually happens in Russian cities, the drainage system becomes totally overloaded and there is massive flooding on many roads. The Burgie was great here as you keep your feet up on the floorboards and the fairing would just plough through - as long as you didn't have to stop and put your feet down! - so a fair bit of planning went into tackling each 100 metre long section of water to ensure cars wouldn't be stopping in the middle of it.

I headed south out of town only to get 30km and discover that there were no bridges at the end of the "island" I was on (there are thousands of islands in the Volga delta) and I had to double back. I eventually found my way back on to a major road and headed South to where I thought I would actually get to the Caspian Sea (yes, I was still elusively searching) and instead discovered that the road I was on did indeed reach the Caspian (in Chechnya) but was dirt for the last 200km.

By this time it was getting dark and I became a little desperate looking for shortcuts to take me West instead of South without having to double back all the way to Astrakhan. I followed my trusty (Ha!) Garmin GPS and needless to say I ended up getting myself totally lost on sandy desert tracks around 10pm. I did find a railway line though and decided to follow that North instead at a walking pace. Even worse though, all the dirty water in Astrakhan had clogged my radiator so I was now riding at approx 10-15kmh on sand and with the radiator temperature well into the red. At this point I had to give up and decided to pull 10 metres off the track and put up my tent. As I did I heard the radiator hiss and gurgle and watched in the light of my torch as it disgorged its contents all over the desert floor.

Ah well, what else can you do but sleep and enjoy the wilderness and the creatures of the desert ( I had a tortoise visit at one point during the night).

2nd July Down South to Stavropol (approx 400km)
Next morning was spent removing the radiator shroud (to allow more air cooling), removing as much debris from the radiator core as I could using a toothbrush, and then finding a lake where I could fill a plastic bottle and squirt water onto the radiator fins in an attempt to clean them.

This worked and 20km later I found my way back on to the bitumen and eventually after backtracking a considerable way to Astrakhan, on to the road to Elitsa and Stavropol.

Whilst travelling through a small town I passed by a school (above). What I found incongruous was the contrast between the children's cartoons on the walls and the razor wire above.

I am still not certain whether this was a security measure to prevent robbers stealing from the school or whether it was recognition of the terrorist attack on the school in Beslan (which was only around 200km from this town). I certainly didn't notice it on other schools.

Well, if nothing else, I cannot say my days are dull. Just outside Elitsa the road takes a detour around the city centre and goes into a deep gorge. The road is straight, there is minimal traffic, vision is good and there was a truck in front of me and I prepared to cross the single white line to overtake. As I pulled out the truck driver waved at me to go back in, I figured I would soon be past him anyway so continued my overtaking manoeuvre. At the top of the hill, of course, Ilya and Yuri Plod, eager to throw the book at me (little did I realise that this road was a set up - quite safe to overtake and tempting for most drivers). They took my passport, licence and vehicle rego papers and offered to return them in exchange for Russian roubles. I was not going to play this game and instead I insisted they issue me a ticket which had to be paid by deposit at the nearest Sberbank (government bank). Now your average Russian just pays up as it is easier and cheaper to pay Mr Plod directly (which is exactly what Mr Plod wants as the cash goes into his own pocket). After 45 minutes of stalemate and Mr Plod getting increasingly frustrated, he uttered some loud words in Russian (probably to the effect that I was stupid), gave me back my documents and told me never to darken his doorstep again.

Amazing! - except I went through a repeat exercise not one hour later! This time I had been video-cameraed leaving the next town at 78kmh in what was still a 60kmh zone (the police had set up a camera 50 metres before the end of city limits marker in an unmarked Lada parked at the side of the road). I went through a repeat procedure only this time with the head of the traffic squad who took me into his office, locked the door, demanded 3 times as much as the previous Mr Plod and threatened to lock me up and confiscate the Burgie. I told him to either issue me a ticket or let me go - 45 minutes later I was on my way, muttering under my breath that I'd love to play poker with Russian police one day - I'd make a fortune! :-)

A short ride later through wheatfields

and sunflower crops

I was on the outskirts of Stavropol and ready to find a cheap room for the night.

3rd July Stavropol to Pyatigorsk (approx 200km)

My original plan was to head down to Sochi, on the Black Sea and right on the Georgian / Azerbaijan border) but the road to Sochi is quite a bit longer than it seems on a map and I figured an extra day up in the hills would be quite pleasant, so here I am staying int he Hotel Pyatigorsk.

There is a cable car up to the top of Mt Murmar and plenty of springs to explore so that will be how I spend my day of relaxation.

Being so far South in the Caucasus you start to notice the differences between what I call the Soviet Russians and the true Caucasians. The photo below of the Pyatigorsk market shows a local lady dressed in her traditional gypsy style clothes. There many of these swarthier individuals doing a brisk trade with their own stalls in the market.

Kazakhstan - not the country I imagined.

2008-06-28T20:17:00.000+10:00

Hi all, I'm finally waking up here in Oral (Ural, Uralysk, Oralysk - take your pick of names). Right now, I really am exhausted. The time on the road in Kazakhstan has been very difficult and the bike and me are both getting worn out. It is sad that as a result of my short visa, and the difficult travelling conditions, I cannot see as much of Kazakhstan as I originally hoped. In addition, the sheer heat of the desert has been exhausting - temperatures are in the mid to high 30s and I am consuming copious quantities of the local, very delicious, mineral water.

Over the last few days my travels have been as follows.

Day 1
Semey (yes, it's the old nuclear testing grounds and I visited the nuclear memorial (which typical of shoddy Russian /Kazakh construction techniques is already falling down although it is only 5 years old, and you are not allowed to stand near it in case of being hit by a falling brick)) to Pavlodar -
The morning was spent having the radiator mount alloy welded after I discovered the bottom mount had snapped clean off. I also asked the repairer to check out the fan which had been operating intermittently. They claimed to have done this but obviously hadn’t as I tested it and had to find the broken wire myself to get it going consistently.

I spent the afternoon exploring Semey, including a visit to the Dostoyevsky museum which was actually the old house he lived in whilst exiled to the then Russian town of Semipalitinsk in the mid 19th century.

I left Semey at 4pm in the afternoon for the easy 500km ride to Pavlodar on reasonable bitumen (which I now call bitch you men!, because the non-bitumen is a real bitch of a road!).

After stopping to replenish vital motorcycle fluids it was a very pleasant ride into the sunset from which wild horses couldn't drag me away - although they tried.

Around 50km from Pavlodar at 10.00pmish, I went over a bump and the back end of the bike felt strange, as though I had a flat tyre - it also made clunking noises.

I checked the bike, realised a wheel bearing had gone and had to decide whether to ride on to Pavlodar or not. I reluctantly kept riding as I knew I could do damage to the wheel and the final drive spines, but I had no choice, other than to sleep next to the bike on the side of the road and try to flag down a truck the following day (which really wasn’t an option).

As I rode on very slowly, the crunching noises got worse and I finally got to the edge of the city around 11pm. Now the interesting thing about Russian and Kazakh) cities is that the distance on the signs is the distance to the edge of the town – NOT the centre of the town – so I was still really in whoop whoop when I got there. Interestingly I was right outside the road to the airport and I stopped at the ubiquitous police checkpoint to be confronted with a policeman all in black, wearing a black balaclava and carrying an AK47! (just the way you would imagine a terrorist to be dressed). I explained that I was in need of remont (Russian for repairs) and a gastinitza (hotel) He indicated to me that, quite fortuitously, there was a motel 100 metres from where I was, so I checked in.

The motel was fine and as with all Russian/Kazakh hotels they ask you to pay extra for secure parking to avoid vandalism/. I paid 200 Tenghe (about $1.65) to a female security guard, who was clearly not up top the job, and went off for a meal.

I noticed at this stage that I had the usual crowd of youths surrounding the bike, which happens wherever I go, and I indicated to the security guard that she should use her baton if necessary.

Whilst having a meal one of the locals had found a baby hedgehog near the road and brought it in to the restaurant (which caused all women to scream and children to go bananas). I decided to go back to my room for my camera and whilst doing so was confronted by the security guard who told me to move the Burgie into a locked garage. I said ok and on seeing the Burgie noticed that the front wheel was pointing almost straight ahead. I thought this a little strange as I always use the steering lock (which locks the wheel facing left). I tried to unlock the ignition and couldn’t. I immediately realised that someone had been sitting on the bike and pretending to ride it, so they (or they and their friends) had pushed the bars (with great force)to the straight ahead position, such that the steering lock was bent out of shape. I have to admit I was a little stunned by this as a huge amount of force and effort would have been required (possibly requiring 4 people at one time) , and I couldn’t believe that someone would apply this much force to someone else’s property. The only explanation I can give is that they were probably intoxicated and acting with a pack mentality – disappointing but c’est la vie. Postscript: In retrospect, I now suspect that this was actually an aborted attempt to steal the Burgie.

Day 2
Pavlodar to Qaraghandy.
I started the day by removing the bike bodywork to extract the ignition and steering lock. Upon removal I could see just how bad the lock was damaged. I then rode the 5km into Pavlodar with bodywork bungy cord strapped to the back of the bike and found the nearest repairer.

I got him to cut off the bent section of the steering lock rod which means I now now longer have a steering lock – maybe better in the long run for future joy riding youths!

It was then time to tackle the wheel bearing. After removing the rear wheel I found I had an almost repeat scenario of my front wheel bearing failure in January. The RHS (brake side) bearing had totally collapsed, the outer shell split in half and the peened balls had worn a groove into the wheel hub.

Fortunately, other damage to the splines seemed minimal. After extricating the remains of the bearing shell, two new bearings and an oil seal (not the correct one unfortunately) were obtained for a total cost of $40 (interestingly I am carrying 3 spare front wheel bearings with me but no rear ones) and a further $25 was extracted from me for the repairers efforts (even though I did most of the work myself). I am concerned about how well this repair will work though, as the bearing is no longer a tight fit in the hub and is definitely not a long term repair job. I will wait till I get to Sweden before seeing if I can get the wheel hub lathed and possibly a larger external diameter bearing fitted. As for the reason for the failure, I am not sure, but there was definitely water in the hub. Even so, with sealed bearings, a little water should not do any harm.

Around 3pm it t was time to leave Pavlodar and ride the 400 odd km South to Qaraghandy through dry semi-desert conditions.

Once again, the roads are fairly poor, with around 100km of dirt off-roading.

I arrived at Qaraghandy late in the evening (10pmish). Now another interesting thing about Russian/Kazakh towns is that once you arrive at the outskirts, it is very difficult to find the centre of town (which is where the hotels are). It took me a further two hours to finally find it (with the help of a friendly taxi driver) and I checked in to the Luxe Hotel Gioto at midnight.

Day 3.
Qaraghandy to Esil.

After visiting the Ecology museum on Qaraghandy it was time to hit the road, and get as far West as I could, as I knew my visa was rapidly running out and I could not afford any further problems on the road.

I travelled through the centre of Astana - the new capital which replaces Almaty - and stopped just outside of town for my mid-day meal at a roadside yurt cafe cum service station.

This was a long day – I ended up riding from 1pm to 1am on a mix of very good and very poor roads to cover around 650kms before I camped in a bus shelter for the night.

Day 4.
Esil - South (via Qostanay) to Qaratabe. Another long day of 600km+.

These roads are basically long straight stretches of nothingness with nothing but the occasional rough section of tarmac thrown in to relieve the tedium.

Clearly, the boredom gets to the locals too and the side of the road was often littered with wrecks such as the one below.

I realised early in the day that the back end of the Burgie was starting to sag and my Givi top box had a definite droop to it.

I opted to take it easy on the poorer sections of road only to find that the weather was becoming decidedly inclement.

Around 8pm the rain hit and I was right I the middle of a dirt section. Fortunately I was able to make it to the only town for miles before it became too damp (the other reason for wanting to get under cover is that all Kazakh storms seem to be electrical storms and on the flat plains I am the highest point and logical target for any errant bolts, which incidentally were striking at the rate of around one every 2 minutes).

Upon setting off I then entered the quagmire of wet mud which the dirt road had turned into. 1 hour later I had covered 13km and made it to the bitch you men. This was particularly tricky as not only was I slipping and sliding everywhere but the mud was also clogging the front guard and effectively locking up the front wheel – this is the ONE situation where having an off-road bike really would have helped.

I cleaned as much mud off the bike as I could and headed off down the magnificent new bitumen road (or asphalt as it is known in Russian) and covered around 150km before it was time to fill up with fuel.

The petrol station was 100 metres off the bitumen though – on a dirt track! 10 minutes later I had slithered my way to the pumps and filled up. Another 10 minutes and the attendant had helped push me back on to the bitumen. Another 10 minutes and I had cleaned the front wheel such that it would turn, and I then headed off to cover a further 100km before pulling over into a wayside stop to camp for the night around midnight (the only spot available that had a bitumen surface, as the ground was too wet muddy to pitch my tent upon). As you can imagine, with all this mud and rain, I was particularly concerned about dirt getting into my new wheel bearings and drastically shortening their lives.

Day 5
Qaratabe to 150kms from Oral
My final long day (700kms) and final night of camping. Essentially a repeat of the previous day - mix of very good and very bad roads, long day in the saddle and inclement weather in the evening.

At lunchtime I stopped at another yurt cafe alongside a lake (it is surprising how many lakes there are in Kazakhstan, given the desert conditions) and had to perform a makeshift repair to arrest the droop of the Givi (ended up adding a few washers to the rearmost mounts to keep it level but this only addressed the symptoms NOT the cause).

Around midnight I pulled into town for a meal (yep, cafes are 24*7 over here) and fuel fill up – I could only get 76 octane fuel and Burgie owners will be pleased to know that the Burgie runs fine on 76 octane (at 65c per litre) albeit with a consistent deterioration in fuel consumption. An hour later and I was parked behind a bus shelter 20km out of town for an evening’s rest) or should have been, but the strong wind kept the tent flapping all the night.

Day 6.
The final 150km into Oral. After packing up my tent I had a good ride on a good road.

It took me 1 and a half hours to find the city centre after arrival and a further half an hour to find my hotel. Last night I slept for 14 hours, I planned to go out and imbibe a few of the local beverages but frankly I was just too exhausted.

Oral seems like a nice enough town - I'm nicely scrubbed up, even had my first haircut since leaving Melbourne (cost $2.50) and washed all my clothes. However, I have to spend my energies repairing the bike for the rest of the journey rather than sightseeing. The focus will be on stripping down the back end to find what is the true problem (I suspect the rear subframe is bending or cracking) and then applying the appropriate fix.

I now have 3 more days left in Kazakhstan before I leave. Tomorrow I will ride the 450km down to Atyrau on the Caspian Sea, before heading west across the border to Astrakhan in Russia and then maybe to Sochi on the Black Sea for a few days rest and recuperation before heading North to Moscow.

My thoughts on the Kazakhs:
1. A proud people - nothing like that silly film suggests.
2. A tough people - living in harsh conditions and struggling to survive. Geographically, Kazakhstan is very much like outback Australia.
3. Like everywhere, a mix of good and bad. Very poor and helpful individuals who would give their right arm for you. Drunken youths and thieving women who would (and do) take every opportunity to relieve you of your assets. What I have learnt in all my travels is that it is always those who have least to give, who give the most, and vice-virsa.
4. A handsome people. Physically, the Kazakhs are an interesting blend of oriental, south Asian and middle eastern - close to Mongols in many ways.

A midsummer night's dream.

2008-06-22T15:16:00.000+10:00

There I was in one of the more remote and off the track areas of Russia, in a tiny village, 100km south of Bijsk - in the middle of nowhere. Cows, goats and sheep wandered down the street and gently nudged the Burgie.

It was a warm evening, around 10pm and the sky had a golden glow as the sun was setting on the summer solstice.

I pulled off the road to stock up with supplies at a local shop (magasin), entered and it was like stepping back in to a time warp.

The shop manager, a plumpish lady probably in her mid to late 30s, not unattractive but no beauty either, helped me to a selection of biscuits, canned fish, water, chips and beer for tonight's meal. She weighed each biscuit individually and recorded them all in a ledger - what I had bought - and how many were left (this is traditional in Russia where there is more emphasis on recording the transaction than provision of the sale/service).

As I wandered back to the bike and loaded the goods onto the bike I looked back and she stood in the doorframe of the magasin watching me.

I could see a far away dreamy look in her eyes, wondering who I was, where I had come from and thinking that she too should have an adventure like this some day, but never would.

I realised at that point just how fortunate I was, not just on this journey but for everything in my life - travelling so far from home in such a magic country. I camped that night in the middle of a wheat field and waited until midnight for the midnight sun.

I went to sleep that night feeling all was good with the world.

From Russia (to Kazakhstan) with love.

2008-06-22T14:46:00.000+10:00

Hi all, I'm now here in beautiful downtown Semey in Northern Kazakhstan.

From Krasnoyarsk to here I've had a couple more interesting experiences including more offroading (bad roads again) and an amazing trip into Kemerov where I was hailed on, and soaked through on a 500km journey that went for around 8 hours.

At first it looked like I would be in Kemerovo well before nightfall, however, I had neglected to take into account Russian bureaucracy and the fact that the local railway maintenance crew decided to repair the lone railway crossing on the highway I was taking. This resulted in my having to go back and take an alternative route adding around 100km to my journey.

Riding windy mountain roads, at night, with zero visibility, driving wind/hail/rain, freezing cold and crazy drivers, was no fun, and quite frankly, extremely dangerous. On top of all this, I was also riding through a lightning storm of epic proportions, petrified that a bolt from the blue would greet me around the next corner.

For those readers unfamiliar with motorcycling, I'll try and add a little perspective regarding riding in rain. Compared with driving a car, you are:
1. wet and cold, shivering and struggling with the controls - not warm and toasty with your heater on.
2. driving blind without any windscreen wipers - bikes don't have wipers, just lots of raindrops all over your windscreen and helmet visor. Oncoming headlights just make you totally blind!
3. slipping and sliding around, ready to fall over whenever there is a bump, large puddle, tight corner or wind gust - unlike a car, you don't just skid a little, you go down!

I arrived in Kemerov shivering and found the first hotel I could. Whilst dripping all over the floor in the foyer I agreed to their exorbitant rate of $90 for the night (highest I have paid previously in Russia was $45 in the very nice Hotel Primorskaya in Vladivostok) and that didn't even include breakfast!

Next day was warmer and I found a couple of local bikers in town who escorted me to what they, and I, thought was the correct road.

They were all heading off to a local bikerfest and invited me along, but I think I'm a little old for these things!

I ended up a long way off track on my route to the Kazakhstan border but it was worthwhile as the weather was fantastic, the roads great (well for Russia anyway!) and there were few vehicles - just the occasional local rider on his trusty Ural.

The Altai region is one of the Russian granaries and is very pretty. There was also a certain tranquility about this area of Russia which is sandwiched between Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Away from the main highways the rush of traffic eased and one could travel at a much more relaxed pace.

I camped the night before heading down south to the border which I reached yesterday. There are also many domestic animals which either graze by the side of the road, or wander down the road blocking your path.

I had a relatively easy border crossing - all the border guards are always aghast at the fact that I am travelling alone and seem to take pity on me (I don't know why!) - and crossed in to Kazakhstan to spend the night in Semey.

The roads have deteriorated again and I have been told horror stories of the southern roads in Kazakhstan. I am currently researching options as my visa only allows me to stay 10 days in Kazakhstan - with a minimum of 4-5,000kms of roads to cover I need to ensure the route is not too strenuous, and is achievable as I have been told on some sections that 200km a day is the maximum I will be able to cover.

In the meantime, of course, I have a few more bike problems. On inspecting the bike this morning one of the radiator mounts has snapped from the pounding on the Russian roads. As the radiator is aluminium I have taken it to an Argon welder for repair, and it should be ready in 2 hours.

I also am still having intermittent overheating issues as the fan is not always cutting in - hopefully they can work out what the problem is there too (I discovered for myself that it was just a broken wire from all the pounding).

The monument to victims of nuclear testing in Semey.

Russian hospitality.

2008-06-19T14:10:00.000+10:00

Today, I am in beautiful downtown Krasnoyarsk enjoying the hospitality of Dmitri, Marina, family and friends.

After the two day ride from Irkutsk, where I met a second black Russian (on a Yamaha 600)

.... and two Germans on BMWs (poor bastards!) outside a roadside shashlik restaurant .

I arrived at 9.30pm in Krasnoyarsk and immediately called Dmitri who arrived shortly thereafter with a group of fellow Krasnoyarsk bikers in tow.

After a tour of town we settled back at Marina's parents home around 2am for an evening of Vodka and local delicacies.

Little sleep was had but I woke to meet Marina's parents and friend who treated me as if I was a long lost family member.

Now it's time to prepare for the next step - the journey to Kazakhstan - I have a tight deadline to meet and need to be on the road to get through Kazakhstan before my visa expires at the end of June.

Russia - all in one!

2008-06-17T11:53:00.000+10:00

Oh boy, what a story to tell - sorry for being out of contact folks but a combination of Russian road conditions, Russian people and limited Internet/phone access have conspired to have me offline for much longer than I anticipated.

First, 5th June - Day 1. Vladivostok to Khabarovsk (800km).

I left the Hotel Primorye at 9am after an excellent breakfast (best food I have eaten yet in Russia) and made my way out of Vladivostock through peak hour traffic.

A smooth run North up the M60, it took me approx 10 hours to cover the distance. Roads were overall good and smooth with a few rough patches of 5-10km of dirt, and the odd assortment of roadworks. The M60 runs fairly close to the Chinese border for most of its length and it was interesting to see just how near I actually was at times.

The ride gave me the opportunity to sample how Russian services operate such as food and petrol stops.

A few incidents on road:

1. Me overtaking a truck coming into town. All Russian towns have police check points where they randomly pull over drivers to check your vehicle and confirm all documents are in order - in most cases this is simply a ruse to find something wrong to alow the police to "supplement their income".
I saw the policeman run out into the road and ducked 1 metre behind a truck in front of me. He just saw me, blew his whistle but it was too late, I was already gone before he could flag me down and lighten my wallet.

2. Shortly after this, I rode through the next town, avoiding the cows and goats on the road, but before I knew it I saw a black and white cat dart from the side of the road right in front of me. I held the bars tightly, bounced and felt the front wheel going side to side, and survived without dropping the bike. The cat alas, was not so lucky.

3. Later in the day, at another checkpoint I was stopped by the police who showed me their radar and alleged I had been speeding. I feigned ignorance of any Russian and they eventually let me go with out relieving me of my hard earned assets - a close call.

Everywhere I stopped there was always interest in the Burgie from truck drivers and the like.

I arrived in Khabarovsk to a most impressive site. It's a beautiful city and far prettier than Vladivostok. It was also a lot warmer being inland. I checked into the Turist hotel to experience my worst example yet of Russian bureacracy. The receptionist (in Russian, Administrator) was not impressed with my lack of visa registration (which I had supposedly had performed at the Hotel Primorye). Fortunately I had friendly hotel security guard who went out of his way to translate for me and explain to the receptionist that it was not my fault that my paperwork was not in order. A number of phone calls, faxes and hours later and I was allowed to check into a room, but told I had to stick around till 1.30pm the following day to have my paperwork properly completed.

By the time this little farce was completed it was getting close to midnight and all the cafes and restaurants were shut so I ended up finding a 24 hour minimarket where I could buy some biscuits, drinks and canned sardines for the evening's meal.

6th June - Day 2. Khabarovsk enroute to Chita (500km).

The morning started with me collecting the Burgie from the hotel's secure parking (complete with vicious dogs and an armed guard) and ensuring all was mechanically in order prior to tackling the 2,200km stretch of bitument and dirt road to Chita. 2.00pm and I was on my way after spending the rest of the morning exploring Khabarovsk (and the beaches alongside the HUGE river Amur).

Khabarovsk is a very pleasant city (much cleaner and tidier than Vladivostok), only 25km from China and a major tourist resort for Japanese tourists of all people (it has the best sushi in Russia!).

As today was Friday there were many wedding parties (Friday is the preferred day for Russians to marry) and I managed to get myself caught up in some of the proceedings.

I left Khabarovsk by crossing the Amur river on a 2km long bridge and following the route of the Trans Siberian Express.

The first 200km were brilliant bitumen.

At km 203 I noticed all the other road traffic was stopped by the side of the road affixing cardboard and tape to their body panels, in preparation for the dirt roads ahead (these vehicles were used cars shipped from either Korea or Japan to Vladivistok and being driven by mostly professional couriers across to Western Siberia where they would be sold for double their purchase price).

150 metres down the road and the dirt began.....,

and then stopped 3km later ..... to begin, stop, begin intermittently as road construction took place in a seemingly random fashion.

11pm that night, having ridden for 9 hours and travelled 500km, and still in broad daylight, I pulled over on the dirt to find a bus shelter for the night. I figured this was an easier option than putting up the tent and simply slept on the ground in my sleeping bag (all other nights I tented, as the Siberian mosquitoes are particularly voracious).

7th June - Day 3. Khabarovsk enroute to Chita (300km).

I woke up this morning with my sleeping bag covered in a dusting of dirt from all the vehicles that had passed in night - yes, the couriers drive non-stop and in their bleary eyed state can be a real menace on the road.

I stopped around 75kms down the road for breakfast at a roadside cafe, only to have my reading glasses stolen by a truck driver.

The dirt roads were getting worse and I had a few problems. First I had tried to "cheat a little" by riding on some of the newly laid road (instead of the dirt). The roadworkers had covered this with rocks and I ended up hitting a number, causing the Burgie underbelly to crack and causing the radiator fan to jam against the radiator. The bike was overheating at the low speeds I was travelling (20-35km per hour mostly) and I had to use the manual gearbox option on the Burgie to lower the revs to stop it boiling. This caused further problems as the dust on the roads was blocking the CVT filter and with manual gear selection the CVT was overheating too!

8-9-10 June - Days 4, 5 and 6.

This whole section became a blur of bad corrugated roads, limited fuel and food, camping, no mobile reception and lots of birch trees and dust.

From Vladivstok to Omsk the majority of vehicles on the road are imported Japanese used cars driven by professional drivers planning on selling the vehicles for a profit in their chosen destination.

They tape the bodywork of the cars to prevent stone chips, drive fast, stop for no-one and all carry guns. This causes the bad roads to be even worse, as kilometre dust clouds are formed by convoys of cars, passing you on both left and right whilst you are simply struggling to stay upright in the loose corrugated dirt sections - never mind not being able to see where you are going! In a couple of instances, cars couldn't see me either and there were a few near misses.

Memorable events on this section of road include losing a few bits and pieces from the bike (horn, brake lever, handlebar vibration damper, camel back (water container), givi lights and reflector) which were simply shaken off. The corrugations were indescribably bad and I was riding at crawling pace (10-15km/h) for extended periods.

Whilst the Burgie has survived relatively intact - I haven't dropped it yet! - it's definitely looking a little worse for wear and the cast alloy wheels are a little square in parts. Overall it performed very well, even during occasional rain and the consequent mud.

My daily food intake was limited to one bowl of Borsch (Russian soup) with bread, two cups of coffee, lots of fresh water and a Mars bar for supper.

On average every 150km or so there was a fuel stop cum cafe, although the quality of these establishments could vary dramatically.

Along these roads, fuel is also in short supply and most petrol stations will only allow you to fill up with 5, or sometimes 10, litres.

On day 4 I was running low on fuel, only to arrive in a town and find the petrol station was empty. I managed to beg a VERY kind local Russian and his family to give me two litres (he refused my offer of payment), which together with the 1/2 litre I had left should get me 50km on the bad roads

I headed off on a wing and a prayer, nursing the throttle whilst all the time realising that my fuel consumption was way up riding on such bad surfaces. At 50km, no petrol station in sight, finally at 53km I saw the sign - fuel 500 metres ahead. I accelerated slightly, thinking I had made it, and pulled in to the service station only for the engine to die on the forecourt 20 metres away from the pumps.

I was happy to push the Burgie those final 20 metres and fill up.

During these days I came across a Swede and his father, driving a diesel Skoda round the world on under 800 euros of fuel, and 2 French couples on Ducati outfits (Cagiva elephants) travelling round the world.

I also met Pavel "the Black Russian" bicyclist riding from East of Vladivstok to Moscow.

On what I thought was my last day on the dirt road, I stopped the bike 150km from Chita on a bridge to fill up my water bottle with fresh freezing water (some of these little rivers are still frozen).

I walked back to the bike, only to switch on the ignition and watch the gauges go blank as I hit the starter button. I figured I had a recurrence of my ignition switch problem and inwardly cursed Suzuki, but it was not to be. The battery cells had been destroyed from the constant vibration.

Pavel arrived 1/2 an hour later and helped me push the Burgie off the road into the birch tree forest (Siberia is ONE massive birch tree forest) and we set up our tents. Pavel lit a fire, most generously shared his food and we spent a most enjoyable evening on the Taega.

11th June - Day 7 and 150km from Chita.

After a very pleasant night camped with the "Black Russian", we flagged down a couple of vehicles and 6 of us pushed the Burgie back on tthe road. We then had to find a vehicle with jumper leads to start the bike. Two hours later and we found one! I covered the final 50km of dirt in around 2 hours and was 20km along the bitumen when the engine check light came on and the Burgie died - the battery had completely given up the ghost and would not provide sufficient sparks for the FI to operate . I pulled over and 2 hours later was saved by my white knight - Dmitri the "white Russian".

Dmitri was piloting a Kia Sorento back to Krasnoyarsk with a Yamaha FZR 400 in the back. After an hour and a half unsuccesfully trying to resurrect the Burgie battery, we found the FZR battery was a perfect fit and before we knew it the Burgie was back on the road. This was just incredible luck and I honestly don't what I would have done otherwise.

Unfortunately this meant I could not stay in Chita with the black Russian, as Dmitri wanted his battery back and quite correctly, insisted I travel to Irkhutsk with him. This was overall a good idea as I had no idea whether I could find a replacement in Chita or elsewhere.

12th June - Just past Chita to Ulan Ude - 500km.

What started out as a warm day, quickly degenerated as we climbed into the mountains and I had to stop to change into my full riding gear (including face mask) . Temperatures dropped to 2 degrees and the rain fell - I was freezing and riding blind.

Despite a number of very hairy moments on wet slippery roads, we made it without incident, but needed to regularly stop at a roadside cafes for sustenance.

This area is the home of the Batyar people (Russian Mongolians) and the geography is very much like Northern Mongolia (treeless mountains and grass plains).

13th June - my Birthday!, and Ulan Ude to Irkhutsk (500km).

Warm sunny weather.

After visiting the giant bust of Lenin in downtown Ulan ude, the day started with a ride along the bottom of Lake Baikal, absolutely gorgeous scenery (like the Canadian rockies).

Mainly good roads made for a very pleasant riding day.

Highlights included stopping off at local markets to purchase fish,

being stopped by traffic police and invited in for coffee, meeting fellow motorcyclists,

passing cardboard cutout police cars strategically located alongside the road,

crossing the trans-siberian again at level crossings

and beautiful views across lake Baikal.

After arriving in Irkhutsk I was very kindly hosted by Dmitri and his friends for the night - lots of vodka and good fun.

14th June (Irkhutsk).

Sunny day, riding with the Irkhutsk bikers (Blackbird/Hayabusa) and looking (unsuccessfully) for a battery. Visited Irkhutsk beaches and dam on the Angara river where an old icebreaker (built in Newcastle UK) has been restored.

Afterwards, they all took me around to vist the sights and sounds of Irkhutsk, which is quite a pretty city and has many old churches which are now being restored.

To cap off the days activities we stocked up on local beer and retured to a local park, along with many other Irkhutskites to enjoy the mild evening.

15th June (Irkutsk to Listvyanka (on the shore of Lake Baikhal) - 100km.

Dmitri got lost in Irkhutsk and coincidentally whilst asking for directions found a shop that had the correct new battery for me - all is well with the world!

Another rainy day, visited the Nerparium in Listvyanka (Nerpas are freshwater seals which live in Lake Baikhal) and looked around the lakeside with Dmitri and Marina.

16th June Irkhutsk.
Bike serviced, oil changed etc., set to go for the 1,100km ride to Krosynarsk.

The photo below shows a typical Russian kiosk selling a range of small goods, but mainly alcohol. These little magasins are extremely popular and are open till midnight, long after other establishments have closed their doors for the evening. This one was just around the corner from my hostel in Irkhutsk and I had to pass by it enroute to the secure parking where I left the Burgie each evening.

17th June Irkhutsk to Krosnyarsk.

I left Irkhutsk late morning to start the 1,100km ride to Krosynarsk.
Even though this was the main highway between Moscow and Vladivostok there were times that one felt like you were on a run down disused track between two small towns.

I was hoping that I had left behind all the unmade roads once I had reached Chita, however, I discovered there was another 2-300 kms of offroading on this section of road.

I covered around 600km on the first day riding till close to midnight before camping for the evening in a birch forest.......

....... and completed the journey the following day arriving in Krasnoyarsk around 9.30pm.

Along the way I passed an airforce base and spotted my second set of mystery humps. These were grass mounds were concealed military aircraft had been hidden away from prying eyes.

The Russians are coming? No, it's me coming to them!

2008-06-04T11:57:00.000+10:00

I arrived in Zarubino Russia yesterday morning after a smooth trip from Sokcho and rode the 220km to Vladivstok yesterday afternoon.

My first view of Russia (from the deck of the Dong Chun ferry) below was not that promising. Things were looking a little bleak and miserable and I really truly felt I was in a different world. Perhaps those grey stereotypical images the west portrays as Russia are true after all?

From all the looks the bike is getting, I am fairly certain this is the first Burgman in Vladivostok - the Russians are very curious and they all want to know how fast it will go.

Roads are a mix of good and bad - lots of roadwork - fuel around $1.00 per litre, not too bad. I've had a minor incident with the back panel on the Burgie coming loose (the pins broke in transit from Australia), falling on the road and getting all scratched up - I'll have to work out how to repair it.

Ferry ride was good but a little bribery and corruption was required to get me customs cleared - took me 6.5 hours from when the ferry docked till I was able to ride away, I've been told this is a record short time!

Coming in to Vladivostok itself I rode past the airport and was soon after overtaken by a SU24 (fighter plane) at very low attitude - the airports in Russia are used for both civil and military purposes. It was at this point I started to realise the majesty and might of the soviet military machine.

I was fortunate enough to stay in Vladivostok with Alexei (Shustrik from HUBB) and his partner who generously accommodated me for my first night. I found this to be typical of the Russians I met on the road, all prepared to share whatever they had with passing strangers.

However, as I needed to arrange for my visa registration I spent my second night downtown at the Hotel Primorya (translates as by the sea) .

Contrary to the generosity exhibited by the people I met and stayed with, the average Russians major concern is with theft - I have had to put the bike into secure guarded parking for every night I stayed in a city in Russia.

My mind is not yet made up regarding Russia - it is very different from the Asian countries I have visited and is really an extension of Europe, albeit a long way from home.

Vladivostok has been described by many as the San Francisco of the East. My experience of the city was rather more disappointing, especially after having arrived from the modernity and neatness and trimness of South Korea.

The large Stalinesque apartment blocks are omnipresent and the city has a mouldy run down air about it with dirt and rubbish strewn everywhere.

Hot water (which is delivered from a central heating system for the whole city) was shut down for summer repairs and the ground floor of each apartment block reeks of cat urine from the ubiquitous stray cats which inhabit the entrance foyers. Each individual apartment has two doors (a steel outer and regular inner) with a plethora of locks and deadbolts - the Russians are very conscious of their security. Alas I discovered this to be typical for every apartment I stayed in except for St Petersburg.

Will leave for Khabarovsk tomorrow - it should be a fairly straightforward 800km (500 mile) one day ride.

Korea - I came, I saw and I went - alas so quickly (29 May - 2nd June)

2008-06-02T13:13:00.000+10:00

Busan to Sokcho - 750km

I'm now in Sokcho Korea, around 30km from the DMZ and North Korea. I rode up from Busan over 3 days. Friday was a 200km journey from Busan to Daegu.

The photo below shows me hitting the streets in Busan, struggling to find the way out of town and the correct route to Daegu.

I managed to get myself into trouble by cruising down the freeway (yep, unbeknownst to myself, like China, bikes are not allowed on freeways in Korea either) and was promptly escorted off by two of Korea's finest!

On Friday night I stayed with John from the Burgman USA forum, and his wife Rachel, who most graciously invited me to stay in their home in Daegu - I had a great time and a great introduction to the very thriving bike scene and shops in Daegu.

Saturday was a 250km journey to Uljin. I needed a cheap hotel so I stayed in a motel which turned out to be a "love hotel"! The pink lights in the hallway, pink towels, frilly doona and pillow cases and bidet in the bathroom (yep, managed to squirt myself in the eye again!) were dead giveaways. Unfortunately I think my hotel room was the only room with a single occupant!

Just prior to Uljin I stopped at a scenic lookout to find two Korean riders (one on an R1, the other on an ST1300) there to greet me.

Sunday I rode a further 200km up the coast to Sokcho and this morning I have taken the Burgie on board the ferry to Zarabino (Russian port south of Vladivostok) and I board in 2 hours.I really like Korea - far more modern and sophisticated than China - and a lot like Japan. All the shop ladies bow when you enter the store etc., and it is really, really clean!

All along the coast there are lots (and lots) of seafood restaurants and many local tourists.

As you get closer to the DMZ a lot of the lesser used beachs are inaccessible, however. Large razor wire fences are permanently located to repel a potential invasion from the North - a stark reminder of just how fragile the peace is in Korea.

The roads are fantastically smooth and Korean drivers are very courteous and follow all the road rules - there really is no comparison.

Unfortunately the flip side of the coin is that it is also quite expensive too. Petrol is now around $1.80 a litre, 2.5 times the Chinese price. Given that the Burgie drinks twice as much fuel per kilometre as the Haobon, my fuel costs are now 5 times higher.

We'll soon see how that compares with Russia. In any case, I have filled the tank on the Burgie before taking the bike on board the ferry, just to ensure I have plenty in the tank in the event I can't buy fuel between Zarabino and Vladivostok.

The Burgie lives again - long live the Burgie.

2008-05-29T15:29:00.000+10:00

Hi, just a quick note to update everyone.

After arriving in Korea yesterday I have been down to collect the Burgie this morning.

After some minor hiccups with paperwork and having to get Vicroads (local vehicle registration office in Australia) to fax through copies of the registration documents to Korean customs, Mr Lee of Eagle shipping took me down to customs to collect the bike. The bike arrived in perfect shape and undamaged despite my concerns about how well I had crated and packed it.

It took me a couple of hours to uncrate and reassemble it before paying all fees (total around US$500) and riding the bike out the gate and into Korea.

The Korean customs people, as usual wherever I go, were polite and helpful. One of them even gave me a copy of a book he has written but I will need to brush up on my hanguel first!

I'm now about to go and find the International post office to collect the fuel filter and will leave tomorrow morning for Sokcho, where I take the ferry to Vladivostok.

It's good to be back on the Burgie - much smoother and more comfortable than the Haobon, but of course it is far less nimble and feels quite ponderous initially - that feeling will hopefully disappear once I get used to riding it again.

Anyone for a career in customs clearance in Korea? - 28 May 2008

2008-05-28T23:09:00.001+10:00

I'm here in Busan after a 300kmh maglev train ride from Shanghai to the airport and a short flight from Shanghai airport. I've paid my shipper's handling fees this afternoon and if all goes well I'll be riding the Burgie away sometime tomorrow.

Busan is wet and rainy and so is my pack. It's all pretty damp even after only getting caught in the rain for a few minutes, so everything is spread out on the floor of the Zen hostel to dry. Hopefully tomorrow will be a sunny day in more ways than one. :-)

The Haobon is gone! Long live the mighty Haobon!.

2008-05-27T17:54:00.004+10:00

The Haobon is gone! (sniff, snuffle)... Long live the mighty Haobon!.

It had to be! I feel so sad, as if I've lost a lifelong companion ... "Wilson, NO ... come back Wilson". Like Tom Hanks basketball, the Haobon has become my friend and companion in this foreign sea of non-English speakers.

I ended up selling it to a motorcycle repair man and his wife for AUD$150. They got a great deal, but frankly they were the only ones at all interested. I'm sure they will onsell it quickly and make a smart profit - good on them.

If I had been able to wait longer I'm sure I could have fetched a lot more but time doesn't allow me and overall my total cost for the Haobon for 1 month of riding has only been AUD$400, or $100 per week - excellent value.

I'm leaving Shanghai 9am tomorrow for Busan, Korea, and further adventures on the Burgie. :-)

Fanyang to Chuohe - Saturday 24th May

2008-05-27T17:54:00.003+10:00

Another long and tough ride on a mix of roads but a great day's progress with another 500km covered after 12 hours in the saddle...

The day started bright and sunny as I passed through wheatfields and duck farms along with th usual mix of Chinese agriculture. I know I have said this before, but the sheer amount of energy and effort put into agriculture inChina is second to none, with every arable inch produced crops many times over each year.

However, the blue skies were not to last. This was an especially difficult day because today not only was I riding on bad dirt roads, but it also began to rain - in bucketloads.

I, along with many other vehicles, had to wait in a service station for almost two hours whilst the monsoonal downpour passed. The rain came down with such force that it was like standing under a high pressure hose.

Once I was able to get back on the road again, the roads deteriorated until they were nothing more than dirt tracks one lane wide. Whilst cars, trucks and buses were spinning their wheels in the mud I was struggling to keep the Haobon upright. The mix of dirt and water soon had the Haobon filthy, and me exhausted. Unfortunately just as night fell it also ensured I had yet another puncture. Fortunately for me I felt the rear end wriggle (as the tyre deflated) right in the middle of a small village and right outside the only tyre repairer in town. Whilst I waited for the tyre repairer to come back to town (it was night and he had finished work for the day) I was kindly invited by a local girl and her family of rice merchants to share dinner with them.

Once again Chinese hospitality comes to the fore and I was very graciously accepted as a total stranger into their group of family and friends. After repairs I was honoured to hear that I was the first foreigner to visit this small village and that I still had a way to go before I could reach a town with a hotel for the evening. I was soon on my way again and after 1.5 hours of hard riding I managed to reach the next major town with a hotel for a good night's sleep.