My bike is still up there, and I am back in Melbourne to attend a wedding
and then Friday I will fly back up to continue the ride, eventually bringing me back to Melbourne in 2-3 weeks.The bikes: my R90/6 and a good friend John's R75/7.
Left on 22 Dec, arrived morning of 25th Dec.
here is a direct link to the basic route (with a few omissions/simplifications of minor and unsealed back roads I couldn't get to work and/or find)
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=d&sour ... 862793&z=6
All up, the trip has been great so far.
First day out of Melbourne we got a bit of patchy cold rain before it dried up, and after riding some beautiful and unpopulated roads we arrived at Charlies in Bethanga for some of his home brewed cold beers and EXCELLENT home made pizza, also helped down with some single Malt. Charlie, Jeff, John and myself in attendence.
Thanks for that Charlie, and good to see you again Jeff.
Second day out we rode some excellent roads once again, before doing a stint on the Hume up to Goulburn to cover some Kms' (and as it turned out, dodge a locust swarm) and then headed up towards Oberon. Excellent riding again (excluding the Hume). In Goulburn I noticed that the occasional 'notchy' feeling when pulling in my clutch cable was actually my lovely near new (maybe 2000Km old) 'Featherlite' clutch cable breaking strand by strand. With not much light in the day left I decided to push on to try to find a camp and leave the repair until later.
We made it to an excellent free camp at the Taralga Fairgrounds (recommended by some locals having their Christmas staff party drinks).
Here was the camp.
Here was the clutch cable. Down to one strand
.Luckily one of the few spares I brought was my old clutch cable...
Day three was another gem. Incredible roads, by and large empty of other traffic and police. A very different prospect to traveling north on the more eastern routes at this time of year. It was also warming up considerably.
Taralga to Oberon was heaven. After a long run to Gunnedah, where we could we took back roads, a lot of them starting off paved, perfect, empty, and like our own private race tracks, and after a half dozen or so cattle-grids turning into lovely wide unpaved highways for a while before reversing back to cattle-grids, then paved, then another town.
Everything was green and healthy from the rain, but not too wet.
My maps from here are very inaccurate, but I could not seem to find the 'shortest' routes on google maps I was following through my GPS at this point.
With sunset threatening and with bag full of supplies, just NE of Barraba, after turning off on a another backroad to Bundarra, I spotted an old 'lookout' sign pointing up a very eroded and disused track. A pull over, U-turn, and exploration ride turned up another great free camp- overlooking Barraba and with great views all around.
Day 4 and 5.
Next day, things got a bit more interesting. We must have left very early, as we were in Bundarra at 8:30am fueling up.
Exploring more dirt back roads, this time towards Emmaville, about 12 K's out of Emmaville I came to a causeway that was just a little bit wetter than the last few. Doh.
Heres't the photo.
And in case anyone (like my uncle who saw the photo) thinks it would have been 'a piece of piss' to cross the water, here is a little vid. (online playback looks terrible on my computer, maybe better on others... I can't even see the water moving!)
That water was really flowing. I didn't even want to start to walk out to test the depth. Big 4x4's were turning around on either side of it. We had to back track a few K's before the GPS took us out another route to Glen Innes.
Pretty standard riding after that as we approached Tenterfield we started moving into some looming very big and wet clouds. A few phone calls to family confirmed that we were about to ride into some very heavy rain.
Just out of Tenterfield in the very wet and twisty roads, John somehow (we couldn't quite figure it out) had a little lowside on a sharp, decresing radius and worsening camber turn. A bit of a scare for both of us, but no damage done to John. The bi
ke faired a little worse.Cable ties, gaffa tape, some metal repair epoxy stuff (for the valve cover), a few spare nuts and bolts, some panel beating, etc, etc, got the bike running and working again, but some parts are going to be needed in order for John to get back to Melbourne. Left and right control cluster things are pretty much screwed, handles and beyond.
So, after all that, and now with John riding a 'crash modded' bike with the front brake lever attached by cable ties, we started riding through some really really heavy rain. And, every KM we headed east the roads got worse and worse. By the time we hit Casino it was literally bucketing down, and with little light left we decided to be smart and camp out rather than push on.
So, Christmas eve was spent with a roast chook and chips (and all the other extras) and a bottle of Johnny green label sheltering in the grandstand at the fairgrounds.
In the morning, with a moments respite from the rain. Not the nicest of camps.
Next day was wet again. Casino to Lismore, then Lismore, Clunes, Bangalow, the roads got worse and worse. Terrible potholes in really bad places on tight slippery corners. We were very glad we didn't attempt it the previous night.
Bangalow, flooded.
I dropped John up on Coolamon Scenic drive and then headed to my mums place to set up camp (full house).
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. It rained.
It just rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. Tuesday morning it stopped raining just long enough for me to dry my tent out enough to pack it before driving to Coolangatta and jumping a plane.
As I said earlier, wedding tomorrow, then, flying back up Friday.
I hope to meet up with Sibbo before I head south again- just didn't have the time before, and it was too wet anyway. Open for any other suggestions. I haven't managed to contact John since I left, but if he can't find the parts he needs, or even as an interim repair, we might be asking if anyone has a workshop nearby we could visit to attempt a few more robust repairs on his bike (basic stuff, grinder, drills, etc)
Around the 5th of Jan I'll be heading through Grafton, visiting family, Coffs Harbour and Bellingen visiting friends, then maybe some south coast camping (Tathra where other friends will be) then probably cross over the snowy mountains Talbingo way again and head back to Charlies to try to make it to his Island to hang out for a while on the Hume dam and sail his lovely boat Sweet Fanny.
Oh yeah, and just before the trip I got a new rear tyre. Loving it.
This post is too long, and now I have to go to bed. I've just noticed the photos I uploaded are too big and are getting cropped so I will try to fix that eventually.
A most excellent ride so far, looking forward to stage two.
More photos will come later, after I get back, but I'll be checking in from time to time before then.
Cheers,
Hans.
Great stuff. Can I put this up on my blog as well?
