This is late I know :-) But Happy New Year to all !! :-)

I spent New Year's eve in Adelaide. Slept through all the fireworks and woke uo early to enjoy the first sunrise of 2012. And now I'm in Melbourne. It's 0715, VIC time, and Alanah is still asleep. It was a BIG day for her yesterday and we were both butt weary after yesterday's ride.

Backtrack to Adelaide.........

I picked up Alanah at Adelaide airport at 0630, SA time, then went back to the hotel so that she could have a kip before we headed off. She must have slept for 5 min and was up and ready to go, but hungry :-). We headed out at about 0700, the streets were deserted, looking for someplace to get something to eat on our way out of town. Could'nt see anything and as we sort of had to pass Hahndorf, decided to go there for breakfast. Man !! what a nice ride through the hills !!

Alanah in her favourite position

The road had changed alot since I was last through the place some 35+ years ago, and with the added weight I had to drop down a gear through the steeper sections. We arrived in Hahndorf and all but one small kitchen by the road's edge was open, so, that was where we stopped. Sourdough toast, scrambled eggs (soft), bacon and for me a flat white. That filled the belly so on to Narracourt.

Things were cruising along sweetly in 42c temperature when, as we were heading through some tiny fuel stop, the motor stopped !!!! ???? We still had fuel according to the gauge ??  What's up ?? In went 5 litres of spare fuel. Still not starting ?? Einstien thinks, Aha another fuel blockage... Of comes the seat. Off comes the fuel tank. The filter's in the fuel tank so off comes the fuel pump and there is the filter, attached to the pump with no visible means of pulling it off. I cleaned it with a bit if metho and then blew through it. Fuel went everywhere, some even hit Alanah in the eye !!. Reassembled everything and hit the "go" button, It fired up !! Hooray. (I made it sound easy, did'nt I. Trust me, it was'nt).

In it's undressed condition

We refuelled the bike and ourselves with the liquids in the right order (Boy it was  HOT) and headed towards Narracourt where we arrived, later than I expected, at Brett's parents place. What a relief to stop and get into a cool house away the heat.

Kate and Gordan were fantastic and really looked after us. Baby wallabies, pet sheep, magpies, Geese, ducks, a wombat, kangaroos, pigeons AND chickens were there in abundance. The fresh eggs for breaky were great !! We had a leisurely departure and pointed the bike to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road.

I had expected to be in Melbourne by about 1600 but boy was I WRONG !! (wrong wrong wrong !!!). It was another scorcher of a day (42+ again !!) and as we were cruising anong the bike stopped running, again and again. By then I had worked out that it was the heat that was the problem and not a fuel blockage. Took a while to work that out :-) As long as the bike was sitting on a steady pace things were ok. Once I throttled off, the engine would conk out. Let it sit for 5 - 10min and it would run again. THEN we entered VIC. A SPEED LIMIT OF ONLY 100km/h !!! Even though we had been travelling at 100 - 105km/h, having to slow down to about 97 - 99 was enough to drive me batty.......

It WAS hot !!

The bike continued to give problems all along the GOR but what a fantastic road. Corner after corner after corner. Some hairpins and millions of 35 - 40km/h bends especially through the rainforest areas !! It was slow going because (1) the extremely sharp bends and (2) ultra slow car drivers !!  Sometimes the lead car would be going so slow that there would be a long lineup of vehicles behind it with no stretch long enough to allow anyone to overtake.  Even on the short straights the lead car would be travelling at 40 - 50km/h !! Sometimes we were taking corners with my foot scraping the road !! :-)  :-):-)

Biker Chick

There went the timetable as well......  I have to try the GOR on a weekday as the traffic was so heavy that there were delays everywhere and the returning weekenders were bumper to bumper all the way to Melbourne. We arrived at our hotel at about 2200 tired and butt sore. Then, as Alanah was hungry, we went to look for food. Nothing was open except a couple of small chinese supermarkets. So it was instant noodle soup for tea !!