The start of another bike trip !! Again to Tasmania as I felt that I did not get a chance to see everything. I doubt that I will this trip :-).

18/01/2013
Departed home at 1400 for Rebecca's place. It rained from the Police Station through to Noonamah. Bucketed down. The jeans were soaked but the top half of me was dry! Even inside the boots were dry ! Hooray for good Italian made boots and a waterproof jacket!

19/01/2013
I had planned to leave Beck's place by 0700 but it had started to rain so it was a 0800 start instead :-) All the wet gear went on. Brett traveled out with me and gave the trailer a thumbs up. It trailed beautifully. I had the load right. After the last trip I had worked out where everything should be in the trailer!
We went through some rain on the way to Adelaide River, where I thought Brett would  turn around and head home after refueling. I was wrong ! He enjoyed the ride , as I did, and decided to ride to Katherine with me. Thanks Brett !  Another couple of storms and I was still dry! Fantastic! I got into Katherine on the smell of an oily rag! When I refueled  the bike took 19 litres, the capacity of the tank!

After a coffee with Brett I headed off down the track with numerous storms to ride through. All I can say was that I was Dry Dry Dry !! :-) It felt great to be able to enjoy the ride without getting rained on!

The first night's stop was Tennant Creek. I was butt weary and after sending the required SMS's I crashed out! (I must look into the Iron Butt riders qualfications :-) or is that the Callused Butt riders? )

The Rig

20/01/2013
A 0700 start and not a cloud on the sky ! A beautiful cool morning but by the time I reached Alice Springs it was starting to get hot. A quick munchie of a burger and a top up on the bike I was out of Alice and on the road again. Damn it was hot! I could feel the heat coming off the road and the air was furnace dry! I was not game enough to lift the visor as I could feel the heat drying my eyeballs! Talk about hot! By the time I got to Elrunda I had already stopped several times to splash water onto my head. The bike was going through the fuel as if it had shares in Shell or BP.

I had to stop at Elrunda for a while to cool  myself down. It was marshmello melting hot! When I restarted I had a belly full of water, had wet down my shirt and had the 'neck cooler' replenished. Oh yes, and my head cooled with a bottle of water as well.

Then on again, thinking, an air conditioned jacket would not go astray ! :-) I called it a day at Cadney Homestead where I took an air conditioned room for the night. I ate at the bar and I can say that the first beer didn't touch the sides when it went down. The second went a lot slower and kept pace with my Lamb chops in gravy served with mashed potatoes and a mountain of cauliflower with a cheese sauce. Nothing flash, but filling.

No signal, no SMS.

21/01/2013
Another early start. There was still a bit of warmth in the air when I got up but after an hour or so the temperature warmed up but not to the brain frying extreme of yesterday. The 'neck cooler' had dried out buy the time I arrived at Coober Pedy so into the trailer it went.

Give me land, lots of land and no clouds above

Met a young fellow there who rode up on a black suzi GSX (a 600 I think). He was dressed in black tight jeans, a black T shirt (too small) with a packet of smokes tucked into his left sleeve. His full face helmet was black with a row of bright yellow spikes fixed to the top of the helmet.  He swaggers across with dark sunnies on, pats the trailer and says "Nice rig mate. I think I would like to be riding when I get to 50....... Then points to the bike and says "same as mine mate, same as mine" and then swaggers off into the servo.

With that I headed off.  By the time I reached Port Augusta I was running on the proverbial oily rag again (had spare fuel), Finally sent out the SMS's! After 18.9 litres of fuel in the tank and a top up for myself we were both ready to go again.

Instead of heading to Adelaide I cut across to Balaklava, Mallala, Grafton and on to Birdwood. The road from Grafton was a bikers delight and a fantastic change from boring straights. Arrived at Birdswood at about 1845 and after a beer at the pub found that I had to cut back about 10Km to find a caravan park to stay at. Found a small park called the Gorge Caravan Park which had small cabins for $60. Fantastic! It had all the gear so tea was the last of my cryovac packaged meals and a chance to open the PC  and put a few words together.

22/01/2013
Lazy start today:-) Left about 0900 and had a coffee next to a bike shop in Birdwood called Bikes and Bits. Facinating place. Like stepping back in time. Old bike parts hanging from every possible spot in the rafters. Boxes and boxes of old bike parts on shelves and old bikes everywhere! It was like being in a time warp! And yes, they do work on new bikes but prefer the older stuff.

1946 Indian

The Motor Museum opened at 1000 and as I handed cash over I asked if there was any concession for grey hair. She laughed and gave me $4 off instead of the $2 off the normal entry fee :-)

The museum was like a surprise box, the more you looked, the more you found. The building was deceptively large. Their display of cars was fantastic but what I really enjoyed was the more unusual vehicles such s the one that was the first vehicle to drive from Adelaide to where Darwin was to be, and.... there were no roads or tracks. It was scrub bashing all the way! Another was a modifies BMW motorcycle that had traveled around the world and  Australia. Another was an Australian built car made of planks of wood with a steering wheel with the steering column having a universal joint halfway along the shaft so that the driver could walk alongside the vehicle and still have wheel in both hands. ????

First official STATION wagon.

Birdwood Hotel

The display I enjoyed best was the motorcycle section. What a range of different 2 wheeled machinery!!! Motorcycles and motorized bicycles. I spent over 3 hours just wandering around, from exhibit to exhibit. Well worth the visit.

From there I took the back way to Naracoorte. The road was so much more enjoyable than the main highway. Though once I hit Murray Bridge I had to use the highway again..
I arrived at Naracoorte at about 1700. (After stopping at the local bottle shop - Kate likes her red wine :-)) Once it was opened, it had to die !!!! A noble death though.