​My love affair with the Blue Mountains continues unabated as once again, when I had the opportunity to go north or south, I headed west on the Husky. I was hoping to build on the exploration work BrotherPete and I had done around Lithgow a few days before. But before I got to Lithgow, I got distracted (this seems to be happening frequently in 2016!) by the King’s Tableland sign at Wentworth Falls. The King’s tableland is a “peninsula” jutting out from the main spine of the East-West ridge of the Blue Mountains. There’s a dirt track that runs the length of the Kings Tableland plateau till its abrupt end over the cliffs at McMahons lookout. As I head down this track, I can feel the heat of the day ramping up. It’s gonna be a scorcher! 

​The track itself is quite pleasant, mostly open firetrail with some rough and steep sections. By now I’ve realized that the Husky’s rear shock is setup hard, which is excellent for aggressive supermoto action on the road but is too hard for the dirt. So I get knocked about a bit on the rough sections. Tweaking the preload is a pain because there’s so much stuff in the way. I’ll get to it one day but in the meantime, it’s a good excuse to work on my “stand up” posture. Everyone’s seen those really cool pictures of adventure riders on Enduro bike, standing up and disappearing into glorious sunsets. But when I tried this, I didn’t feel in control of the bike at all. I went to my local shop and asked them to raise the handlebars so I could stand up straighter. The mechanic, who’s an unusually honest bloke, looked at the bike and said “It’s already as high as it should be. You need some weight on the front or it’s gonna wash out without you knowing what’s going on.” He proceeded to give me tips on body position. Who says customer service and honesty is dead in Australia. Highway Performance Bikes at Rockdale, folks. Hit it. 

​Anyway, it seemed pretty straightforward when he was explaining it at the shop but it’s a different story in the real bush! You need excellent balance and stamina in the legs. Your knees should be bent while clutching the tank and this, along with your feet on the footpegs is what “holds” you on the bike. It’s the same on any type of motorcycle really.
For best control, your hold on the handlebars should be light and used only to provide directional input and “feel” what the front end’s doing, not to actually hold you to the bike. But this is much easier when you’re sitting on a road bike and you’ve got heaps of body parts in contact with heaps of bike. On a slim dirtbike with hardly any tank area, while standing, you’ve pretty much only got the inside of your knees and boots to provide any clamping area to hold you to the bike. And then you have to somehow balance while every rock you hit tries to catapult you off the bike. This dirt biking caper is not as easy as it looks! But it sure IS fun. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I almost certainly have really bad technique but Fuck, tell that to someone who cares. I’m having the time of my fucking life on this thing! 

I come to a tight left hander (would be a 25/35 on the road), throttle off and dab the rear brake slightly. The rear wheel skips as it searches desperately for traction. I counter-steer into the corner. The front slides, I let it. I get on the gas. The rear also slides. I let it. The thing I’m learning most from the Husky is to just let it do its thing. It knows a lot more than me out in the bush and I’m starting to trust it even when both wheels are sliding. A few minutes later I’m going down a slight decline at 50 and get air over a slight bump. In the air, I spy a sharp right hander coming up. As soon as I land, I lock up the rear brake. The bike slides and I push the right handlebar. The front slides and the bike turns sideways abruptly. The bike is at (what feels like) full lock and my right foot is out skimming the rough ground. I feel the front will wash out from under me at any second and the temptation is to stick the foot out further to break the fall. I resist this temptation, placing inordinate faith in the front TKC80. It pays a handsome return on my faith and sticks. I have just executed, what seemed like to me, a full lock speedway type manoeuvre. I’m sure it was nowhere near as dramatic but fuck, I’m stoked! I consider placing my camera at that corner and doing it again. Then I realize that the odds of me pulling that off twice out of twice are less favourable than me having a threesome with Megan Gale and Jennifer Hawkins. Twice.

​I quit while ahead and continue on. Soon, a most interesting rock formation rises majestically from the bush. I stop and check it out. It looks like an overhanging arch of the Sydney Opera House and is most unusual in its convex, cave-like shape. It is obviously an aboriginal sacred site and would've had an appropriately meaningful name but some white guy, in his infinite wisdom, has named it Battleship Tops. You’d have to be particularly naval if the first thing that came to your mind when you beheld this rock was “battleship”. 

​But white people have plenty of form when naming things inappropriately, at least this guy tried to name it after the actual physical feature. Many other landscape features are named after totally irrelevant people or things, with total disregard for established names. Mt. Everest, for example. The local sherpas had a name for this magnificent mountain centuries before any white man laid eyes on it. A name fitting of its place at the top of the world mountain hierarchy. Chomolungma, they called it. “Mother Goddess of the Earth”. Impressive eh? But some white guy came along hundreds of years later and named it after the Surveyor General of India at the time, George Everest. Everest, who never even saw the mountain in his lifetime, himself thought the name was inappropriate and protested it. But no heed was paid, the white man’s discovery of the mountain had to be stamped on history. You can just imagine the conversation in some colonial office:
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“Hey old chap, so how big is this mountain you’ve discovered?”
“It’s the highest mountain in the Queen’s commonwealth, Sir. Some say it’s the highest in the world!”
“Is there a name for it?”
“Yes Sir. The locals call it Chomolungma”
“Chomp a Lung what? What does it mean anyway?”
“Mother Goddess of the Earth, Sir. It’s a sacred mountain for them”
“How absurd! Bloody natives. They should stick to carrying loads up the mountain and leave the naming to us. The heathens don’t even know the Queen’s language. Send Watson a wire immediately and tell him we’re naming the mountain Everest, after that George guy, what’s his surname?”
“Everest, Sir. Yes Sir, right away Sir.”

​Lake Burragorang, created by the Warragamba dam, is the primary source of Sydney’s water supply. From McMahon’s lookout it looks absolutely stunning. A deep blue gleaming jewel framed by the hazy green background of virgin native forests. McMahons lookout is little known and at the end of a rough, 25KM long dead-end track, it’s pretty isolated. I sat with my legs dangling over the 200Metre cliff and ate my sandwich while listening to the sounds of the jungle below me. The kool kidz might’ve called it “peaceful as”. 

​I smashed it back on the dirt back to the Great Western Hwy and reached Mt Victoria where I saw the speed limit was 40 down the hill due to road works. I shouted “Fuck That” in my helmet so loudly that a cockatoo shat itself as it flew over me at that exact moment. This was, of course, much worse for me than it was for the cockatoo but I took it as a good omen anyway. I decided there must be some alternative way to descend the escarpment so I took a punt and headed down the road to Bell. Sure enough, after a couple of false starts, I stumbled onto the Hartley Vale Road (or something like that), a rough and narrow track descending sharply to the little hamlet of Hartley Vale. There were more pleasant surprises in store for me as I thoroughly enjoyed the short but fantastically twisty Browns Gap road and then took the turnoff to Hassans Walls up a speedy dirt track. Who dares, fucken wins folks and Hassans Walls was a massive Win! 

​I can’t believe I’d passed under this fantastic lookout hundreds of times and never knew of its existence. It has panoramic 270 degree views of the Blue Mountains and the southern valleys around Hampton and beyond. For a while, I just sat up there in a little cave carved out of the cliffs and gaped. I’d bypassed the shit fight of the roadworks on the highway, found a couple of fantastic alternative roads and an epic lookout along the way. I took it as a sign from the gods to keep up this exploration shit!

​I refuelled at Lithgow and hit the dirt heading up the GlowWorm road. Not too far into it, I went up a side track marked as the “Maiyingu Marragu Trail”. I laughed. I was sure this was the trail that the map said was the “Blackfellows Hands Trail”. So now, in this politically correct world, “Blackfellows Hands” was obviously not a very cool sign to have. The forestry authority, wanting to be seen doing the right thing had changed the name to an aboriginal one. Problem solved eh. We love aboriginal culture now and we like dem blackfella names too, “dey iz kool”. Now that there’s hardly a culture left anymore, it’s OK to rename and promote aboriginality. It’s a crazy world I tell ya. Doesn’t matter what you actually DO as long you’re seen to do the right thing. The forests in here have been logged to fuck. The trail is in appalling condition with massive potholes due to extensive use by heavy logging trucks. But hey, it’s the “Maiyingu Marragu Trail”. Very aboriginal eh. Everybody’s happy.

​It was hot, the road was bumpy and the fucking forestry fucks had conspired to suck all the enjoyment out of my ride. It was the low point of my day. But then the “real” gods intervened and confirmed that no matter how powerful man may think he has become, the Gods will always run the show. They revealed to me the real Maiyingu Marragu, totally unexpectedly. I was immediately struck by the spiritual aura of this place and my frustrations evaporated as I walked around in a daze of awe and wonder. 

I can easily see how this place would’ve been sacred for aboriginals. Anyone who feels a connection to this earth would unquestionably be moved by this place. It was also easy to imagine ceremonial aboriginal gatherings under the vast caves while a thunderous sky roared overhead and waterfalls poured off the cliffs around them. I will not try to describe Maiyingu Marragu but encourage you to make the effort to find and explore it yourself. Try not to be a dickhead when you’re there but. You wouldn’t want an idiot spraying graffiti inside your church or ancestral home would you? 

​While that was the unexpected highlight of my day, the Wolgan Valley that came next was a pretty close second.

​The Wolgan Valley reminds one of the age of dinosaurs. Its grand scale and primeval landscape of forests and cliffs seem much more plausible in imagination than reality. 

​A newly sealed road goes all the way to the ultra-luxurious Emirates Resort, where you can get a 2000$ a night room. Or you could continue on the dirt road to Newnes and camp under the cliffs and stars for sweet fuck all. 

​It’s reassuring that despite rampant commercialisation, there are still amazing experiences to be had in this grand country, for free. Long may it stay that way! Newnes was once a bustling mining town and it has an interesting history that is worth looking up on the internet. It’s now an isolated and dusty end of road shack, with a population of 2. The proprietor of the Newnes Hotel and his dog. It’s an ideal place to hide from the world, or your wife. The Newnes Hotel proprieter, lounging on the front verandah, asked me to get my own drink out of the fridge behind the counter because it was “too fucking hot to move”. 

I asked him if there was a pool in the river where I could cool off but he was pessimistic on my chances of finding one in the shallow river. Undeterred, I crossed the river and poked around the ruins of Newnes for a bit and then stalked the river till I found some rapids and a little pool, just deep enough to lay in. The water was crystal clear and I let the river wash over me.

That dip set me up nicely for the run back home, which I accomplished in record time and glowing spirits, bypassing the roadworks after Lithgow again. I re-fuelled the Husky at Penrith after 280KM on a single tank. It only has a 12L tank. I love this bike more everytime I ride it! Might have to do a full on review. It deserves one.

I was talking to a mate the other day and he mentioned he’d recently taken some overseas visitors to show them the Blue Mountains. I said “Cool, where did you go?”. He looked at me like I’d asked him if he was male or female. “The Blue Mountains, we went to the BLUE MOUNTAINS!”. I knew what that meant of course. They’d gone to the 3 sisters at Katoomba. This is not the first time I’ve heard this so my shock was momentary and not staggering. What IS staggering is the number of people who think that “The 3 Sisters” lookout IS the Blue Mountains. For them the Blue Mountains is like a Madame Tussauds Museum. You sleep in the car till you get there, tick it off the tourist list, then get back in the car and go to sleep again.
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They miss the point.

​The Greater Blue Mountains is a world heritage area covering over 10 thousand square kilometres and stretching almost 300KM from North to South. You could spend years roaming this dense and magnificent wilderness and still not see it all. I have always found the Blue Mountains fascinating. They’re not very high and they’re not really mountains at all but the amazing cliff tops and dense eucalyptus jungles create a very dramatic and unique landscape. Since I started looking around for the best dirt riding trails around Sydney, I’ve realized that many of the best trails are in the Greater Blue Mountains area, especially around Lithgow. I did a couple of rides recently in this area.

​The first was with my mate Pete when we were heading to Oberon to catch up with some BikeMe folk. We went up the Bells Line of road and took a couple of dirty diversions along the way. The first one was up Comleroy Road from Kurrajong, down to Wheeny Creek and then up to Bilpin via Mountain Lagoon. 

​Wheeney Creek is a nice campsite in thick forest and would’ve been pretty quiet for the few campers there till we braaped along, splashing noisily through the creek. It was a bit damp and misty but the moist conditions didn’t bother us and we had great fun on this section. Not especially fantastic riding but nice, forested countryside and open firetrails.
After droning along a wet Bells Line of Road (is it ever not wet around here?!), we again turned north onto dirt tracks starting at the ZigZag railway. Pete was on his much abused but stoic DR650, which made my Husky 610 look a bit dainty. But as we hit the trails, the low weight, quality suspension and excellent poise of the Husky quickly put me at an advantage and I pulled the lead on Pete. It was my first ride on the Conti TKC80 tyres I’d put on the supermoto rims and I was immediately impressed with their grip on the damp and sandy trails. 

​The main trail was easy going but it wasn’t long before we stared exploring some of the smaller trails tearing off into the bush. There were just so many trails in this area that we were exhausted just thinking about the possibilities. We were time constrained though as we were meeting up with some BikeMe folk at Oberon so we cut our explorations short and headed towards Lithgow on the GlowWorm Tunnel Road. Along the way we spied some amazing rock formations and couldn’t resist exploring. What we discovered was a whole valley full of strange, monolithic rock formations. It was all weathered sandstone and it was mind boggling to imagine that nothing more than the natural forces of wind and water acting over millennia had produced this unbelievable natural art. 

​Pete and I rock climbed to the top of one of these weird and wonderful “pagodas” and talked about how good life was while watching the clouds roll in and out of the valley. It was a most surreal spot.

​From Lithgow we headed to Oberon via Hampton and explored the top speeds of both bikes. The Husky topped out at about 140 and it was a struggle to keep it there. I’m ashamed to say that Pete’s DR pulled a lead on me here. Maybe if I rode naked and lay flat on the seat, I might catch him. An easier way to increase top speed would be to put on the bigger adventure wheels I have lying in my garage but that’s way less sexier than lying naked on the seat doing 150 and I’m all about bringing sexy back. YEAH!
​

​My next sojourn to the Blue Mountains was only a few days later on the CBR. My 06 CBR600 is an excellent bike but its 10 years old and after a couple of track days it was clear to me that the suspension needed improvement. The forks were farked and the shock was shocking. So it wasn’t a shock that I’d need to fork out some cash to fix it. Want me to go on with the puns?
My mate Paul McDermott is a very handy bike mechanic, though this is not his day job. He is also very good at his day job, though that has nothing to do with mechanics. When I explained my suspension woes to Paul, he volunteered to help me out. While I was away holidaying in India, he serviced my forks and replaced my shock with a $1500, top of the line, ELKA unit. When I got back he claimed the transformed CBR was the best handling bike he had ever ridden and he refused to return it to me. I had to bribe him with some Indian goodies to make him return the bike. Once in my possession, I set about finding out for myself how good the transformed CBR really was.

​I headed to the Putty road via Wollmobi. I did 2 laps of the ten mile and then sat in the shade of my favourite tree on that stretch and reflected. The bike was indeed much improved. The front was transformed, no saggy, divey, spongy forks anymore. Firm, precise loading and excellent feel. The rear was firm and just very planted through the smooth bends. I was impressed. I love this bike. Its revvy and playful character complements its incredible handling perfectly. It’s just so easy to go fast on. I was having so much fun that I decided to continue onto the Bylong Valley Way to test out the high speed handling.

​There are few roads around Sydney nowadays where you can really open up a sportsbike. The Bylong Valley Way is one such road. Mostly comprising of short straights and long open sweepers, it’s a great “test track” to work on your suspension settings. The only problem is the incredible scenery of rocky cliffs and dense forests (we’re still in the Greater Blue Mountains!), which is highly distracting! But I was focussed on my work and in the interests of science, I proceeded to test the bike’s handling at increasingly higher speeds. 

​I was happy to note that the bike was rock solid at high velocities but the high speed rebound damping was too harsh as a result of which, the test rider’s testicles were getting jolted too frequently. This information was logged in the data logger for subsequent action.
At one point a large Goanna crossed in front of me and I had to brake hard to avoid it. I decided to stop and chase it off the road. He didn’t seem very thankful and stuck his tongue out at me instead.

​After the BVW, it was a fairly routine slog back home on the Great Western Highway, which is anything but great really, considering it’s restricted to 60KMPH for vast stretches due to roadworks. 60 kilometres per hour. Fuck. I can’t get out of first gear at that speed. All up I did 850KMs for the day and was on the bike for 12 hours. Was pretty knackered and convinced that the CBR600RR is not meant for these kind of days. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it again at the drop of a hat though. The CBR is just so much fun to be on!

I have recently returned from a 5 week overseas holiday with the family. We went home to India and spent a week in Malaysia en route. “Home, Harry?” I hear you ask. Well, I still call Australia home of course. But I do have a non-girt-by-sea home too and I suspect a trip to India will always be “going home” for me. It is the migrant’s enigma. Australia appeals to me with its obvious attractions of natural & wild beauty, laid back lifestyle and the rule of law.
While India tugs at my heart, with reasons that are much less obvious and harder to explain. 

​It’s always made sense for me to have an Australian passport but for many years I wasn’t ready to witness the tearing up of my Indian passport. So I clutched it tightly to my chest, refusing to sever that symbolic connection. After a decade of residence (and going through painful visa application processes for a few countries while my wife, with her Australian passport, just rocked up at the airport!), I finally reconciled myself to doing the deed and took the oath of allegiance to Australia (not the Queen mind you, the monarchy can go get fucked). And I’m proud of it too.

​To motorcycles then....I didn’t ride a motorcycle for 5 weeks while on holiday. Not so much as touch one actually. I didn’t think it was possible but I did all right. Seeing bikes all around me in India certainly made me want to jump on one and sample the chaotic Delhi traffic from behind handle-bars. That’s a whole different story in itself, riding a motorcycle through Delhi traffic. I hope to write about it someday. The day I feel I can do the subject some justice. But there are so many aspects to that story that it boggles my mind every time I try to write about it and I fail spectacularly in harnessing the thoughts flying around in my head like supernova debris.

Over the past few years a lot of my riding has been very fast and exciting but mostly to familiar places, with familiar people, on familiar roads. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been bloody fantastic and I wouldn’t change a thing but I've had the sense for a while, that something’s missing. On holiday, while I had the time and inclination to stare into space and think about stuff, I looked up the word “adventure” in the dictionary. “a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome” it said. I scratched my head. This defined pretty much all my riding over the past few years but a lot of it didn’t feel particularly adventurous. Bold? Sure. Risky? Sure. Hazardous? Sure. With the time, space and catalysts for introspection that India invariably provides me, I realized that the missing ingredient in my riding adventures was the “uncertain outcome” bit. And suddenly it clicked. I needed to return to my roots. Exploration! Motorcycling for me had always been about exploration and discovery of the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of myself and the world around me. It was time to put the adventure back into my riding and “uncertainty” back into my rides!
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On my return, I couldn’t wait to get on my bikes and start exploring afresh, the wide open spaces of this wonderful, girt-by-sea home of mine.

​My Husqvarna TE610 is a true adventure bike. It can go anywhere in the right hands. My hands are not the right ones but I’m learning everytime I get out in the bush. The first trip back on the husky was definitely “adventure riding” though unexpectedly it was heavy on the adventure and light on the riding!

​I headed south out of Sydney with no particular plan, vaguely hoping to meander down to MacPass at some point. After a pleasant, unhurried run through the nasho, I stopped for a quick look at Kellys falls in the Garrawarra State Conservation Area near Helensburgh. I didn’t know it then but that was pretty much the end of the day’s riding for me but the adventure was just beginning! A short walking path took me to the top of Kellys falls, which was a trickle of water dribbling off a sheer cliff about 50M high. 

​At the bottom of the falls lay a beautiful pool that looked incredibly inviting for a dip. Intrigued, I started looking for ways to get down to the pool but there was no walking path heading down the cliffs. So close to Sydney, it was impossible that some hillbilly hadn’t invented a path down to such a beautiful swimming hole. So undeterred, I started bush bashing my way through the wilderness, hoping to find a way to get down the cliffs. I didn’t find a path but what I found only egged me on further. I stumbled onto another beautiful waterfall. This one was so well hidden that I doubt many people would even know about it. Crawling on all fours and peering over the ledge of the falls, I discovered another beautiful pool at the base of this waterfall too! 

Now I was determined to find a way down and explore the pools.
I felt like Livingstone hacking through Africa as I cut and forced my way through thick bush, shimmying down rock ledges and climbing down trees to try and reach the canyon floor. Eventually, after about half an hour of sweaty and abrasive work, I spied the second (secret) waterfall through the rainforest. 

​It was wild and pristine. There was nothing to indicate that any human had ever been here before (I’m sure plenty had but it was good to see they hadn’t left behind petty reminders of their visit). 

​I wasted no time in tearing off my sweaty clothes and plunging into the cool waters of the pool. The water from the skies fell around me in a gentle, misty shower, carried by the wind while the sun made random flying rainbows. It was sheer magic, that spot, that moment. In that instant, as I closed my eyes and submerged myself under the waterfall, I felt validated in not chasing the same twisty roads and corners today like I had done a thousand times before, heading south out of Sydney. I didn’t care if I went up MacPass today or not. I’d discovered something truly special and it was moments of pure “being” like this that I’d been missing in my increasingly planned and structured life.

After a rejuvenating couple of hours at the pool, I explored the rainforest some more and found the pool at the bottom of Kelly’s falls. 

​This was again a most enchanting spot, though a little less “secret”, as humans had clearly walked here before! 

​Now I set my mind to finding a way out of here, back to the top of the cliffs. I was sure that everyone who’d been here before wouldn’t have hacked their way through the jungle like me. There must be a shortcut somewhere. A chink in the armour of the fortress. I walked up to the base of the cliffs and started making my way around. I saw some small clearings at the base of some of the cliffs. This could only mean 1 thing. Rock Climbers! Having been an active rock climber for many years, I know how rock climbers operate. They will clear out the shrubbery at the base of cliffs to be able to get holds on the rocks to get off the ground. This was encouraging! Sure enough, after a little probing, I found a steep “path” hidden in the folds of the cliffs. It was exposed and a bit airy but with a little rock scrambling, I was at the top in a few minutes. 

​I took my boots off and discovered a couple of engorged leeches wiggling inside. They'd obviously been enjoying the taste of my spicy Indian blood!

 ​I sat at the top of the cliffs with my feet dangling over the abyss and reflected on the definition of adventure again – “a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome”. The day hadn't turned out at all ​like I'd expected. Hmmm, ​I reckon I might've had an adventure today!