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The First Australian bike trip

24/8/2016

 
Disclaimer - To my eternal regret I didn't take many photos during this trip and the ones I took with my shitty 10$ camera turned out, well shit. So I have added some pics from my other trips and a couple stolen from the internet to give more flavour to the narrative.

To me, Australia was the beaches and the outback. The Sydney Opera House was cool, as was all this foresty stuff along the coast but that was not what I’d been dreaming about. I’d been dreaming about white sand beaches and red sand deserts. And that’s what I wanted to explore. So once I got comfortable with the XJ, I started planning a trip into the outback. The first stage of the plan was to acquire an appropriate map. This was accomplished during my lunch break one day, via sleight of hand at the NRMA shop on George Street while no-one was looking (OK OK I stole it. One map for fucks sake, it wasn’t exactly shop lifting though I probably would get tasered for doing it today). I barely had enough money for food so I definitely wasn’t going to spend 10 bucks on a map. While all the other Indian software programmers spread out their greasy tiffins in the kitchen at lunch time, I unfurled my map while chomping on a chocolate stolen from the charity basket at work. To most of my Indian colleagues at work, I was an anomaly. A weird young punk who had no interest in saving money, eating curry and staying under the radar, like all good Indian software developers on overseas deployments were supposed to do. And to the white folk, I was just another darkie who had his eye on their job. So I didn’t quite fit in either block and kept mainly to myself. Not that I cared, I was too busy planning solo adventures to worry about what people were thinking of me.

I pored over the map, searching for desert. Didn’t need to look for long, it was the large orange blob that started not too far west of Sydney and filled up the map all the way to Perth! The quickest way to get there seemed to be towards Broken Hill and the distance from Sydney to Broken Hill didn’t look too far. A few hours easy, I thought. And I’ll go onwards from there. I hatched a plan to do a 5 day trip and take in as much of the outback as possible. It was February and there wasn’t a public holiday for months so I’d have to take 3 days off from work. Now I’d only been in my job for 3 weeks and my manager wasn’t very impressed with my proposal. But I was young, naïve and bursting at the seams for exploration. I didn’t give a fuck and fucked off anyway. Over the course of the next few months, I had several run-ins with this particular slave-driving manager and the cunt got me back finally by not extending my contract but I had explored the fuck out of Australia by then, besides leaving a trail of fatherless, half-caste children in my wake. I think I won.
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So one fine summer morning, I strapped my rucksack to the back of the ventura rack on the XJ600 and headed west. Now the trouble with getting an overview of regional distances by glancing at a map of Australia is that it can give you the wrong impression. Sydney-Broken Hill is over a thousand kilometres. I could’ve sworn it looked less than 500 on the map. By the time I got to Dubbo, much of the day was gone and my arse felt like a fresh new arsehole had been pummelled into it. The desert was still nowhere in sight and looking at the map again, I seemed less than halfway to Broken Hill. Welcome to Straya matey! She’s a bloody big’un innt she?

But I wasn’t fazed, having done a few big motorcycle trips in India, I was ready for more. At Nyngan, my dreams of red Australian dirt starting coming true. The landscape turned deserty and everything was covered with the fine red sand of the desert. I pulled over next to a muddy river to eat a sandwich and ruminate on how far I’d come. For the past 3 years I’d been in a tumultuous relationship with a superhot but unhinged Russian girl and I’d broken up with her just before leaving for Australia. The Australian trip couldn’t have come for me at a better time emotionally. I had needed to get out of that relationship and sitting here at the edge of the desert, staring into nothingness, becoming nothing, was exactly what I needed.

And the nothingness was so real. I’d never seen or even imagined so much space, such endless horizons. Riding dead straight for an hour between Nyngan and Cobar froze me to the bike and when I tried to get off at the fuel station, I fell over with the bike on top of me. I sat in a corner there for a long time as darkness descended wondering why this fast, straight line riding without traffic was harder than it first appeared. I’d done long days in the saddle in India but I wasn’t used to the consistently high speeds. And I was only doing the speed limit. In India, there is a constant barrage of obstacles and kamikaze road-users you have to dodge. Dogs and buffaloes will run out on the road, you will travel through the middle of a village with ladies drying their washing inches from you, tractors and bullock-carts will block your way on a single lane road, you’re constantly slowing down and accelerating, weaving and swerving. The level of focus required is easy to maintain because you know you will die within minutes if you don’t. But the average speed over a 100KM stretch rarely exceeds 60 kmph, even on highways. You did big days but only covered 300KMs at the end of it. This outback riding was very different. No obstacles, nothing obvious trying to kill you. But holding a bike wide open for 1 minute, let alone 1 hour is something I had never done before and there was a different kind of concentration and endurance required.
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But I prided myself on my endurance so I gathered myself and headed further west from Cobar as dusk turned to night. I didn’t know that this was the most dangerous time of day to be out on a motorcycle in the outback. We don’t have wild animals running across our roads at night in India you see and all I really knew about Australia was gleaned by closely scrutinising that beach poster I’d grown up with. As Kangaroos starting popping onto the road in front of me with alarming regularity, I freaked out and crawled along at 60 almost popping my eyeballs trying to pick them in the dim headlight. A road train went thundering past me blaring his horn, scaring the beShiva out of me. And then, like magic, some lights twinkled up ahead and Emmdale Roadhouse emerged from the gloom. It looked like a deserted haunted-house but I could’ve hugged the building, I was so relieved to find some respite from the road. I walked in and bought the cheapest sandwich in the place and asked if they was anywhere to sleep. The old moll pointed out the door. I looked around in case I’d missed some secret cabins coming in. there were none. I looked back at her, quizzically. She looked at me like I had asked her a dumb question and was keeping her from important business. “Go on, there’s no accommodation here”. This was a culture shock. Having travelled extensively on shoestring budgets in India, I’d never been rejected out of any place so rudely. You rock up at a highway joint in India regardless of the time of day or night and the people will always try to serve you as best as they can, especially if you’re a tired, solo traveller on a motorcycle. If there is no accommodation available, people have let me sleep in their personal shacks, on patio floors, or terraces or fields but I’ve always been looked after. And if there is literally no place available, they will try to call around or give suggestions on what I could do. A traveller or a guest is treated with respect and care in India and I just assumed that’s how it was around the world. I was shocked that this didn’t seem to be the case in Australia. I walked out Emmdale road house, ate my sandwich and rode on till I found a spot in the bush to spread out my sleeping mat under the stars. I wasn’t carrying a tent and was dead scared of snakes (that’s something I did know about Australia). I lay awake to visions of a slithering serpent crawling across me as I slept. But the sky was clear, millions of stars shone brightly down at me and I couldn’t help but marvel at the majesty of it.
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After an eventful sleep I woke to a beautiful cloudless day. I did my first open-air shit in Australia. Light and liberated, I embraced the day. As I headed west towards Wilcannia a most wonderful thing happened, the memory of which stays crystal clear in my head till today. A big, orangish Kangaroo suddenly appeared in the low scrub on my left and starting sprinting along the road. I was doing about 80KMPH and slowed down to 60 and this guy was keeping pace. It was the first Kangaroo I’d seen in the day time and I was just blown away at the speed and grace of that big animal. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, I was all alone on this endless road in the Australian outback and a Kangaroo was heralding my arrival to his people. I felt welcome. And blessed. As I stopped to take a picture to remember the moment, a 4WD pulled up and I feared the worst. Some racist is probably going to abuse me or worse, kill me and bury me in the nothingness. But the old man just asked me if I was OK and needed any help. I was stunned and thanked him profusely for asking. He winked at me and drove off, leaving me confused about his intentions. I didn't know, then, that the great australian wink was as ubiquitous and harmless as "she'll be right".

At Wilcannia I filled up and was pleasantly surprised to see my first aborigines. For my 12th birthday, Dad had gifted me a map of Australia drawn on a cloth and it had aboriginal symbols and instruments like a Dingo, Boomerang on different parts of the map. I’d always been intrigued by Aboriginals and had hoped to interact and get to know them in Australia. The black kids hanging around outside the servo hassling me for “smokes, Mista!” weren’t exactly what I had imagined my first contact with Australian aborigines would be like. I had expected a more romantic first meeting “HarryD, I presume”, I’d expected some wizened blackfella with a spear to say when he saw me emerge from the desert dust. The kids pressed money in my hands and asked me to get them smokes from the servo. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get them themselves but in the spirit of trying to strike up a conversation, I bought them the smokes. They took ‘em and ran off, leaving me looking like a fool in the glare of the servo attendant. This episode left me very confused and my romantic notion of the aborigines (based on how they were portrayed overseas) were somewhat shaken.
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From Wilcannia, I made for Lake Menindee. It looked fascinating on the map, 2 bulbous blobs of blue in an ocean of orange. The dusty dirt track was the stuff my Australian outback dreams were made of. Empty, scrubby, parched land with the occasional shady tree and me on my motorcycle raising dust through it. I felt like the explorer I’d always wanted to be. At Menindee town I fuelled up at the station where a chirpy young girl started chatting to me from behind the counter. She had light brown skin with golden hair, probably part aboriginal. As I paid her the money she said “Ta”. I said “What?”. She said “What?”. I said “what did you mean by “Ta”? She laughed and explained what it meant. Oh, I said I thought it was some exotic aboriginal word meaning “peace be upon you” or “travel well stranger”. She laughed again.
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I asked her how to get to the lake and she said, I’ll take you if you give me a ride on your motorbike. I said cool but I don’t have another helmet. She said “no worries” and hopped on anyway. That’s the first time I’d heard that expression “no worries”. It sounded Buddhist and I didn’t quite grasp what it meant but I liked it immediately. Anyway, Kate took us on a dirt track that crossed a train line then went over a little sandy hill where I nearly dropped the bike. This only made Kate hug me tightly so was clearly a clever strategy. I fumbled a bit more before reaching the top of the hill where I suddenly beheld a vast expanse of blue water in stark contrast to the dun coloured desert around it. It was breathtaking, Lake Menindee, the deep blue waters created a huge oasis that extended beyond the western horizon. There were dead trees of all shapes and sizes poking out of the water along the shoreline and thousands of birds swarmed around. We sat there in silence for a while before I announced I was going to camp at the lake. Kate had to go back into town so I dropped her back promising to catch up with her later. She suggested “8PM”, I suggested “sunset” because this was way before I begrudgingly accepted that clocks and mobile phones were necessary to live a satisfying life.
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I chose a big tree at the shore line, collected heaps of large bird feathers, which were strewn all along the shoreline and spread out my sleeping mat. I then dug the biggest feathers I could find into the sand to demarcate the boundaries of my little patch of the world. It was corny but fuck it, it was mine and I was proud of it. I went back to get Kate at the first hint of sundown as I didn’t want to miss the spectacular sunset that was obviously going to follow. As we sat watching nature’s spectacular movie unfold, my mind switched to my childhood poster of beach, water and Australian blonde. I checked Kate's hair colour again. Close enough. Ha, some dreams do come true! I dropped Kate back and went to sleep at my million star hotel.

My morning slumber was interrupted by loud mechanical noises very close to me. I woke up in a panic, looked around me but couldn’t see anything. Then suddenly 1, 2, 3 dirt bikes came storming out of the tree line and onto the sandy lake shore. They were roosting each other and pulling wheelies. I’d never seen a proper dirtbike ever before and they looked like they were having the time of their life. But I was also annoyed because their loud shenanigans were so in contrast to the peaceful natural surroundings and they seemed like intruders.
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Packing up camp, I headed west through the Kinchega National Park. The track skirted the lake and was very sandy. It was hard going on my bike and I dropped it at least 10 times before the track veered away from the lake and hardened up (the track, not me!). The track came out eventually on a metalled road with a sign saying “< Wentworth | Broken Hill >”. I went right and into Broken Hill. It’s a weird town, Broken Hill with wide roads and grand old buildings but hardly any people. It has the air of a once bustling town trying to hold onto its glamorous past. Street names like Sulphide Road and Carbide Street cracked me up. I had no interest in towns or mining so I headed out to the Desert Sculpture Park outside town. This had rock sculptures parked on the top of a hill which were pretty amazing and full of interesting information about the area. Then I headed west to South Australia. The state borders of Australia have always been a source of curiosity and amusement to me. Arbitrarily drawn lines across no-man’s land, unlike the ones in India where the borders are drawn on complex criteria like ethnicity, language, culture and geography. When you cross over a state border in India, it immediately obvious from people's dresses, the language of the signs and geography. Crossing over to SA at Cockburn was interesting though neither the language nor the countryside changed much! I spent the night near Yunta, under a bridge, next to a little stream, like a Hobo. I was a little less scared of snakes after my 2 nights in the open and slept peacefully.
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I would’ve liked to visit Adelaide but having used up 3 out of my 5 days and being 1500 KMs from Sydney, I needed to start making my way back. Heading back the way I came held no appeal to me so looking at the map, I decided to head to Mildura and make my way from there. The South Australian countryside got greener around Peterborough and there were huge farms. I remember wondering where they got enough water to irrigate the farms. It was a bit of a slog to Mildura but it was worth it. A picturesque town on the banks of the Murray river, I enjoyed dawdling while watching an ancient paddle steamer go up and down the river. Thinking I’d like to come back and spend some time in this town, I went back to my bike and hit the starter. Nothing! All my worst fears started screaming in my head. Fucken shitbox is gonna leave me stranded 1500KM from home! That motorcycle salesman looked dodgy for sure, it’s probably never been serviced in its life. Since my mechanical knowledge was even less than my knowledge of Australia, I just kneeled and prayed and cursed for a while then hit the starter again. It fired up! Before it could change its mind, I jumped on and crossed into NSW. At some point before Mildura, I’d entered Victoria, only briefly but still, I checked it off my list! The bike played up again a couple of times and I worked out it didn't like to be started when it was hot so I timed my breaks to allow it to cool down. Mechanical analysis is over rated.

Nearing Balranald around dusk, I was bombarded by the biggest swarm of insects I’d ever seen. It was like the biblical plague of locusts. My helmet, an open face thing with a visor was covered in them and some of them got inside the visor up my nose and into my eyes and ears. I didn’t wear any gloves or boots so a few of them went up my jacket and jeans. I danced a funny dance on the bike trying to squash them as best as I could. I stopped a couple of times but it was the same whenever I got back on so I just limped into Balranald and collapsed in a fast food joint. I sat there till the young attendant girl looked like she might call the cops on me. I emerged and found a beautiful spot to camp under some huge trees next to the Murrumbidgee river. I walked around town at 9PM and it was a ghost town, kinda cool though. Sleeping under a huge gum tree I was woken by a loud crack in the middle of the night, then a thump. In my dim torchlight I couldn’t see what had happened and all looked the same as I’d left it. In the morning I discovered a massive tree branch on the ground about 10 feet away from my head. It had obviously spontaneously fallen off at night.
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The next day was a slog. I don’t remember the exact way I came back but I do remember the endless Hay plains and arriving in Cowra. The road finally got some nice bends after Cowra and I was enjoying myself when I came around a sweeper doing 120 and saw a big black snake lying across my entire lane. I had nowhere to go and cut him in half. Now, in India, it’s really bad luck to kill a snake and all sorts of legends are associated with killing snakes. One says that if you kill a snake, their mate will come after you to take revenge, another one goes if you cut a snake in half, the portion with the head will continue to live and come after you. I wasn’t really concerned about the snake’s sweetheart coming to look for me in suburban Sydney but the second myth concerned me enough to go back to make sure that both pieces of snake were plastered on the road and incapable of revenge.

Civilisation shocked me after 5 days in the outback and Sydney seemed to have gotten larger and busier in my absence. This is why I like travelling by land though rather than by air. As you approach your destination from ground level, at an organic pace, you have time to get a feel for its surroundings, its history, its context, its place in the world. Air travel provides no context or time to adjust to your destination and I find it incredibly disorienting.

It was a big day that last one, over 12 hours on the bike but I was nowhere near as tired as I was on Day 1 as I pulled into Emmdale roadhouse. I guess my body was getting used to the Australian motorcycling experience. There were more trips to come but this first trip remains my favourite for the rich memories and the greatest personal growth.

Read about my next adventure - Australia - Abode of snow

To Australia!

24/8/2016

 


I first came to Australia on Australia Day 2002. I was 23 years old. For 23 of those years, I’d lived with my parents, wrapped in cotton wool like most Indian kids from well-off families. Sure, I wasn’t your average Indian kid, having roamed the Himalayas on my own and had spiritual discussions with nomadic ascetics in caves. But I’d never lived away from home, even in another city, let alone another country. Never managed my own finances, put bread in a toaster or even washed my own plate. We’re sheltered, us privileged Indian kids. For those 23 years of my life I woke up at 11AM on weekends, was given a glass of milk in bed by one of our servants and then began an extensive ritual of being handed delicious food at regular intervals by family members and servants who did everything for me from ironing my clothes to cleaning my bathroom. Sometimes I reminisce about those days of excessive comfort when I collapse into bed from a hard day of working, looking after kids and doing house work. And I wonder “What the hell am I doing in Australia?”. In India, I’d only have to do the “hard day of working” bit, everything else would be taken care of.

Anyway, I digress from the story I want to tell. There are obviously underlying issues I need to address.

I’d dreamed of coming to Australia since I was about 10 years old and first saw a poster of an Australian beach with a tanned blonde lady who’s swimsuit was highly modified. I later realized that the swimsuit was actually stock and was called a bikini. I remember that poster clearly and have no doubt that it was a major catalyst in my relentless march towards puberty. After finishing school, I nagged my father to send me to Australia to study. All the kool kidz wanted to go to America and England, enticed by fancy names like MIT and Oxford. But I wanted nothing more than to be at that beach from my favourite poster, with kangaroos hopping around me while a bronzed blonde handed me my chocolate milk (I hadn’t caught onto beer then). I didn’t even know, or care, how good the education in Australia was. It was the education I wanted. But it was too expensive and my Dad wasn’t a “debt” kinda guy. He’s still not. I tried to sneak my way to Australia again after finishing my engineering in one of the top engineering colleges in India. This time trying to get Dad to pay for my Masters in Environmental Science at the University of Sydney. I got the brochures, put in my application, got accepted and begged Dad for money. It was still too expensive though so I got an IT job instead and replaced my aussie poster with one of an attractive Indian model in a Sari, resigned to my fate.
Which is not as bad as it sounds because fate works both ways and it worked out a way for me to get to Australia anyway.

I had opportunities to go to America but I knocked them back. My colleagues thought I was insane, it was everyone’s dream to go to America. But the idea of America never appealed to me. It was like I was waiting. For what? I didn’t know. And then I did. A request came in from Australia for a software developer with exactly my skills. My company arranged a telephone interview for me with someone from St.George Bank in Sydney. To prepare for the interview I listened to Ritchie Benaud’s cricket commentary. I can’t remember what I said in the interview but I got the role and was on a flight to Sydney within a week, the first employee from over 1,000 in my office (most of whom were a lot more skilled and experienced than me) to go to Australia. If this isn’t fate, I don’t know what is.

I reached Sydney on Australia Day 2002, which is co-incidentally also India’s Republic Day, the day the Indian Constitution was framed and India was declared a republic, January 26th 1950.

I was shocked as the taxi drove me to my B&B in Strathfield from the airport around 9PM. The streets were so deathly quiet and empty that I thought there must be a curfew on. Now, it is likely that many of my Australian friends will be unfamiliar with the word “curfew” so let me explain. In India, there are regular riots. Not like your cute little Cronulla riot where a few drunk yobos took their shirts off and drank marginally more VB than they usually do on a Saturday arvo. No, I’m talking about people burning their fellow countrymen alive impervious to their terrifying screams of agony, raping defenceless women at knifepoint and setting alight and destroying all and any public and private property they come across. Riots are worse than war. At least in war, you know who your friends are and who the enemy is. When a riot happens, after the mandatory (and crucial) lapse into shock and paralysis, the authorities clamp down with a blanket ban on civilian movement. Any person seen in public may be arrested or shot at. This state of virtual emergency is known as a “curfew”. It’s supposed to give everyone some time to calm the fuck down. It used to happen with such regularity across India that it became the butt of jokes and worked its way into Indian language slang. That’s what I was imagining had happened in Sydney that night. Coming from 23 years of living in the constant noise and commotion created by 1 billion people living in close proximity, it was inconceivable to me that such silence and isolation in the middle of a world-class city was “normal”! I have never really reconciled to this, even now.

Anyway, this was supposed to get to motorcycles quickly but I’ve obviously failed spectacularly in that aim. Immigration is a pandora’s box and it was ambitious of me to try to weave it as the prologue of a motorcycling story.

But let me at least kick off the motorcycle story here.

My Indian IT employer booked me a week’s accommodation in a B&B, gave me $2,000 cash as a salary advance and sent me over to fend for myself. On the first weekend after I got here I blew all my cash, which was supposed to pay for my rental bond and living expenses for the next 1 month, on a motorcycle.

Close Motorcycles in Redfern saw me coming from miles away I reckon. They sold me the most dilapidated shitbox in the whole shop, an ancient Yamaha XJ600. But hey, it was 600cc and it was mine.

​Continue onto the First Australian Bike Trip
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BikeMe Pilgrimage 2016

2/8/2016

 
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I’d been wanting to do a camping trip away on the Husky for ages but it hadn't happened for one reason or another. So when Rob floated the idea of the Original Recipe Pilgrimage, back to basics camping carrying everything you need, it sounded like a perfect trip for the Husky. I did consider taking my road bike, a Monster 1200S, the thought of hammering it on the Ilford-Sofala raceway was salivating enough. But I managed to stay true to my original plan and I'm glad I did.

The BikeMe Pilgrimage camping weekend is held every year in memory of the Bathurst Motorcycle races. The motorcycles stopped racing at Mt. Panorama years ago but some hardy souls continue toasting the memory of those heady days of racing and rioting. The Pilgrimage is always held at the coldest time of the year in one of the coldest places in Australia, Sofala. The temperature dropped below freezing and only the toughest and the stupidest answer the call. And I'm not tough.

As the day approached, things started to unravel a bit though. First the Husky refused to start. I charged the battery and it started. Then 2 days later it refused to start again. I changed the Battery. It started. Then I got sick. I took 2 days off work to give myself a chance to recover in time for the Pilgrimage. It worked, I felt good enough by Friday to consider going. Maybe not good enough for a sloggy dirt ride and camping in sub zero temperatures but good enough to get out of bed at least. But if you can get out of bed, you can ride a motorcycle!
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Morning Husky, Clean Husky. That marbley pebbly road surface is really slippery!
I’d planned my route around 2 good looking (on the map) dirt rides. The first was in the Blue Mountains from Hartley to Jenolan Caves taking in part of the famous Six Foot Track. The second ride starts past Lithgow, at a little village called Sunny Corner and takes you all the way to the Sofala campground some 70 odd kilometres away through rough bush tracks.

I was pumped (full of panadol!) and keen to hit the trails. The track to Cox’s river campground is slow and slippery going. The track is narrow, clayey and covered with those marbley little pebbles that make going doing steep downhills a real arse clenching experience. And to make it even more interesting, there were quite a few 4WDs coming the other way at regular intervals. I was super cautious. Just where I hit the 6 foot track, I overtook a couple of 4WDs, then came around a steep downhill right hander and stacked it. It was a rookie mistake. The front wheel got stuck in a little rut and because the track was narrow and I was heading straight for the edge of the cliff, I tried to turn while the wheel was in the rut and the front washed out quicker than Snowy can say “IED”. I fell on my right shoulder (and it started really hurting like a bastard the next morning!) but had the presence to keep a grip on the clutch and keep the motor going. Picked it up quickly as I knew the 4WDs I had just overtaken would be coming around the corner any second. Too late. Just as I was picking the bike up, they were there and my embarrassment was complete. Well, actually no. there was more to come. I couldn’t get back on the bike. Picture this. I’m standing on a steep, slippery downhill slope at the edge of the road with a steep cliff a few feet away. The front is slipping even with the brake pressed. The bike is loaded so I can’t just swing a leg over and need to contort my left leg straight in front of me like a high kicking Cossack dancer while holding the front brake and maintaining my and the bike’s balance to avoid us toppling over the cliff. All this under the watchful stare of 2 families worth of 4WDs. The pressure was on and I took what seemed like 5 minutes to get on, while the 4WDers waited patiently, with not some slight amusement I’m sure. I overtook them again down the road but.


Coxs river campground is beautiful though and well worth the effort to get there.
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Plenty of water in the river and the grass is a lurid green.

From there I headed up on fire trails through the Kanangra Boyd National Park towards Jenolan Caves.
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This is a beautiful area with lots of little creeks and shady camping spots.
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There were a few fallen trees on the track but it was easy to get around them through the bush
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I finally came out into civilisation on the Jenolan Caves Road, maybe 5 Ks before the caves and headed towards Hampton. From Hampton, I headed down the Rydal road and explored the coastline of Lake Lyell. There’s a whole range of bush tracks around the lake, some are well steep and challenging. It’s a very scenic area and I lingered.
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There is something very therapeutic about being on your own in the middle of nowhere. Nothing to distract you from yourself and your innermost thoughts. You must confront them
​I was paranoid about my fuel range as the Husky only has a 12L tank but I was pleasantly shocked to find I’d only consumed 6L for the last 100KMs, which included some pretty slow going on bush tracks. This gave me the confidence that I’ll be right for fuel for the rest of the trip.
As good as the 6 foot track was, it was nothing compared to the ride from Sunny Corner to Sofala. That is just a sensational ride.
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Scenic, Remote, isolated, technical, narrow, wide, bumpy, smooth, heaps of wildlife, thick Jungle and dairy properties. It just has everything. I didn’t see another vehicle or human for the whole 70Ks except in the last bit where I saw a couple of farmers while crossing their property. I was acutely aware that this could get messy if I got lost or fell off or if the bike played up. But that just added to the adventure of it and the exhilaration at the end.

It hadn’t rained for a week around here but it was still wet enough to keep me on my toes and I had a few interesting 2 wheel sliding moments. 
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There were so many kangaroos jumping around through this whole trek, I lost count of the number that dashed in front of me. Everytime the road opened up slightly and I thought I could open it up and relax a bit, bam! a hopping rat jumps out of the bush, scaring the shit out of me.
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Evening Husky. Dirty Husky
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Getting close to Sofala, the road crosses the Turon river 4 times on causeways and the water gets progressively deeper and faster on each crossing. The last one was genuinely scary with the water coming up over the front fender. I had visions of drowning within shouting distance of the campsite! But thankfully that didn’t happen and it was great to see some familiar faces as I rolled into the campsite close to dusk.
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The Sofala campsite
The night was cold, long and full of hugs, explosions and deep and meaningful conversations. It was below freezing of course but that's not the bit I remember. The memorable bits were the eulogies to fallen comrades, the drunken riding, crashing and near lynching, the shouting and laughing. The specifics are not important. What's important is that it was a great night, which lead to a deep and blissful "passing out" in the wee hours of the morning.

And the ride the next day was a lot less enjoyable on account of the shenanigans of the previous night. That tends to happen though. No-one goes to a BikeMe event counting on being fully functional on the ride back home. It kinda defeats the purpose.

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