Winter is coming

Listening to I'll BE GONE Spectrum 1971

Iconic Hippie song with killer harmonica hook

You Tube the clip..oh yeeeh

 Wandering the roads in double denim 

A mini moke full of young ladies (PC correct term for sheilas)

S000 uncool it's cool!

Complicating a simple plan...my forte!

A killer cold breeze blows up Currie street. F!@ck I hate the cold...it's mid May, dark by 5.30, and now the cold has come...humph. The 545X artic bus pulls in, I grab the new tyre for the DR at my feet, hoist my backpack full of sprockets and bearings and dive in the rear door. I settle in the seat just behind the door,  jam the tyre in front of my knees, pile my bag of junk on top of it and close my eyes for a snooze. Fellow passengers file past noticing the same old guy who seems to be taking a whole motorcycle home on the bus, piece by piece. Hmm..yep... new tyres and other stuff for the old DR650...my old Precious. The same bike that took me round the world in 2014, which is pretty much buggered, and has been my dogsbody backup bike ever since as it's not worth selling.

...AAah crap...how did I get here?

Life tip #1...don't let dreamers plan stuff!

Sooo, I have more than one motorcycle...maybe several...maybe more than some wives might be comfortable with...anyway, one is a rather large adventure bike a 1000cc Honda Africa Twin. It's a flashish modern thing and is enormous and heavy. One sees clever people on youtube doing all sorts of skillful things on them off road buut not me.  I might be a chicken or I might be finally learning from that fracture list in the righthand column,  but this thing weighs three times my weight, has ninety odd horsepower, and is a scary thing in tight off road situations. When riding it off road I don't really control it as much as carefully guide it about feeling clever that I'm still upright and haven't had to organise a crane to pick it up. Hmm, it makes a beautiful exhaust note though and is a joy on good roads.

So, plan A) Ride the Honda round Australia sticking to nice roads.

Hmm, at least gotta get to the tip of Cape York, maybe the Savannah way and Gibb River road. If/when...no...no ifs, when I crash up there I'm gonna need help to pick it up off me. Six weeks before leaving time I realise I'm going my own again, the Honda's tank is kinda small, too small,  it needs some luggage stuff, some crash bars, I don't really want to scratch it, and bashing the big lump through sand and rivers with no margin for failure on my own doesn't sound like fun...

...I like fun and I, well, need really big margins...so OK...new plan.

So plan B) Buy a small bike and fit it out in the five or so weeks left. 

Aaaarm what else have I got...oh no...please

Five weeks to go and I now own a used WR250R Yamaha, woohoo. What a little gem and when I ride off road it doesn't try to kill me and is so much fun. Right, I'm super keen, hit the net, get a big tank, luggage racks and do the usual boring prep shit you read about in most blogs. Four weeks to go and oh oh, cos of covid affected supply problems there are no racks or tanks to be found for months...anywhere...for any money,

...aaaaargh now what...

Hmm...well...

There's an old bike in the corner of the shed, it has a huge tank, racks, and certainly owes me

Mechanical archeological dig. Last exhumed in
 2014...probably should be left unmolested... 

nothing...I probably owe it.  It was running a couple of months ago before it crapped a seal and blew all of it's engine oil all over the back wheel at high speed...scary...oh and then there was the primary gear that came loose again...and the clutch slips...and it stinks of fuel...tyres chain and sprockets are stuffed of course...and the odometer reading is, 

"how much, really, that much...oh crap when did that happen?". Ooooh dear...do I have time for this...or do I really wanna do this?

Ah cut the bullshit Deano, you've now got no choice.

So plan C) Apply CPR to old Precious the DR650 

and learn to ride with my fingers crossed.

                                                                         Aaaah three weeks to go, a worn out bike and 

I'm just not keen. The weather has turned cold,

Aaaha the best motorcycle movie ever,
right here on my VHS player...wonder if
the elephant's seen it.

and it's getting dark early. Stupid lazy optimism that an easier solution will magically appear cons me into laying on the lounge and keeping warm like a normal person. I really should be addressing the rather large elephant watching telly in the room with me...buuut instead I befriend him and we eat peanuts together. Humph...I force myself to make lists and then I lose them. I start stripping the bike but my heart's not in it and days slip by. I toss and turn all night condemning my stupidity and searching for that magic solution but when I 

wake...that elephant's still in the room asleep on 

the couch. 

Aaaaaaaaaaargh. 

Is it adventurous or stupid to take an old worn out bike 20,000k across some of the world's roughest and remotest roads?

Well, I guess I'm gonna find out...

Old Man Arms

Skin gone to wax paper

sun spots and scars

hard living under the sun

crafted my old fathers arms

Now I'm gettin on a bit

more behind me than ahead

the old man's been long gone

life's hammering me instead

Scars from broken bones

saw cuts, crashes and drips

the sun's etched its mottled tattoo

on skin exposed to lifes trip

So here they are a part of me

 pushin the wrong side of sixty

my own worn out old man arms

tellin my tale of age and history

Dean

The Phone Thing

OK I don't own a phone. Uhu. It's no special stand against technology or anything I just...never got round to getting one. Not sure if I'd have life space for one...I'm always late now...and cos I've got a conscience I'd always be answering it just to be polite. Hmm...the whole world's in there though, I could sell my bikes, lay on the lounge and safely google myself to do anything or go anywhere. Naaaar wouldn't work. I do like looking at and soaking up real stuff even when it bites me. Plus I'm a particularly clumsy bastard. I drop things, lose things, scratch things and fall off things a lot. I'm sure if I did have one I'd lose it in an hour...after I'd sat on it or dropped it out a car window or under a bus or something. 

Flipside of this is I find them absolutely amazing devices...

Behold...the world. in a tiny box. 

the world's accumulated knowledge of anything you might want to know...or not know, is right behind that tiny screen...how cool is that. I once tried to point out the utter amazingness of their handheld devices to my grown kids at dinner and was met with "Dad's being  weird again" looks as they kept thumbing facebook or something else just as deep and meaningful. 

Get to the point Deano

Ok...Marianne has thrust one of her old phones at me and apparently it's going to accompany me just for this trip. Well Ok, yep, I'm thinking offline Mapsme, Ioverlander and lots of music woohoo...aaand she's thinking a real phone number, that rings, and something else called texting...hmm

...hmm, I wonder if she knows what an amazing device these things are...

Listening to SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW Gotye

Weird cool Ozzy song that samples stuff 

and apparently has nine notes from Baa Baa 

blacksheep somewhere in it. Huh? Anyway a

top song that ain't rock, and aint country...

it's...eeerm...really good!

Reality Check

Deano mate...go to bed so I can hump my blanket. 
Oh Oh, I must be really stuffed...the dog's
 talking to me...wonder if he's got a phone?

Its Monday night. I still haven't left and I'm on a bit of a downer. I've spent every spare minute for the last two weeks on the spanners after work and I'm totally stuffed (tired that is...not the victim of a crazed taxidermist). Suspension, carby, clutch, sprockets, tyres, electrical, racks, all fluids. More a high speed restoration than prep for a trip. The more I prod the problems the more they bite me, and leak on me, and break on me, and cost me...you get the picture...and the more despondent I get. Comfort food, Kit Kats, Allsorts, biscuits, chockies, anything sweet I can lay my hands on aren't cheering me up and just give me bad wind. Aaaaah wrong choice Deano. Right backup plan in place...if it shits itself I'll work my way through my shed stock. First the Honda, then when that shits itself I'll grab the Yamaha, then the z900, then the Benelli (might have to pop the engine back in), oh and then the CB650 laying up the side of the house I got for free...hmm maybe not that one. Anyway, I finally started the DR today and, well, it sounded Ok. It putted away sounding...exactly like before I started fixing it. Hmm. Well time to throw some socks and jocks in a bag, make a list of things to forget and head off...

 ...waaaait just a couple more things to fix first...

NEXT BLOG

HOPEFULLY FINALLY ON THE ROAD. 

LET'S GET THAT ODOMETER TICKING OVER AGAIN. 

GOTTA CHEER UP, AND START SEEING STUFF AGAIN. 

HOPEFULLY MY TINY TENT STILL WORKS...

...AS WINTER IS COMING!

Thanks folks for your comments, I know the process

 is kinda clunky but hang in there and bang em through 

Cheers Deano

LAP UNDER THE SUN