WARMING TO THE TASK

Just before Koumala on the Bruce Highway Queensland

Listening to WORKING CLASS MAN Jimmy Barnes 1985

Yep got the original album of this one with a sweaty Jimmy

 banging it out in front of a burning cane field. Seem to remember him and his band

 playing on stage at Adelaide Uni in the summer rain and still staying plugged in!

Ah the good old days before OH&S

 Someone else's soap.

My thongs crunch and slide on the frosty grass as I head for the shower block. I round the corner and spot the code pad on the door...aaaarr F!@#$ what was it again...errrr...I pat my pockets looking for the paperwork with the code I'd promised myself not to lose. Forgotten the code ave ya mate, hang on I'm just coming out. Yeh thanks mate hate these things (don't swear Deano be polite). The door swings open and the old boy resplendent in green corduroy dressing gown and blue slippers waddles past in a steamy haze of Old Spice,  Colgate and some soapy smell I can't quite identify. I dive in before the door shuts and do the regulatory check of the shower cells. Nah that one's got grass and muddy footprints on the floor, that one's got water and paper and crap everywhere...what were they doing in there...that one's next to the shithouse...erm, this one's got a little bit of everything, aah it'll do. 

Hmm, OK, time for the time honoured shower block plan.

 Hang everything up, on the door furthest away from the shower, in the order you take it off. Make sure you pile it all on the one hook, so it can all fall off together and get wet as soon as you reach for it when you come out. Now ease your already wet feet carefully through your jocks till you unbalance and sit heavily with your bare ass on the little wood slat thing on the side, which is always wet, shit that's cold. Right, hit the hot tap and while you're waiting  for the hot water to come from the other side of the earth, grab the soap. Hang on...aaaarr !@#A$ where's my soap? !@#$#@! it! (note, swearing: to invoke blasphemy or invoke a deity to empower your words...hmm...that doesn't supply soap) My mind runs over all the little paper wrapped round soaps I've knocked off on the way from motels and parks, still stashed in my pockets and luggage...but not here. I stand shivering in the nuddy and contemplate redressing and legging it back across the frosty grass. Aaaargh no. Hmm...well. My eyes fall on a colourful bar of soap left on the soap holder, kind of a green stripey number...the ones with a limey tropical smell...and it's almost new...score. Hmmm...well...ah what the hell...but I'll smell like the old boy...OK...well, and maybe I'll wash my feet first to wear off any bugs on the outer layer...yep it's a plan...but...can soap harbour diseases..

...I dunno...who knows...

  ...ah I'll google it later, where's the bloody hot water?

One small lap.

Back in the seventies and eighties when the world seemed much larger and we didn't have access to know everything (know-alls?), I loved the Bathurst motor race. Somehow the vehicles and drivers were a more tangible thing. The teams came to Mount Panorama once a year in cars that looked like the ones we might be able to own, they crashed a lot like we did, and their cars blew up a lot...like ours did! I've watched thousands of laps, know every corner and visited maybe four times to watch.

The worst of the nasty weather has passed and I've patched up Precious and myself as well as I can. It's time to set off into the fog and mist, do a quick lap of the circuit, and ride some iconic roads through New South Wales. 

I wobble out of the Kelso pub and head back into Bathurst and ride onto the circuit. It's cold

and misty and I have the track almost to myself. I find myself riding super slow soaking up every corner remembering what happened where and appreciating the skill it takes to hustle a vehicle at high speed around this circuit. I enjoy it so much I only do one lap just to preserve the vibe from that lap. It also occurs to me that my vibrating friend Precious has now lapped two famous street circuits, Mount Panorama and Isle of Man!

Gotta get going.

I'm way behind, I think. I've gotta be in Darwin eighth of July and while I don't have an itinerary I've got a feeling I'm slipping behind. Hmm. Well just a couple of recommended roads and we'll get serious. I head into the mountains behind Sydney and by the time I get to Lithgow I'm freezing. I fuel up in Maccas on coffee and some sort of cardboard tasting thing

and head to Wisemans Ferry. Wisemans ferry is the oldest ferry crossing in operation in NSW and is surrounded by national parks and beautiful scenery.  The road after Lithgow is super busy with more radar speed signs than I have ever seen and heavy truck traffic. Aaaargh. It's a relief to finally drop down to the ferry and then wind along the Hawkesbury River almost on my own. The sun makes an appearance and I turn onto the Wollombi road and ride though beautiful manicured back country NSW all the way to Singleton. I get a room at the pub  for fifty bucks and force down yet another 

chicken parmy, ah yes, the dinner of tasteless champions.

Good pub in Singleton. Lots of good country vibes.

Two more and then I gotta go...right?

The Great Dividing Range that runs down almost the entire east coast of Australia provides

endless epic motorcycle rides. I spent my youth reading motorcycle magazines listing iconic

rides such as the Putty road, Bucketts Way and Thunderbolts Way in the northern tablelands of NSW. The word is the Putty road is a mess of speed limits and traffic these days so I give

 

that a miss. I head out of Singleton, get on the freeway, and duck down behind Newcastle before turning onto Bucketts Way towards Gloucester. It's still cold but the rain stays away denying me the chance to test the Tarzans Grip repair job on my sleeve...probably for the best. Luckily Bucketts Way turns into Thunderbolts Way at Gloucester. Bucketts Way to Gloucester was er very nice...the kinda road you might take your Missus on Sunday arvo in her car with the heater on. Maybe pig out at an overpriced bakery (patisserie), check out old stuff in shops you would've chucked out years ago, and look for a dunny every second town. Hmm.

However...

...after Gloucester the traffic disappears and the fun begins. The road snakes in and out and rises and falls following long winding valleys in the cold dark shadow of towering green

The missus would like this.

ridges. It scoots alongside bubbling rivers and creeks before breaking in and out of the cold sunshine after long steep grinding climbs. The DR is not a particularly pleasant thing to ride with no trust in the front tyre but we work together and get it done. We pop out of the ranges heading towards Walcha and it just gets colder and colder. Brrr. Some ladies at the bakery in Walcha are just closing but knock me up toasted sandwich and kindly listen to my whinging about the cold. I would have liked to head back to the coast on the Oxley Highway but I have arranged to grab a front sprocket from the Suzuki dealer in Inverell so it's back into the cold for another one sixty K's on Thunderbolts Way.

Aaaarm, low brow, corny, unsophisticated,
cheap shot, boganish, unecessary pic of a sign.

Um...when in Inverell

OK the following is totally my fault!

 A little story on how a "she'll be right" attitude can bite

Well you asked for a room...that's
what ya got!

you on the bum. After successfully picking up my sprocket from Vince Strang Motorcycles I'm on a bit of a high, things are going well, what could go wrong? The pub stay in Singleton the night before had been a winner so let's do it again. Uhu. It's a freezing Saturday evening and the huge town centre is all but deserted which is kinda odd. It's a big place with many many pubs so I bowl into the first one I find aaaaand....got any rooms....yeh  no worries $50 a night, er do you want to go up and have a look first...nah all good I'll pay now, where can I leave the bike. I put the bike in the yard out back resplendent with dodgy characters checking me out, grab some luggage, and head up stairs. As I top the stairs the warmth of the pub downstairs disappears completely....jeez it's cold up here gonna have to crank the heater. I find my room in the furthest corner next to the fire escape. I crank the key and....WTF...it's a room...with a bed...with an ancient

Bzzzzt bzzzzt pfffffft zap!! Is that a floating
wall or a floating floor?

yellow basin with twin dripping taps and...that's it! Hmm, no telly, no heating, only sheets and bedspread with no blankets, and a curious ancient wooden floor that has an inch gap between it and the walls hmm. .. 

...open planning for mice perhaps.

 I dump my stuff on the floor and go back downstairs to beg some blankets. I form a plan to hang out in Maccas down the road till bedtime and then come back, roll myself in anything warm and survive the night. I'm almost comfy by 9.45, all rolled up and warmish listening to Mick Doohan on a podcast with lights out planned for ten. I quickly hop out at 9.59, plug the phone into the charger and dive back in before the hard earned warmth escapes ...when...

BOOOOOM!

Its Saturday night...DJ night apparently in this pub...

aaaand, it's on in the room directly below me...

....aaaaaaaaaaaaargh.....

....suddenly I've got Daryl Braithwaite banging out Horses at a godzillion  decibels and a hundred pissed punters yelling the chorus spurred on by the DJ turning the music off and on, right under my bed! 

Noooooo!

The bed head pulses with the megawatt bass and the floor boards develop a weird harmonic all of their own. My jacket vibrates off the thoughtfully supplied rack and falls onto all my stuff on charge from the one ancient power point. I leap out harbouring thoughts of  a low rise towering inferno, chuck the jacket on the bed, and stand staring at the door. For !@#$ sake, that's it, I'm leaving...erm...hmm...can't really...er how long can this last...maybe I should go downstairs and join in...and give up this luxury, no way. I spend the next four hours playing guess the song from the pounding bass that completely overwhelms anything slightly musical...aarrrr quite the night...will I check the room next time...hmm well, a smarter person would. 

No more messing about, time to go north.

The next morning Precious is covered in ice and the little sheepskin on the seat looks like some sort of hairy frozen dinner plate. I nick a tea towel off the pub clothes line, give her a wipe over and hit the road. Plan is to go up to Tenterfield and then across to Byron Bay. The morning is beautifully clear and the road between Tenterfield and Casino is a total gem. A super non stop winding road and better than anything else yet. I'm supposed to be making time and here I am playing again. 

As I approach Byron Bay I flip up my visor and...it's warm,  

at last!

Yep good times, sunshine and warmth together, woohoo! 

Relaxing Byron Bay, line up line up.

I work my way through the ranges before the coast to Byron Bay and run into grinding traffic and multiple speed limit changes. I use the GPS to find the most easterly point of Australia and  park up by a beautiful beach amongst bumper to bumper traffic. I'm still all rugged up from the Inverell cold and feel seriously uncomfortable amongst the local beachgoers in this very expensive piece of real estate. I shoot a couple of photos, grab a local to take a shocker of me, and jump back on the road.

Eastern tip, tick, job done, glad to be gone!

South Ozzies might like to know what happens 
 in other states while they're freezing!.

Yeh nah just one photo...the little button on the top,
yeh push it down...cheers...oh dear..

Brisbane takes it's toll and grinding up the Bruce Highway

 to Cairns.

 Cairns is my planned jump off point to go to the tip. I've got no spare days anymore so dial

Ok, who remembers which
Commonwealth games
this was from?

in the GPS, Byron bay to Cairns, let's go. After a forgettable night in the tent at Kirra Beach I set off to tackle Brisbane. Being South Australian I have a thing about toll roads and having to pay to get somewhere. Everyone warned me to take the toll toad round Brissy as the city centre is a nightmare. Nup I'm not gonna pay...well...I zoom up the M1 and I really do need to get on. Hmm. As I approach the city I see the Gateway toll road approaching. Nup not gonna do it....it's bullshit having to pay...yeh nah yeh nah aaaaaah Ok but !@#$ knows how I'm gonna pay. As I zoom on I see a sign telling me I just have to ring up and pay later...and I have a phone...hmm that's handy. The road works a treat, I zoom around the city and I'm vibing back up the M1 in no time...and as much as it hurts, it's money well spent. The M1 turns into the A1 after Gympie and is super busy. I ride till almost dark and get the last room in yet another ancient motel in Gin Gin. The highway is lined with parked semis for the night making for a bizarre tunnel of taillights along the highway and an all night cacophony of heavy duty starter motors and idling diesels. 

The Bruce Highway

The Bruce Highway runs from Brisbane to Cairns and is the lifeline of Queensland. As it

was originally single lane it was a traffic nightmare and although many passing lanes were built it's still a dangerous road. It is presently being upgraded along the entire length to multiple lanes...yep 1700 kilometres...of road works. I spend three days stopping and starting, riding kilometres and kilometres at forty, sixty, eighty kilometres an hour, and sitting for hours at lone traffic lights in the middle of nowhere. The traffic constantly bunches into lines of up to a hundred cars caravans and semis demanding constant concentration on the vehicle in front. As much as I grumble, when I pass three written off cars in the scrub covered in police tape, and have to wait for an hour between Townsville and Cairns while the police cut a driver out of a Nissan Patrol, they really do need this road fixed. It's a slow forgettable ride.

Koumala pub. One of the best places I've stayed.

 Although the temperature warms my bones I'm battered daily by a nasty northwesterly wind and I'm constantly losing time to the road works. The countryside varies from rainforest to long plains of dry scrub and high grassland and of course after Mackay, the cane farms. I stay in a gem of a pub in Koumala and camp in Townsville, once again the only tent! I finally get to Cairns late afternoon, get entangled in peak hour traffic and end up downtown looking for accommodation. This place is pretty seedy.  I'm seriously

Yep it's crap up here! This is at Cardwell.

knackered so pull over and sit on the grass verge and knock back a muesli bar. Marianne looked up a caravan park for me the night before so I punch it in the GPS and, wow, 1.7 k's. Back on the bike and a half hour later I'm in a tiny box (with telly and aircon but no dunny!) right at the back of the park for three nights. Yep, time for a quick rest and prepare for the cape.

Aaaaaaah it's been a tough couple of weeks...

...and now it's about to get tougher!

On the balcony of the Koumala pub.

Is there such a thing as arty truck shots?

Bedtime in Townsville. No accommodation due 
to the NRL state of origin game in town.

Look who's turned seventy!

 

Tenterfield Saddlery stiill in High Street Tenterfield

Listening to TENTERFIELD SADDLER Peter Allen 1972

Moving story of his life beautifully written and sung by Peter Allen

An Australian with an amazing story.

This is pure musical sepia and an Australian classic.

 

REALITY CHECK

It's Saturday morning in Cairns, mid twenties and overcast. The door of my unit is slightly ajar to catch a tiny breeze and I'm digging the freedom the warmth brings from having to rug up and stump about in multiple layers. Tomorrow I'm gonna hopefully make an early start, and head for the northern tip of Australia. I've just done an oil change on the DR and installed new rear cush drive rubbers to hopefully quell the vibes but who knows, that's all I can do. This is the bit that's bothered me most since I decided the bring this bike. It's two thousand K's up and back, mostly dirt road, and the rear tyre should just make it. I've no time for breakdowns or touristy stuff so am depending on a bit of luck and throttle work to get me back on schedule to Darwin. Am I a bit apprehensive? 

Of course!

There will be very limited wifi and phone coverage for the next fortnight so the next blog on how I go might be a bit of a wait...shit, even I want to read it!

Cheers Dean

NEXT BLOG...THE CAPE...I HOPE!

I LOOK FORWARD TO READING YOUR COMMENTS WHEN I GET SOME COVERAGE BACK!

LAP UNDER THE SUN