Thompson Dam to Adelaide
Last time I wrote a long rambling rant, I’d stayed in a gorgeous wooden cabin in a forest near the Thompson Dam, and dam did I sleep well that night. I needed the rest and it was an exquisite gorgeous place. In the morning, I rode down a beautiful lush twisty road to a tiny ex-mining town called Walhalla with a population of 18 people.. had a slow coffee looking at a beautiful green hilly landscape with the remains of the town’s history, then rode on down through beautiful forests towards Melbourne.
Morning coffee at Walhalla
The ride out from Walhalla (video, click to view)
A couple hours in, the rain came down heavy and while I have water-resistant gear and you can ride well in the rain, it vastly reduces your leeway and capacity to create other options if something goes wrong – as well as other people making mistakes, so when it really got heavy, I pulled over and found a sheltered spot to read for a while. Then it was riding into Melbourne checking into a cheap little hotel near the next day’s job. Get the course books assembled for tomorrow's job, have a meal and hit the hay.
Love parking on the footpath!
I’m couriering my working equipment from city to city, which means I can turn up to the day’s job on the motorbike, change into my professional work gear, set up the equipment and run the day’s session. After a successful day, I packed everything down, couriered it off to the next city then checked into another hotel for a good night’s sleep before the next day's ride. Love a free cooked breakfast, so I heaped up on the calories so I could skip paying for lunch and rode out toward the coast to ride along the Great Ocean Road. I was really looking forward to it, but turns out riding the "Great Ocean Road" is ruined by the "Lousy Ocean Drivers" erratically driving way below the speed limit (like 40 in a 60 zone) with a hand stuck out of the driver’s seat pointing to things for the passenger while dangerously crossing the center line from lack of attention - or maybe lack of care. I'd figured being a weekday it would be good and clear but most of the ride was about managing the traffic and not much of enjoying the road and scenery. Still, beats city riding – but I don’t intend to do it again unless I’m the sole survivor of a zombie apocalypse so I can have the road to myself. . The Great Ocean Road led on to the 12 Apostles rock formations – again, ruined by hordes of tourists on a staggering amount of busses. I could see them all turning into the car park for the 12 Apostles and the huge crowds there, I rode by with a “fuck that” sign in my head, instead stopping about a kilometer down the road to a smaller inroad leading to a completely empty viewing platform where I took take in the quiet atmosphere and view with the maddening crowd tiny dots in the distance before riding on a couple towns and finding a cheap hotel for the night.
View from an inroad slightly further on from the 12 apostles Next day, I welcomed vastly less traffic riding empty roads through long artificially-planted logging forests – these roads were designed for and are still used by logging trucks so the road is maintained in excellent condition and has long wide gracious corners that you can swing a long pendulum around at 110kph without a worry in the world, a beautiful feeling. This beauty eventually passed to reveal Long Bay in South Australia with it’s Australiana foliage on both sides of the road and long straight sections – 5km of straight scrub-lined road, 20-degree turn, 5km of straight scrub-lined road, 20-degree turn, 5km of straight scrub-lined road… you get the idea... It wore thin very quickly and made me realise that my boredom sitting in the back seat of a brown LH Torana as a kid on those SA country drives wasn’t really due to pre-teen disengagement as I’d assumed it was, that it really does get old fairly quickly. But maybe it’s just the familiarity of what I grew up with, but I don’t think so. To bring some excitement, a wasp made a bee-line straight up the sleeve of my riding jacket and stuck in there, stinging my forearm repeatedly until I could pull over and yank it out. It sat on my fingers for a minute before it flew off, which allowed me to get a couple of happy snaps to try and identify the thing, and to send to my brother who was awesome in getting onto google to see if it was dangerous. (Apart from allergies, no worries. Cheeky bugger got me six times).
So, the Long Bay went on far too long, but gave way as I approached Goolwa. I’d looked at Google and seen a few ferries I could ride on between little islands and peninsulas around Lake Albert and there was something beautiful about traveling that way.
Narrung Ferry in South Australia (Video - click to view)
Riding on towards Goolwa, the landscape became more and more beautiful with gorgeous gum trees and greenery, before riding into Goolwa proper to hang out with my life-long friend Tom and his beautiful amazing family in their gorgeous home near the beach. A home-cooked meal was wonderful music to my nose, and I was treated to tips about how my GoPro video camera works and a tasty crisp-soft cake. Lots of catching up, a view from an outlook and a bakery run started the day in a lovely way before I rode in the twisty roads down to Meadows and beyond into Adelaide.
Life-long great friend Tom and I with a time-warp photo from the future
Rode the roads I grew up on as a teenager in the 80s before pulling into my brother’s house to enjoy spending an arvo with my great and powerful brother Paul and his awesome family.
Then a quick catch-up and business meeting chilling with my mate Niki with her excellent business concept, before some very appreciated hanging time with my brother then with him and his family the next morning, great stuff and then caught a plane to Darwin for my next working job where I reconnected with echo-less memories but had a beautiful time.
Mindal Beach, Darwin. Always look out for red flags.
Then it’s flying to Sydney then Adelaide, some more catch-up, and finally to ride from Adelaide to Sydney. I’m determined to find a beautiful route to get there rather than the flat dry direct road I first drove in my Mitsubishi Scorpion when I moved from Adelaide to Sydney in 2004. It will be interesting! Thanks for reading! Bike continues to run wonderfully, it was 33,600km when I bought it 7 months ago and it now has 48,000km, loving riding!