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ON THE ROAD

A two week ride along the Qld coast

Yarn 2

THE BIG LOOP

A 51 day solo ride around Australia

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CENTRAL AUSTRALIA RIDE

A 5 week ride from Mooloolaba to Ayers Rock

‘On the Road’… 2015

Coastal Queensland- (Sunshine Coast to Cairns on Highway A1 (Bruce Highway), returning Cairns to Sunshine Coast on Highway A7)

Actual route travelled

It was time to be off on one of my long-distance motorbike rides to some area of Australia. I’m not much into just going on weekend joy rides with the boys, preferring the ‘on the road’ long distance adventures. I ride a customized 2004 Harley Davidson softail standard and usually travel alone, however this time I’ll be travelling in the company of a mate on his Honda ST 1300 as I want to voyage into isolated areas and being in company was a safer option.

Our plan was to leave from the Sunshine Coast, an hour north of Brisbane and travel 1800km north along the coastal Bruce Highway (A1) to Cairns in north Queensland and then head west 1200km to Mt Isa. From Mt Isa we would travel the 2500km returning to the Sunshine Coast via the various sealed roads throughout ‘Outback’ Queensland. At that stage the most likely route would be south from Mt Isa to Bouliaeast to Winton, south to Longreach, through Biloela back to the Sunshine Coast.

Night-time temperatures in ‘Outback’ Queensland can fall to below zero degrees in winter, so we wouldn’t be doing any camping on this trip. Instead we would be stopping overnight at mates’ places, pubs and caravan parks. All up the trip would be about 5500km and take around four weeks.

My Harley Softail packed and ready to hit the road.

We would only ride daylight hours between 08.00am and 04.00 – 04.30pm as the risk of collisions with kangaroos, emus and cattle are very high. Kangaroos and cattle, in particular, are active and unpredictable, especially in the early mornings and evenings as they hang around the sides of the road seemingly to wait for passing vehicles and see how quickly they can race across the road in front of them. Unfortunately not being particularly flash at this game, a lot of them get splattered with drastic outcomes for both parties. For those on bikes, these encounters are usually quiet painful and ugly.

The itinerary was to depart in the first week of June and finish before the end of July so as to avoid the coldest parts of winter. My mate contacted me that he wouldn’t be ready to go until mid-June, so that’s fine, I would arrive back in Australia for the 16th which would give me time to overcome jetlag, take my ride out of storage and prepare it for the trip.

I have spoked wheels with tubes on my bike and I wanted to replace the rear at least, with a tubeless rim and so carry with me a tyre repair kit (the $20 -$30 plug type from Supercheap Auto shops which can then be inflated with 3 small pressurised canisters of CO2). With this kit I could repair a rear flat without having to remove the wheel and avoid being stranded in remote areas waiting and hoping for some form of assistance.

I had been down this path once before. Not with a flat, but with a snapped drive belt (yea, a snapped drive belt on a Harley with only 18,000kms and it happened on a straight flat section of highway). Everyone that I spoke to about this has said 'never seen this before mate' or 'bloody unlucky mate'. You'd think that with odds like this I'd at least win a lottery now and then.....but no! That never happens!

So at that time, here I was 150km from Roma, the nearest town on a Sunday afternoon at about 3.00pm and up the proverbial creek. That time, I was truly stranded as bugger all traffic was passing and so I started looking for a spot to set up my tent when another biker came along, and lucky for me as this guy originally came from this area of Qld. He made a phone call on his mobile, which I couldn’t on mine as I was with Vodafone and useless out here, to the owner of a cattle property he knew in the area and then remained with me until the property owner arrived in a small truck about an hour later. We loaded my bike on the truck, I jumped in with the driver, waved goodbye to the biker and we drove off down some rough and dusty bush tracks for about thirty minutes,with me wondering ‘where is this guy taking me?’ We finally arrived at his homestead beside a dry creek where I was accommodated in one of a series of caravans used as ringer’s barracks. The tracks we had travelled on, I later found out, were on his property and we had arrived at the homestead via the ‘back way’.

It took four days to locate and have a new belt delivered to Roma, 600km west of Brisbane and 150km from where I was. In the meantime I got too with the ringers mustering and penning the cattle on the property. I had never worked at cattle mustering before but I reckon I was doing ok at it as in a short time I had enough cow shit on my hands jeans and boots just like the real ringers had. It was dry dusty work being in the middle of a long drought and the cattle not have substantial feed or water needed to be mustered and trucked to the cattle markets.

When the belt arrived the property owner’s wife drove me and the trailered bike the 150km into Roma to have it repaired and so enable me to continue with my trip. This type of country assistance is part of the Australian culture; however it is prudent to avoid vulnerable situations as Australia has it's fair share of scum and ratbags ready to bash you over the head and knock off gear if the opportunity arises. It’s best to be prepared and even though I don’t carry a spare belt (the odds can’t be that high!!) a rear flat tyre could well put me into a similar situation, hence the reason for fitting a tubeless rear.

The front wheel I left as is because it’s not a difficult task to raise the front with timber or rocks and remove the wheel, and by carrying a spare tube in my kit with a couple of tyre levers I can easily replace it and inflate the tyre with the CO2.

I fitted a Contour Roam 2 action camera near the top left-hand fork instead of on the helmet (apparently only the cops are allowed cameras on helmets and riders have been booked for having them attached there). I modified the camera by removing the inbuilt microphone as any speed over 30km/h produced excessive wind noise during playback. Instead I soldered two thin cables about 80cm long where the microphone was attached and refitted the microphone to the end of this wire. I can now put the mic inside my visor and waffle on as I please without wind noise. Works great, even the swear words are clearly audible whenever some dickhead cuts in front or doesn’t give right of way.

When I arrived, I contacted ‘old mate’ to be told there was now a further delay until 24th June. So we agreed that I would prepare my ride and head to Bundaberg about 300km north to a mate of mine to fit the rear wheel after which I could decide whether to return to the Sunshine Coast and wait until Ian was ready to leave or I would head northwards from Bundaberg on my own and he could catch up with me.

I had a nice sunny ride to Bundaberg and arrived at a friend’s place where I usually stay. Dave and Cynthia are great hosts and we used this occasion to sink a few beers, wines and the odd port or two, together with the great Aussie bbq. I grew up in Bundaberg, and I still have mates and family that live there so the three-hour ride is a good shakedown run to a familiar and pleasant destination. My Harley riding mate Pete and I fitted the rear wheel using Pete’s lathe to turn up new spacers to accommodate the thicker bearings. After a couple of hours trying to remove the brake rotor, and snapping two torx spanners to boot, we took the wheel to the Harley shop where it was removed in five minutes with the help of a couple of good whacks with a brass hammer (sometimes reckon that’s probably just what I need also).

Bundaberg Harley has been a great mob to deal with and in this instance the work was done free of charge. A couple of years back I was in north Queensland when the starter motor crapped out on the bike and my mate Tom had to push me down the road to get it started. When they don’t go, they don't go and they are a heavy piece of crap to push. Believe me! Just ask Tom! At that time, I phoned Harley shops all over Australia to track down a new starter and finally got hold of the importer in Melbourne who told me there was one at Bundaberg Harley. I called them and they didn’t hesitate to put it on a Greyhound bus even before my payment had been processed, and sent it to a bike shop in Mackay where I was able to access it the following day and have it fitted. This type of support is invaluable when riding around a big isolated country like Australia.

I fitted a 170/70-16 Bridgestone tyre with very fine rear-guard clearance (Harley owners will say, ‘it can’t be done’……5000km later, I say ‘it has been done’) it is a fine clearance, but nevertheless a clearance. After fitting the tyre, I spent a couple of days visiting friends and family and going on some local rides whilst waiting for old mate to arrive.

Whilst I am still in Bundaberg,Ian sells his apartment on the Sunshine Coast and says he needs to wait for settlement and won’t be able to get away now until 11th July!!! Bloody hell! Not the news that I wanted to hear and I realised that if I continued north now on the ride by myself, he would probably never catch up with me, so I decide to return to the Sunshine Coast and wait the extra week until the 11th July…….frustrating! I will have lost nearly three weeks of my ‘vacation’ ride time.

Ed, Jeff, Pete……Bundaberg June 2015.

Finally, at 08.00am on Saturday 11th July, three weeks late, we rendezvous at the Chevallum BP roadhouse on the Bruce highway near Mooloolaba for the trip north.

An hour of pleasant riding and we arrived at Gympie. The road conditions were very good even though some roadworks were underway to widen the road so as to incorporate double lanes either way. The speed limit has been raised in many areas from the standard Qld road limit of 100k/h to 110k/h, or so I thought, because cars were zooming past me and I was travelling at or over 110k/hr!!! (Maybe the snowflake ‘P’ platers however, don’t have to abide by