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Well big Suzy got me home safe and sound. For those of you that
didn't know, I flew over to Melbourne and picked up the Suzuki
GSX 1400 that I bought and rode it home. Something that I've
wanted to do for a long time - and I hope its a long time before
I do it again.
I don’t know who laid down the route for the Great Ocean Road,
but I bet he was a motorcyclist, what a fantastic piece of
tarmac. A “must do” on any bikers bucket list, what really
amazed me the most was the speed limit is 80 km/h. In WA it
would be reduced to 40 km/hr for our safety. There was no way I
could sustain that. Those corners or should I say u-bends and
left, right, left, right and left, right turns just left me
breathless, and more often than not found myself desperately
clambering for the brakes as I was going way too fast into the
corner trying to do the speed limit. Oh what fun, and it just
goes on and on and on. Apparently there is supposed to be very
good scenery along that route ? Didn't see it...
Some points about the trip:
I did a total 4030 km and it cost me $420 in premium fuel, total
spent including food, accommodation and the donation, $1050. The
priciest fuel was at Cocklebiddy at $2.10/lt.
I hate South Australia, flat and boring describes it in
general, except of course my sojourn up through the hills from
Murray Bridge to Quorn, a great little side-trip, well worth
doing if you're in the area and can stomach being in SA a little
longer. One thing that really stuck out the most was how old SA
is, like going through a time warp, just loved all the old
buildings especially the stone ones.
I stopped for a coffee in some small hicksville town and on the
opposite side on the shopfront was a sign on the window -
$7.95 24 ROLL EXPOSURE hello digital now SOUTH
AUSTRALIA, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT.
I had a little run-in with the law at the end of this leg, back
on the highway briefly for 5k before I had to turn off onto the
back roads again, on a nice long slow downhill right hand
sweeper and PING. Highway patrol car coming the other way.
119 in a 110.I’m not sure what she didn't like, the Victorian
rego bike or the West Aussie riding it. I was as nice as pie to
her, but when she decided that I needed to contribute to her
local Xmas fund, I tried to explain that I was simply creeping
up over the limit because it was a down hill road, but the flea
infested bucket of maggots wouldn’t have it. $150 fine plus a
$60 levy for the victims of crime fund, yep $210 thank you very
much. Oh well.
So that was the start of a crappy afternoon. I had finished
that lovely tour through the hills and now to just leg it home,
so on the GPS I hit go home it calculated and sent me on my way.
I have my GPS set up to take the shortest route as that usually
will take you on back roads that you wouldn't normally go on.
So off I went doing exactly what Karen (the GPS?) was telling
me what to do (just like I do for my wife).
A couple of hours later I ended up in this town at the wharf?
She expected me to get on the ferry from Walleroo over to
Cowell. I wasn't a happy little vegemite, next time I will
check the map book rather than trust her fully again. So all the
way back up the peninsula to Port Augusta and round the corner.
Did I mention that I hate SA.
But I ddn’t learn my lesson there, for some unknown reason
known only by the gods of GPSland she took me down to Whyalla,
by the time I realized it was too late and I was committed, so
took the shortest route out which was from Cowell across to
Lock, stayed in the pub for the night.
The afternoon saga doesn’t end here, pretty tired asleep by
8.00. At 9.00 I am woken by my bile coming up to visit my
throat, managed to send it back where it came from before it got
to my tongue, but I now also had a severe throat infection and
the bile was burning the crap out of that, so now I have a
severe case of acid reflux that kept me awake all night. Not a
wink of sleep, and to top it all off next morning I found I also
had a nice little head cold. Great. DID I MENTION THAT I HATE
SOUTH AUST?
I couldn't believe the number of eagles that I saw in one 10 km
stretch, 35, there were 5 birds sitting on one roo and I was a
little worried that the bugs that were on my headlight and
windscreen were going to be joined by a much larger one. It was
close, from then on I used my horn to pre-warn them I was
coming, so they would start taking off before I got there. I
guess it didn't help that the wind was rushing past my helmet at
a great rate of knots.
An hour out of Cocklebiddy, 7.30am, I ran into very thick dense
fog, for safety I was staying in the right hand wheel track
(because of any highly depressed skippys that may have had the
wrong intensions with me) then all of a sudden a dirty big truck
would literally appear out of nowhere right in front of me (in
his lane) and frighten the crap out of me, you literally had no
warning that they were coming, they didn't slow down much
either. This fog lasted for 20 odd kms, I loved that bit.
The coldest I had was from Lock, I started at 7.00am and it was
1 degree, 3 hours later when I stopped for fuel, it was now at 5
degrees, my finger tips and toes didn't love me anymore. Going
to the toilet for a pee was a LITTLE bit of a problem here, with
all the layers of clothing and no pepper pot in site.
A pretty uneventful trip back the rest of the way, the last day was the biggest, 12 hours in the saddle doing 1200 km.