nev
Super Térrarist
My Super Tenere was about to celebrate it's 2nd birthday, and so a ride was in order to mark the occasion.
Thursday I finished work by 3pm and by 4pm I was home and geared up and packed and ready to roll. Straight up the Hume Hwy to Thurgoona, then some backroads and some fog and arrived at the Walla Walla pub. This place was ok, but some of the locals looked like they were straight off the film set of "Deliverance". The room was comfortable and quiet and the food at the pub was pretty good. Only $15 for this feed of flathead tales.
6am Friday I was on the road again. This photo taken just north of Collingullie at sunrise.
and that was the first and last photo I took for the day....
I took the Mandaman Forest Road which got me onto the Newell Hwy just south of West Wyalong. I followed the Newell north only stopping for fuel in Wyalong, Dubbo, Narrabri, and Goondiwindi. I arrived at Goondiwindi right on dusk and when I left the petrol station in Goondiwindi I was riding into a setting sun on a very poorly surfaced road. I could barely see where I was going. It was only when i got out of town and the sun finally went down that I realised my headlight on lowbeam was very dim. I have 80watts of aux LEDs so high beam isn't an issue, but I had to slow down to about 70kph every time I needed to dip my lights for an oncoming vehicle.
Another top meal, the mixed grill at the Ramshead Hotel in Millmerran QLD.
Again I was awake with the sparrows and on the road Saturday morning about an hour before sunrise again. I took some backroads and found my way to Toowoomba where I sourced a headlight to replace the blown unit. The super tenere runs twin H4 (single filament) globes with a mechanical reflector which adjusts the beam from low to high beam. The high beam is mostly crap. Low beam isn't too bad with both lights, but awful with only one.
The road from Hampton to Esk is a pearler, so i took that, then Gregors creek Rd was a nice find to avoid part of the D'Aguilar Hwy, then into the backroads of the Glasshouse Mountains, Postman's Track, great if you like steep hills, Kenilworth, ObiObi then through Nambour to Yandina.
After first course of lunch in Yandina it was back into Brisbane, to a restaurant run by Jo's sister and brother-in-law who cooked me up a fine 2nd course of my lunch. Then I farewelled them and headed south towards Beaudesert. I really didn't have a route planned. I called a motel in Kyogle but they were booked out. I decided to head west and got a room at the Criterion hotel in Warwick.
Although I would have rather hit the hills, Sunday was the last day of School holidays in NSW, and that means that all of the traffic would be heading south towards Sydney. I decided to keep going west to avoid that, and just make a beeline for home.
2am Sunday I woke up, and by 2:30am I was geared up, packed up and at the 24hr servo filling up. I headed west along the Cunningham Hwy. For the first hour or so I pretty much had the road to myself, aside from a lot of furry spectators along the way. I probably saw 100 kangaroos along this section, but all were standing off the road in the grass, and none even moved, except for the one I tooted at because I was bored. The temp was in the single digits, it was a full moon and I was feeling fine
First fuel stop was in Moree. Shortly after I stopped to take a photo of the dawn.
In Narrabri the temps were down to 1° or 2° and a layer of frost over everything.
Coming into Coonabarabran I really started to feel the cold as the temps dropped to 0° or perhaps a few degrees lower. The temp gauge on the dash normally reads 4 or 5 degrees higher than the ambient temp, and it was showing 1°.
I got off the Newell here and headed through Mendooran. The servo there only had 91RON and although the Yammy "requires" 95RON I figured that the 1/3 of a tank of 98 I still had should dilute the 91 up to about 93, (and besides, I don't think fuel octane was going to be a problem in this cold weather).
A sculptors garden in Brocklehurst.
Around Tomingley I was starting to feel a bit weary. I stopped in a rest area and sat at a picnic table and put my head down for a few minutes. About 30 mins later the heavy eyelids returned so I took a side road, and rode about 1km off the hwy to an open farm gate and a better spot for a rest. The tarp went out and I had a quality shuteye. Total stopped time here according to the GPS was about 14 mins and 45 seconds, so deducting a few minutes to unpack and repack a tarp to lie down on, probably means a solid 10 minutes of uninterrupted sleep time... which was enough to keep me going for the next 750km.
Another petrol stop in Wyalong. I sent a txt to Jo to give my 8pm ETA.
some short roadworks around Nerrandera. I missed the rain fortunately
After my last fuel stop in Jerilderie,
..back into Victoria, and the last of the sun as I roll into Koomoonoo
Katamatite probably didn't expect that 22 years later they were still going to be riding on the coat tails of Glenn Crawford all these years later.
Rolled into the garage at home about 7:50pm. A tad over 1500km for the day, just under 3700km for the entire weekend, and a total of 59470km for the 2 years I've owned the Super Ten.
Thursday I finished work by 3pm and by 4pm I was home and geared up and packed and ready to roll. Straight up the Hume Hwy to Thurgoona, then some backroads and some fog and arrived at the Walla Walla pub. This place was ok, but some of the locals looked like they were straight off the film set of "Deliverance". The room was comfortable and quiet and the food at the pub was pretty good. Only $15 for this feed of flathead tales.
6am Friday I was on the road again. This photo taken just north of Collingullie at sunrise.
and that was the first and last photo I took for the day....
I took the Mandaman Forest Road which got me onto the Newell Hwy just south of West Wyalong. I followed the Newell north only stopping for fuel in Wyalong, Dubbo, Narrabri, and Goondiwindi. I arrived at Goondiwindi right on dusk and when I left the petrol station in Goondiwindi I was riding into a setting sun on a very poorly surfaced road. I could barely see where I was going. It was only when i got out of town and the sun finally went down that I realised my headlight on lowbeam was very dim. I have 80watts of aux LEDs so high beam isn't an issue, but I had to slow down to about 70kph every time I needed to dip my lights for an oncoming vehicle.
Another top meal, the mixed grill at the Ramshead Hotel in Millmerran QLD.
Again I was awake with the sparrows and on the road Saturday morning about an hour before sunrise again. I took some backroads and found my way to Toowoomba where I sourced a headlight to replace the blown unit. The super tenere runs twin H4 (single filament) globes with a mechanical reflector which adjusts the beam from low to high beam. The high beam is mostly crap. Low beam isn't too bad with both lights, but awful with only one.
The road from Hampton to Esk is a pearler, so i took that, then Gregors creek Rd was a nice find to avoid part of the D'Aguilar Hwy, then into the backroads of the Glasshouse Mountains, Postman's Track, great if you like steep hills, Kenilworth, ObiObi then through Nambour to Yandina.
After first course of lunch in Yandina it was back into Brisbane, to a restaurant run by Jo's sister and brother-in-law who cooked me up a fine 2nd course of my lunch. Then I farewelled them and headed south towards Beaudesert. I really didn't have a route planned. I called a motel in Kyogle but they were booked out. I decided to head west and got a room at the Criterion hotel in Warwick.
Although I would have rather hit the hills, Sunday was the last day of School holidays in NSW, and that means that all of the traffic would be heading south towards Sydney. I decided to keep going west to avoid that, and just make a beeline for home.
2am Sunday I woke up, and by 2:30am I was geared up, packed up and at the 24hr servo filling up. I headed west along the Cunningham Hwy. For the first hour or so I pretty much had the road to myself, aside from a lot of furry spectators along the way. I probably saw 100 kangaroos along this section, but all were standing off the road in the grass, and none even moved, except for the one I tooted at because I was bored. The temp was in the single digits, it was a full moon and I was feeling fine
First fuel stop was in Moree. Shortly after I stopped to take a photo of the dawn.
In Narrabri the temps were down to 1° or 2° and a layer of frost over everything.
Coming into Coonabarabran I really started to feel the cold as the temps dropped to 0° or perhaps a few degrees lower. The temp gauge on the dash normally reads 4 or 5 degrees higher than the ambient temp, and it was showing 1°.
I got off the Newell here and headed through Mendooran. The servo there only had 91RON and although the Yammy "requires" 95RON I figured that the 1/3 of a tank of 98 I still had should dilute the 91 up to about 93, (and besides, I don't think fuel octane was going to be a problem in this cold weather).
A sculptors garden in Brocklehurst.
Around Tomingley I was starting to feel a bit weary. I stopped in a rest area and sat at a picnic table and put my head down for a few minutes. About 30 mins later the heavy eyelids returned so I took a side road, and rode about 1km off the hwy to an open farm gate and a better spot for a rest. The tarp went out and I had a quality shuteye. Total stopped time here according to the GPS was about 14 mins and 45 seconds, so deducting a few minutes to unpack and repack a tarp to lie down on, probably means a solid 10 minutes of uninterrupted sleep time... which was enough to keep me going for the next 750km.
Another petrol stop in Wyalong. I sent a txt to Jo to give my 8pm ETA.
some short roadworks around Nerrandera. I missed the rain fortunately
After my last fuel stop in Jerilderie,
..back into Victoria, and the last of the sun as I roll into Koomoonoo
Katamatite probably didn't expect that 22 years later they were still going to be riding on the coat tails of Glenn Crawford all these years later.
Rolled into the garage at home about 7:50pm. A tad over 1500km for the day, just under 3700km for the entire weekend, and a total of 59470km for the 2 years I've owned the Super Ten.