Movies and a game of cards

Day 0 - in which I attempt to pre-emptively excuse myself

OK - the onslaught begins.

About two years ago at the AKRON forum get together at Jindabyne, Tas invited us to come along to the DogHouse Social Club poker run at Burnie, Tasmania.

By coincidence the 2013 Australian Adventure Travel Film Festival(held in Bright, Victoria) fell on the weekend prior to the poker run - so it made sense to combine the two trips. The return trip depended on how I felt at the time, but I did want to do the Great Ocean Road while I was close

The planned route was something like:
- head south and ride Oxley highway(great road),
- head south then inland to avoid Sydney before tracking back to the coast
- depending on the bushfire situation either follow the coast into Victoria and approach Bright from the south
- OR head back across the Snowy Mountains and approach Bright from the north
- after the movies, head direct to Melbourne and the ferry to Tasmania
- do a lap of Tassie in an anti-clockwise direction, making it up as I go along
- poker run in Burnie
- a day or two to just look around Northern Tasmania before the ferry back to the mainland
- Great Ocean Road
- head north to north-east depending on fires/floods/weather towards home

I had tried a more detailed trip plan, but this was complicated by bushfires in Victoria creating uncertainty over which roads would be open. Tasmania just had too much to rationally cover, so I decided to take a "make it up as I go along" approach - the only fixed points after my first day being the ferry over and back and the poker run itself.

I usually have a copy of the Australian Motorcycle Atlas(Bears' 100 great rides) in my tank bag for general navigation, and if there are any of the "good" roads near me I can make a bit of a detour.

I had a couple of other small goals or guiding ideas on this trip:
- camping enough to make carrying the tent worthwhile
- riding as many of the best motorcycle roads as practical
- try not to go back over the same road if avoidable
- beaches
- wombats
- penguins
- tasmanian devils
- visit MONA(Museum of Old and New Art) in Hobart
- try to sneak in an artesian spa somewhere along the way
...and the usuals of photographing "Big Things", "I've Been Everywhere Man" towns and weird road signs or anything unusual.

For those that aren't familiar with it, "I've Been Everywhere Man" is a song written by Ted Mack, that lists over 90 Australian towns in the lyrics. Lyrics were also written and performed for other countries, but I've never heard those versions.

I've tried to take interesting photos to go with the narrative, but in a lot of cases you will be missing pictures of the roads - lets face it, I'm generally having fun and the best roads have few places to stop and take piccies. Besides, it's all(mainly) bitumen. My photos mostly only get resized for the web, although some re-alignment of the horizon may be done on particularly bad ones, so you may see power lines, rubbish bins and such - I'm pretty bad at taking and manipulating photos so what you see is what you get.

On this trip I'll be a tourist for a lot of the time, so won't be booking any great daily distances(I think my longest was only about 700km on the first day) as I spent my time looking around the place.

As usual, I had my SPOT2 running, keeping people at home guessing where I was going next - the complete map is here: https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=5e7b51026f300a776

Also, on this trip I was running a beta version of an Android phone app called Bubbler GPS written by Joel Tolbert - as I write Joel has just announced that he's putting the release version on Google Play. He's done some sterling work on the software and it promises to make documenting trips much easier. The full release version also allows you to send photos with your OK updates – it’s a good thing the beta didn’t have it as I would have tortured Joel by sending photos of sunny beaches as he sat under three feet of snow in Chicago!

"Bubbler GPS is a secure personal location manager for phones and tablets, which allows you to store and share your travel memories via SpotWalla.com (http://SpotWalla.com/). Whether you are riding the highways, exploring the back country, or are dipping your line in search of the big one, Bubbler GPS has you covered."

Click to expand...

The BubblerGPS map is here: https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=5f485114472de8a28

And, as usual, I'll likely be shopping this write-up around a couple of places, so if there's people or groups you don't know or references to them, don't worry! If it bothers you, just ask - I'll try to keep an eye on replies....

It might take me a few days to crank out each update(I spend a lot of time on words) and I have about three weeks worth of a trip to do, so please be patient.

Cheers!

Day 1 - Yowies, wood carving and thunderbolts

Started off a little later than I originally planned, but the days are long, I'm covering reasonably familiar ground and know where I'll be spending the night.

After an emotional farewell(the bike cried under the load of camping gear, tools, clothes and sundries) I took the "long way" to Canungra due to the Goat Track being damaged and closed by the recent rain, then down the Mount Lindesay Highway from Beaudesert.

I took the opportunity to get a photo of this car nailed to a tree just south of Beaudesert.



I'd passed here often, but never really stopped to consider what it was about. Looking a little longer I realised that the tree is quite close to the gate into a nearby property. If you think about it, this is an easy way to give directions - "just head south from Beauey and look for a car on a tree, the gate is right there".......

The road around Mount Barney to the top of the range is one of those good motorcycle roads ;-) This area is part of the volcanic caldera and mountain range across the southern border of Queensland - once you cross a ridge line you're in New South Wales and Daylight Saving territory. This is a highway and is often used by semi-trailers; more than a couple of times I paused to let a large truck negotiate a corner....

The border - there's no way back now!


I've never seen the quarantine office open, but over the road there are several monuments.


The ball thing is to commemorate the aniversary of there being a border between Queensland and New South Wales.

The big stone monument is to commemorate James Westray - one of the three survivors of the crash of a Stinson passenger plane in the 1930s. Of the three, he was the only one that was mobile, so he headed out to seek help. Sadly, his body was found a short distance from the wreck after he had fallen off a cliff in the dense rainforest. The other two survivors were located some time later by Bernard O'Reilly and rescued.

Bernard had set out on his own after the official search had been called off and found the wrecked plane amongst the thick rainforest covering the ranges. It's a great story and a local legend - if you're into a bit of pioneering history find a copy of Bernards' book "The Green Mountains". The hike retracing Bernards' path is still challenging bushwalkers today.

A little further along the road is another spot I hadn't managed to stop myself at previously - the yowie crossing. For those that aren't locals - a yowie is the local equivalent of bigfoot, sasquach or yeti. There are several places where they have been sighted in Australia - the other main area that I know of is in the hills north of Kilcoy, Qld.



I sat there for a while listening to the bellbirds, but I must have missed yowie rush hour.

Once you get to Woodenbong, you're pretty much back on the flat land and the road is no longer as twisty. Still not bad though! At Woodenbong I turned south through Urbenville - there are some great bits of road here interspersed with some shocking pieces of patched, gravelly bitumen to keep you attentive, particularly past Bonalbo.

Where the road joins up with the Bruxner Highway there's a small park with some sculptures - the eight sculptures are called the peace Circle and are meant to symbolise the community shared between the local towns(one sculpture for each town). Some are more creative than others.....




Sometimes it's worthwhile just taking a break before attempting to cross the old wooden bridge over the Clarence River(yes folks - this is a national highway).


Beware of male kangaroos......


Further south down the tree-lined avenues leading to Tenterfield and fuel


...before stopping for a short break in Uralla - Captain Thunderbolts' old territory. Captain Thunderbolt was a bushranger known for escaping from Cockatoo Island prison in Sydney Harbour and spending seven years working this area robbing everyone from local shepherds, travelling musicians and mail men to local stores and inns. Less noted is a plaque, close to Thunderbolts statue, commemorating Constable Walker who killed Thunderbolt in 1870.


While I was photographing statues, the locals were keeping an eye on my bike....


Just after I left Uralla I got hit by one of the rain storms that was lurking about - just enough to make me get the wet gear on and dampen the road.

The road to Walcha is a back road - watch for cows!


A short stop for supplies in Walcha and I head out to the Apsley Falls campsite on the Oxley Highway. The roos grazing at the park entrance gave me hope that the place would be deserted, but I find two campervans already set up for the night. There are enough campsites that we all have plenty of space, and once darkness falls you wouldn't know the others are there.

This is an excellent campsite - sealed road, $5/night, flush toilets, gas barbeque, firewood supplied, well maintained and quiet.

Camp


Dinner


Fire


Sleep....................

Day 2 - The Oxley, Putty and a flat return to the flat lands

A beautiful sunny morning promises a great day on the road


The locals watching me pack the bike up for the first time this trip, so not as practised and quite slow


Before leaving I take a few photos of Apsley falls and the gorge.


One of these days I want to do the walk around the gorge, they've certainly put the effort into making it accessable!


I managed to get out of the park just before the first of the campervans started to move out to the road - I don't want to risk him getting in front of me!

Before the hills start in earnest the countryside is green and lush with paddocks full of lambs and the beautiful tarmac just lures you on to the hills in the distance


Before I stop I pull over at a roadside stop, make a phone call and dump my rubbish. There were two cars full of sleeping people here and their cooking apparatus in the picnic shelter, so I didn't really want to hang around, besides, there might be a lumbering campervan piloted by an octegenarian(or his chihauhau) following me, and I know what's ahead.....




Just at the base of the hills, the sun still hasn't reached this spot, so it's damp with dew, and the fun starts here!


The Oxley has to be on the list of best roads ever - good surface, well maintained, excellent camber and twisty as hell through some absolutely beautiful forest. So you won't be getting photos of it, there's no real places to stop and why would you want to?

The small rain showers overnight have left the road damp and the wind over the previous week has resulted in leaf litter along the road verges. To add to the fun, this is a highway - so you do get the occasional bits of traffic heading the other way. For what it's worth, B-double trucks seem are quite good on this road, but the rigid-frame dump trucks seem to have a harder time staying on their side of the double white line.

The roadworks that I passed a year ago are still in progress meshing the banks on the side of the road - but once again, I'm impressed at how the traffic control guys seem to prioritise the bikes on this road, as I exit the roadworks the flagman gives me a grin and flashes a V sign......

Arrival in Long Flat signals the end of the twisty forest section of the road, but just before that there is a lookout, so a chance for some photos.....

Looking back(fond memories)


And forward




Long Flat Store - I asked about the dragon, the local footy team is the Long Flat Dragons(the painter is also a mad St George fan). Apparently, in the 1920s the team was known as the Yellow Canaries(surely a name calculated to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents)!


Old style cafe - they don't make them like this any more.


The pub is quite bike friendly(they see enough of them) and they're quite not too worried if you don't want to stay in the pub itself - there's plenty of room for campsites down by the creek!




Beautiful old fig tree beside the pub




As I'm photographing the tree I notice something on the ground


Last year, I was forever picking up lost sunglasses and I picked them up on reflex - I'll make sure these get to someone that will appreciate them.....

Old servo




So is this a butcher that specialises in hairdressers, a hairdresser that likes butchers or.....????


The final part of the Oxley gently winds it's way down towards Port Macquarie through Wauchope - I have no idea what a giraffe is doing in the playground outside a pub bistro in Wauchope, but there you go....


Eventually I turned onto the Pacific Highway and joined the traffic slabbing it south.

At one stage as I was passing a car a Bently with personalised plates zooms up behind me, but I doggedly stick to the speed limit(this area is rife for speed cameras). He didn't get the hint, so I just open the throttle and in seconds clear a few hundred metres of space(yeah, it's an overloaded slow bike with a slow rider, but still more responsive than your two-tonne cage bud). As the Bently catches up and passes me the trophy wife in the passenger seat gives me a filthy look......I guess if you can afford the car, the two-character personalised plates and the wench a few speeding tickets would be pocket change......

Here's something you may not have noticed or seen before - animal crossings over the highway.


As you can see, at this point the highway is divided with two lanes in each direction with wide breakdown lanes and good drains - a fair distance from wildlife to cross and a high chance of roadkill.

The fences along the side of the road have an unsecured top - animals trying to climb the fence will get to the top and fall off. The trapeze running across the top is plenty for koalas and possum to make their way overhead and the crossover further down the road even has small shrubs growing on it - so the ground-dwelling animals can cross the highway safely.

While I'm passing by, I get a photo of the big motorbike at the National Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac


The three huge buildings contain over 750 motorcycles of every type and era - well worth taking a look at if you're passing and have a couple of hours to spare. Unfortunately, on this trip I don't have the time

Now I made a bit of a navigational error - instead of turning off on the main highway, I ended up running through most of Raymond Terrace at the same time as the schools came out then eventually ended up at Singleton before backtracking a bit to get to the start of the Putty Road.

And, of course, it starts to drizzle rain.

The northern end of the Putty winds it's way around the sides of a number of creeks on a road carved out of the sandstone running through the Wollemi National park. Absolutely beautiful and twisty at the same time, crossing back and forth over the water, following the natural contours of the water courses before climbing over another ridge and repeating the process. Great fun, even if I had to be more conservative than usual as the rain picked up.

Eventually the road opens out and turns into a nice fast-paced road with good visibility through the forests before reaching the Halfway Truck Stop.

I checked, but they didn't appear to have ethanol-free fuel.


Actually, no fuel at all. A fire a couple of years ago destroyed the place and the servo is now just a shell - in times past this was a regular refuelling and lunching spot on weekends.

It appears that a local artist has taken the place up and is running a wild sort of free-form outdoor gallery and cafe, large signs advertise the place for parties and functions.

Unfortunately, I arrived after the cafe had shut(not a lot of business mid-week anyway) and didn't feel like testing out the security


Black Caviar barbequeue


I think this is where you pay


They seem to be appealing to both sexes here with the word "wo-man" all over the place. To top it off, there is this major sculpture out the front.....

From the front


And the other front


No more proper photos after this today, it was just a push to get somewhere to sleep. Originally I had planned to stop at either Windsor, Wisemans Ferry or camp in Dahrug national park, but I was heading further west, the rain was continuing and Bells Line of Road was close by leading to Lithgow and hopefully Bathurst(whee! Maybe do a lap of Mount Panorama?). Bells Line(another on the list of great roads) takes a northern route over the Blue Mountains.

Along the way, I can say, "I've been to....Kurrajong!"


I can only say that Bells Line of Road would be a much better place in sunlight, without "slippery road" hazard signs every kilometer, without the 60kph speed reductions and the climb into the clouds.

Random train carriage on the side of Bells Line


At one point in a cutting a wrecked car loomed out of the chilled, damp greyness - slammed tail end first into one of the sandstone walls on the opposite side it was headed - a pretty solid hint to take it easy.

I think this was the only time on the trip that I turned on my heated hand grips, not that they did much good without a few more layers(like the thermals packed into the bottom of my duffle) to maintain my core temperature. By the time I descend the Blue Mountains into Lithgow I had had enough and check into a caravan park that Browni has scouted out for me for a hot shower and a warm bed in a cabin.....

Day 3 - Escape from the mines only to go underground, a prickly proposition and beachside retreat

Wasn't a good start to the day - the sky was still grey, I was in a grey town, and on my second day out I felt I had already abandoned the idea of camping wherever I could. But I was warm and had the chance of escaping the weather and getting away from familiar places today.

First a quick look around Lithgow - for those that don't know, it's a mining town on the western side of the Blue Mountains.

Miners cottages, updated slightly, but still identifiable. There are streets upon streets of these in the older parts of town.


Commercial building towards the centre of town(I think it houses the local rescue services) - I like the way older buildings have a bit of style, there's no need to decorate the roof vent like that, but they did..


Before World War 1 the Lithgow Small Arms Factory was built to produce waepons for Australian troops - Lithgow had coal, iron works, road and rail connections and the Blue Mountains would act as a natural barrier to any invasion force. Between wars the factory survived by manufacturing all sorts of commercial goods including sheap shears and sewing machines!

The Small Arms Factory Museum(still a large, working, secured factory behind it)


This is going for a double header - I've been to Lithgow, as you can see by the Big Miners Safety Lamp at the information centre!


My original plan had been to get to Bathurst to do a lap around Mount Panorama, but that got scotched when I stopped for the night at Lithgow - I'd been that way before, it's a major highway to get there and last time I got to the track I was disappointed as the Bathurst 24hour had the track closed. So I decided to head further south.

Soon after leaving Lithgow it seemed I had shaken off the greyness......


And on the other side of the road - blue sky!


Another view.....


....just before I begin the winding descent to Jenolan Caves. Not a bad road really - just like home, but longer, so I just slotted the bike into a nice gear and engine braked the whole way down(just like home!).

Bridge before entering the caves complex


which is on the other side of the Devils Coachhouse


and through the single-lane section


Car coming through


Caves House - there has been organised tourism here for over 130 years, this building was constructed in 1898 after the original was destroyed in a fire.


I bought a coffee and had a walk around - I didn't have time to take a tour, but I have a fair appreciation of caves and could rely on amusing myself looking around the public sections of the Devils Couchhouse.

Looking back the way I came in


Shawls - these formations are exposed to the weather, so don't have the pure white look that underground shawls, protected from the weather will have, but they are impressive nonetheless.


Looking to the left and right of the Devils Coachhouse shows how many holes there are here - a fair number of tour caves have stairs and walkways, but you can still do adventure tours through different parts of the cave system - they're still exploring the area and making discoveries!

Left


Right




Mens toilet near where the tours start


Many caves and formations at Jenolan seem to have biblical or classical names, probably due to the Victorian-era sensibilities of the original explorers, most of the caves I used to explore were explored by university students so the names were typically drawn from JRR Tolkiens Lord of the Rings.


By now the day is warming up and I depart using the road on the western side of Jenolan - this is steeper and and twistier than the eastern side, when corners are marked 15kph it's best to take heed!

Something on the road ahead pulls me up and I grab my camera - the echidna doesn't seem to appreciate my attention and waddles back the way he came.

"Nice tyre - be a shame if something were to happen to it........"


I've seen he damage these guys can do to heavy duty offroad 4x4 tyres, so I took the hint and he was on his way again....


This road weaves it's way through pine forests - all along here there are fully established plantations, newly logged bare hillsides and everything in between. Perfect for just scooting along in 5/6 gear and just rolling on and off the throttle for the long sweeping corners.....


I've started making things up as I go along - I was going to head back towards Oberon, via Edith, but wasn't I supposed to be headed south?



This road is known as Abercrombie road until it crosses the Abercrombie river into the Upper Lachlan shire and it becomes Taralga Road. You know the joke about how things change at shire boundaries? It's not a joke.

About a kilometer before the bridge the road abruptly goes from three lanes worth of bitumen, complete with painted lane markings down to one and a half with soft shoulders(on the other side of the hill crest naturally), then an interesting descent on a loose road down to the river. The gravel continues past the bridge for a few hundred metres before the bitumen starts again, but this time the bitumen is a brown colour rather than the grey/black on the other side.

Wierd.

Thankfully the road returns to it's former excellent state(even if it is a different colour).

At Taralga I stopped at a cafe and chatted with another group of riders on dirt bikes for a while - my map is a few years old and they assure me that the road is sealed all the way to Goulburn unless I decide to take Swallowtail road for some great dirt and fun water crossings......just as they leave for their "dirt"y weekend at Orange another group pulls into town, popular place!


Taralga main street


Don't often get leadlight windows on shops these days.......


I refuel in Goulburn at the service station with the big merino on the old Hume(ugh!) highway


It's worth keeping an eye on the speedo around here - amongst other things Goulburn is home to the NSW police academy and they often run training sessions on the local roads.

After Braidwood I arrive at another great road - the Kings Highway drops you off the side of the mountain range and is a lot of fun, lots of room on the tight corners, good surface and.....well, I found it relaxing, apart from having to stop for roadworks in a couple of spots. Of course, the straight at the bottom of the hill had it's own highway patrol car tucked into the bushes.......

Quick stop at Batemans Bay for a Chiko roll alongside the river....


..before setting up the tent in a caravan park at Narooma


The caravan park was pretty full(only 3 camp sites left and everything else booked out), but I still got a nice spot overlooking the surf beach with views to Montague Island.

As darkness fell I headed up the hill to the golf club, facing the wrong way for sunset, but still very pretty


Dinner! Crispy-skin chicken breast with Bali spices


I took a walk along the beach with a can of Coke, wading in the shallows watching shooting stars amongst the Milky Way as the waves rolled in.....

And on that note - off to bed, ready for another day......

Day 4 - Beaches, forests, bloody big lizards and roads that dodge storms

Woke up with just a bit of light in the sky. The caravan park was silent, nobody moving around, seemingly devoid of human life.


Trawlers were still working inshore


others trying their luck from the beach


The sky started to glow behind Montague Island








And then the show ended.........


Beautiful.

If any of the pics above look a bit out of order or not quite matched up - I was trying a number of different settings on the camera. It's only a cheap unit with about 20 preset modes to help making photos.

Packed the bike up - annoyingly I seem to have lost one of my luggage locks, probably fell out of my pocket on the way to the golf club last night - and went for another walk on the beach.

Looking back at the Surf Life Saving Clubhouse and the caravan park on the hill above it.



I wasn't the only one walking the beach....


I found a shiny pebble in the surf that I thought would make a nice souvenier, but when it dried off it was dull and lifeless, unlike what it had been on the sand. Even when I wet it with my tongue it looked lifeless, so I thought it best to throw it back. As the next wave took it the pebble immediately glittered and tumbled to a new home, seeming to laugh at me......

As I fuelled up and had a coffee in town, quite a few bikes passed by (including more than a few Stroms!), loaded up for a trip.

I headed south aiming for Bega or Eden - the trip was reaching a point where I had to decide to go west(over the Snowy Mountains) or south(following the coast of Victoria). From the looks of it, the fires in Victoria were going to be a problem if I headed south - but I could at least delay heading west for a while.

Vapour trails


Bridge over Lake Wallaga


I decided to do a bit of sightseeing - just north of Bermagui is Camel Rock and a busy surf beach. One of the locals watching the action noticed the vapour trails - a sign of moist upper altitude air and rain was probably on the way, likely to spoil the Bermagui Dog Show. Apparently the dog show has been rained out for two years running......




Bus stop in the middle of nowhere


As I entered Bermagui I saw signs "Welcome the Doggies!" and hoped their dog show went ahead - sounded like a big event.

From a lookout at Bermagui


Took another turn off through the national park to Nelson Beach - the road in was a bit rough and the descent to the beach had me wondering wether this was a good idea


but the beach was beautiful


The small car park was surprisingly busy for an out-of-the-way spot and people seemed to have driven a fair way to get here.....

The heat was starting to get to me as I reached Bega, so I decided it was time to stop dawdling and head for Jindabyne.

But not before quick walk around the Bega Cheese Factory museum


For some reason this device amused a rather juvenile part of my brain.....


For all the olde tyme pioneer charm of the museum, the cheese factory next door is a more straightforward and modern affair


Dairy and cheese is big around here - just up the road is Tilba, which does great cheeses...

But - have to keep moving.....

To the west of Bega to the Monaro Highway is another of those "great roads" - the Snowy Mountains highway, also known as Brown Mountain.

Of course, I had to do things a bit differently. The exciting part of the Snowy Mountains highway is the bit between Bemboka and the Monaro Highway. I had decided to turn off at Bemboka and head south to Candelo, then keep heading west to Bombala on the Monaro Highway.

Countryside near Bemboka


Candelo main street


Now I made a wrong turn - headed in the right direction, but via the wrong road.....

A short distance out of Candelo the bitumen disappeared - but it looked rather like one of those stretches of local road that may have been difficult to seal properly as it wound around a hill and across a creek or two. No matter - the road would reappear soon.......

Oops. The seal did reappear - some 50km later.

I was lead on a course through South East Forests national park - quite pretty bit of country, but the gravel road itself wasn't doing my peace of mind any good.

No photos, but a few interesting memories, like only seeing about 4 other vehicles and a landcruiser parked at an abandoned worksite with chopped up jumperleads and a battery dumped beside it in the middle of the forest.

At one point I saw a tree branch on the road ahead - the only one I had noted so far, as I got closer I realised it was a fairly sizeable lizard. Normally, if I zig right and the lizard zags left then there isn't a problem - unless you realise that his left is my right and I ended up running over him dead centre.

The bike flew up and came crashing down - I checked my mirrors to see if I could see the lizard, but he wasn't on the road. And I wasn't going to turn around and check on an annoyed 2 metre lizard......

I stopped to take stock near one of the old farms in the national park


At this point I had no idea how far I still had to go or the road conditions - and I could smell that distinctive smell of burning wiring! Turns out that the cheap(less than $5) phone charger had shorted itself. Not only wasn't it charging the phone, but the mere act of plugging it in would reboot my phone. AAARRGH! On the plus side, I found my luggage lock - stuck to the side of my bike by one of the magnets that hold my tank bag in place.....

After exiting the park and turning onto another road I was given hope by the sight of an empty log truck headed the other way - empty trucks go into the forest, loaded trucks go to the saw mill, hopefully near a town.

After that - Bombala was a delight.

The typical route to Jindabyne is to head north to Cooma and then turn south west from there, but I'd already done the Cooma-Jindabyne section and had found info(confirmed by the lady at the service station) that suggested the Snowy Mountain Way was now fully sealed.

Now the only problem was the thunderstorms predicted for the Snowy Mountains.....

Snowy Mountain Way was fun. Long straight stretches, wide corners, only sealed in the last four years so hasn't had a chance to be damaged....and it dodges clouds.

Jincumbilly Railway Station


Snowy Mountain Way


The sky changed colour and the clouds lit up with lightning as the rain swept across the landscape, but the road seemed to do it's best to thread it's way between the storm clouds.

Storm


More Snowy Mountain Way


The rain caught up with me at the caravan park in Jindabyne - so assembling the tent was conducted in the brief periods between downpours


As I headed up the hill to the pub a group of bikes tore through town towards Thredbo, it was getting dark, the roads were wet, but I was headed to dinner......

Sunset


Dusk over the lake


Dinner - Swordfish Steak


A local servo had a replacement phone charger....then off to bed before the rain started again.....

Great stuff so far Sean, looking forward to the rest!

Must have saved you a lot of time, not having to stop and pick up my sunglasses after every stop.

Thanks,

Chris.

Oh boy.....the ride-reports are really coming thick'n fast at the moment.

Wowww, what a story, even only thus far.

It's great having a bit of time on your hands and just bimble along, the only targets being Bright and the Tassie-ferry sailing, eh? ...love the shots of the old cafe at Long Flat.

You're right, they don't make 'em like that anymore
Great find!

Thanks a million for taking us along, mate
Looking forward to the next bit.
Actually, it's nice reading about someone else's journeys while writing your own.

That oxley run up and around walcha is great, do it every year. The new in is a good place.nice meals etc. Last time we were there, the guys battery shited itself and the owner took his battery out of his car and gave it to us..

Scheduled to temp the Oxley again in May for the weekend, The motorcycle musem is great, and a friend has his tls1000 in there. Great pics, i enjoyed reading it, and now makes me cant wait for oxley.

safe trip to you , and all goes well..thanks

Good one Sean!
I enjoyed reading your RR so far - and waiting for more.....