Motorcycles

I was heading to Wagga for a High School renunion (Class of 1970) and figured I should turn up in leathers on a loud bike as I still seemed to be the weird one, even after all these years.

There was flooding along the coast and also out west so I had to snake my way along back roads and make a lot of detours. That meant I visited small places I'd never been to before.
Gulgong was one, cut off by flooding I wandered into this famous little town and snagged a nice motel and discovered the town was featured on the Ten-Dollar note... hence it's fame.

When the road reopened I picked my way south and arrived in time for the drinks, old school tour and dinner.
Wagga of my childhood was gone except for the 2WG Radio Station sign. I'd listened to that station in the 1950's & 60's.

I came up the Hume Highway to Sydney then followed the coast heading North.

We only had a few days to spare but took off to enjoy the bracing winter weather, it was time to give the Girls a run in the wild.

Then a funny thing happened... If you've read our other stories you know we're free agents, confident and daring and NEVER make bookings... well it was deja vu all over again... not a room to be had at Gympie... well yes, it was getting dark but it didn't seem far to Kenilworth so off we went.
The road is listed as one of the Must Do motorcycle rides for all the twists and turns, (we assume they mean in the daytime?), but we decided we could do it in the dark, we had the moon to guide us.
Of course fuel was low by this time so a detour and getting lost around Amamoor state forest really helped!
When a photo would never capture the moment, you draw what you see.
Isolated twisting road, giant full moon, a silver orb and following a red tail light... chasing the moon July 2022.
This was what I was following...

Arrived safely into Kenilworth and laughed so much about our repeating history (that's our doing difficult rides in the dark!) and pushing each other to excellence.
That's why we're riding buddies, we know the butt-clenching moments, the fear, the doubts... and the overcoming.
A great room at the pub, and watched the State of Origin. It's what makes good memories.
Kenilworth is a great thriving little town without the pretentious tourism of Meleny and Montville

My riding partner, my daughter... gets back on a bike. Duty done, battles waged and won, it's time for some freedom on the open road.
It's a 2009 Yamaha 1100 V-Star, candy apple red and loud as hell!
And we're introducing the next generation to our love of all things loud and strong.

In late 2015 the Indian Scout was back in production. The original company had run 1901 to 1953... then a succession of come-back attempts... until finally the Polaris group took up the challenge and brought her back.

It was produced late 2015 with an MY16 manufacturing plate, I had to have one, and I wanted the original rust red colour from the 1950's.

We had a plan, my daughter would ride the Yamaha V-Star 650cc and I had the BMW R1100RT and we'd go for a ride.
Day 1. Brisbane to Tamworth 600km although we hadn't meant to ride that far. At Glen Innes the barman was rude, so we rode on to Armidale... to find it was graduation week and not a free room in town.
Rode on to Uralla to find... a car rally was in town and NO accommodation.
It was dark, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees but it's only 75km to Tamworth. Let's ride through the New England ranges in the dark! **yehar grandma** this will put a chill up your spine.
The lights of Tamworth and a luxury motel never looked so good and we were prepared to pay any price to get that bed. After a great dinner at a local pub with live music we felt much better and could face the next day..

And proof that we did intend to stay in Glen Innes... but they lost our business.

Day 2 Tamworth to Bathurst via some very unusual back roads, first a stop at the Werris Creek Railway monument. There's a museum of railway memorabilia and across the street an old railway residence and weather station.
Angelina Jolie made a film here and the locals dressed up as her 'extras'.

Moving on it was time to cross over the ranges and find Bathurst... hmmmm easier said than done.
Let's ask a local at Meriwa... a nice man who mumbled a lot but it sounded like a short run out of town and turn left to Mudgee.
After 10 km we decided to take a road... that didn't say Mudgee... what could go wrong?
Oh look it says Goulburn River National Park this will be pretty!
I've done some dumb things in my life and this dirt road with flooded causeways was fast being added to that list.
Two idiots on motorcycles laughing our way through some beautiful country, and we thought we were legends. Then we turned left to Bylong... and welcome to HELL. 16km of THE WORST dirt road in Australia.
We crawled along at 20kph trying to pick a line through the bone shattering gravel and when we finally hit bitumen we found 2 men on motorcycles resting under a tree. They stood there, staring and asking if we'd come thru there, on THOSE BIKES?
Well yes actually, we're women and Legend's after all. We're famous down that way now BWHAHAHAHAHA.

And the irony is we never found Mudgee, but did discover some amazing country and popped out onto bitumen near Bylong and headed through Rylestone and Kandos into Bathurst so we could ride around Mt Panorama.

Day 3 Bathurst to Katoomba via Oberon and Jenolan Caves.
Hands up if you've even been on the road from Oberon to Jenolan Caves. As I thought, not many takers!
It is an AMAZING road. The warning signs are astounding... "No trucks, no caravans, no articulated vehicles", the good bends are signposted for 25kph... the more scary ones are marked 15kph. It's frightening as you double back on yourself and the camber of the road feels all wrong. Perhaps a skull and crossbones would be a better sign.
But we made it of course.. and were squealing with delight when we got into the little village that is Jenolan Caves, actually wished I had a Go-Pro camera on my helmet for that one.

It was time to move on for the ride back up the mountain and on to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.

We tried to avoid highways so the next day we went cross country out to Richmond, and UP the PUTY Road. It runs through some beautiful country behind Sydney and Newcastle and we arrived in Singleton in the Hunter Valley.

Some final memories.. We ran up the freeway then into Grafton and on to Kyogle where we found the best motorcycle road of the entire trip.
You leave the highway and head to The Risk [yes, it's called - The Risk] and you go up over Mt Lion on a road which is maintained by the Lion's Club of Kyogle.
They do a great job on this road and it winds through some magnificent scenery. When you get to the top of Mt Lion you are only a few kilometres from the Qld border and there is an honesty box so if you enjoyed the ride, put something in the Donations Tin.
The signs all point to Beaudesert and Brisbane now so the trip is almost over.
All up the little bike did 2300km and 3300km for the BMW and it was a fabulous mother and daughter trip.

Storm closing in at Cairns

On a freezing cold winter morning (OK, 10 deg. C is freezing for me) I headed north to Townsville, heading for the NT. Yes I know it's shorter to go west, but Townsville has the best chinese seafood restaurant in Australia and what's a couple of hundred K's for a treat like that

Into Kakadu on the loop around to Darwin. Once you leave the desert the north will surprise you and there are many waterholes to enjoy.

Leaving the main highway and taking the loop through Kakadu National Park you find the “Bowali “ visitors centre. It encompassed all aspects of Kakadu, from Uranium mining, parklands, burn off's, aboriginal associations etc.
The radio-active stuff on display was fascinating and the areas overlay with the Gagadju 'sickness place', an ancient cultural verbal tradition which has basis in fact. It was one of the very best tourist/cultural centres ever visited.
There is a hotel shaped like a crocodile at Jabiru. The shape is difficult to visualise from ground level but from up high you can see what a neat building it is.

No visit to the top end is complete without a visit to the Daly Waters Pub where every surface is covered with memorabilia. It has good basic bush accommodation and excellent food too. There are fun nights when the backpackers from every nation share their stories.

Longreach is famous for the Stockmans' hall of fame and a museum commemorating the birthplace of Qantas. I toured the Boeing 747 they have on display. You can walk on the wing too.
After Longreach it was a cruizy ride back through the central highlands and Emerald, and then turned south once I hit the ocean.
The trip took a month and was about 7500km.

Straight up the Hume highway, stopping to see the dog on the tucker box at Gundagai and made it to our nations' capital.

After riding through the desert I'm so happy to see this sign, flies and all!
The road follows a salt lake which runs for as far as the eye can see mile after mile.
It's a long ride into the centre of Australia and I did it in the middle of a locust plague followed by a fly plague.
Next stop Coober Pedy

Who could visit Bathurst and not ride the famous Mount Panorama Race track.

That's along the Great Ocean Road.
I've ridden from Darwin to Tasmania, from Melbourne to Adelaide & up to Cairns and a dozen other long-distance rides. These are a few of my favourite images.

I went to the U.S. in 1993 to visit the Harley Davidson factory in Milwaukee and watch my bike being built... well the engine plant anyway. It was a thrill to see it and wait for delivery to Australia.