Day 14 - Home

White Cliffs Pub - behind it is the motel complex accom for the hotel
which was really good.

Pete adding a new link to the chain

Andy Strapz strap wrapped around the rear sprocket

Centre part of tread almost gone and tyre square rather than round.

My rose garden.

Hi All,
The final run home was supposed to be a cake walk, but we did have a few incidents along the way.

We left Hay nice and early. I was "over" riding on bitumen road and just wanted to be home and I think Pete was feeling a little of the same. There is no fun or joy for us on the road and today really did bring home how hard, tiresome and boring road riding can be. We had howling side winds all the way and the last 125km's it rained. Just holding the bike straight in your lane was a struggle and I was leaning to one side most of the trip just to balance the bike.

About 150km's from home we passed through a town called Heathcote and as we were leaving I suddenly had no drive. I pulled over and noticed my motorbike chain had come apart and was one long chain and no longer a circle. Oh Joy... Thankfully Pete had a spare chain link and he went to work. Given he was still in mega pain re his accident, he did a marvelous job and about an hour later he created a temporary fix. Speed had to be curtailed down to no more than 100 km per hr :( but given the weather that was about to hit us, that was not an issue.

We traveled maybe 20-30 km's and Pete suddenly fell back. He had stopped to pick up my thong. 2nd time he had done that. I stopped, turned around to ensure all was OK and I noticed something was wrong with my rear wheel. My Andy Strapz strap which was holding my thong and pannier to the bike came off and wrapped itself around my rear chain and sprocket. Luckily my rear wheel did not lock - that would have been rather dangerous.

We then hit the Melbourne rain. Both our rear tyres where almost bald in the centre being border line legal. I realy dreaded the wet weeather section and went around corners very slowly. I dropped into Mum's before going home.

This trip has been all that I wanted . The highlights have been;

• Mother nature - Animals and the scenery (ever changing colours of the desert reds)
• Sand riding - that boggie on my shoulder is now gone
• Innamincka - I would love to go back when it is cooler for about a week
• No drops for me :) 
• Pete was a great mate during the trip. Hopefully he gets better really soon.

Summary
+ 4,200 Km's
Visited the following states;
South Australia 3 times
Queensland 3 times
NSW once

Thats it for me. Hope you enjoyed my blog. Great to be home and see my roses blooming nicely.

Until my next adventure - Cheers Richard



Pete's Bit

Richard has kindly forwarded me his text to add my last bit as well - actually I also proof read his bit too :-)

In essence Richard overviews the day fairly well - not the nicest of riding conditions and firmly cementing my notion that the next bike must have heated handgrips - when we stopped at the Bakery in Echuca I could hardly feel the fingers in my right-hand  !!!  But in essence no complaints - we had 13 and a bit days of great to almost perfect riding so a few hours of misery was a relatively small price to pay.  Arrived home and almost emptied the hot water cylinder in one l-o-n-g shower and even turned on the central heating - city living certainly does have its benefits :-)  The cats have provided their normal reaction after a return from an extended trip - less than subtle distain.  Millie has taken some 3 hours to even front up and has now taken pride of place on the left knee - Milo is still missing in action though !!!  Talking about cats one of the funny (as yet untold) stories concerns Richard at Marree - he was lying in his tent and flexing his toes against his tent wall - the local tame pussy cat saw this as a game and attacked the mystery thing.  I heard the yell in the night :-)

Well 14 odd days touring the Oz Outback - a great experience and recommended for one and all.  Obviously motorcycling is not everyone's bag and I wouldn't recommend taking your new BMW 3 Series but certainly something to add to your "bucket" list.  Interesting people, interesting places, different experiences and so bloody Australian - so expect anything.  I spent some time taking to a Scottish couple in Tibooburra - they had come over to one of their children's wedding a few years back - stayed for a tour - loved it - came back again and hired a four wheel drive - loved it again - and then came back for a third time - brought a four wheel drive rig (Triton 2.4L & a Outback Camping Trailer) and were in the process of completing a long slow drive around the Oz Outback - no hurry because they "just love it".  Oh to be retired with money.

Richard's problem with chains - Hmmm, have carted that spare link now for over 9,000 kms through the Outback - I knew it was for a purpose :-)  Just further reinforces our notion that the next BIG one will be on shaft driven monsters ie 1200's - but will it be BMW GS 1200's, Yamaha Super Tenere's or even the new (soon to be released) Triumph Adventure ?

For those interested - both my rib cage and lower back improve every day but it's still damn sore when twisted the wrong way or asked to do something out of the ordinary.  Still trying to piece together what happened and can't really remember the first 5 ~ 10 minutes afterwards.  However I can certainly advise anyone that sliding down the road head and shoulder first at around 80 kph isn't one hell of a lot of fun and YES it's damn scary and YES it hurts.  Definitely NOT recommended and it certainly illustrates the inherent value of quality safety equipment.  And YES Outback medicine definitely works - it's easy to appreciate the reverence that the locals attach to the RFDS and the local clinic's.

All in all a great trip - Richard and I do travel well (even though he snores) and he's a great Nurse - I still don't like loose sand - Like Richard I'd definitely go back to Innamincka again - preparation is always important and probably an important point not mentioned yet - we had NO punctures.

Thanks for reading along.  Please contact Richard or myself if you want any further details and Richard can probably supply somewhere in excess of 400 pictures and plenty of video as well :-)

Until next time - see you on the road somewhere     
Peter