solo rtw riders in Brisbane

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Brisbane is gearing up for Christmas. The main shopping area looks like this
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We do our Christmas shop and courier boxes of Aussie things to BC and Ontario. That done, off we go to the gallery and museum
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Some beautiful aboriginal pieces
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There are two big things in town at the moment. The first is a show of Japanese prints. Some beautiful illustrated manuscripts and sketch books
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And as luck would have it, a Hokusai, but sadly no Utamaro
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They were running digital loops made from the Lumiere brother’s first Paris scenes, which we’ve never seen other than from stills. Mesmerizing
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Off to the museum. That strange skull in the middle is from a platypus
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These crazy skeletons are from the Australian frog-mouthed owl
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Anyway, we’d done our shopping, been to a few of the shows and just in time Steph Jeavons calls to say she’s arrived. Steph is the highest profile solo round-the-world rider, male or female, going around right now. A celebrity. Magazine articles, TV, the whole works. Her website is here. Her Facebook page has 12,000 likes, lol

Sponsored by Honda, she rides a CRF 250L.  She’s going around east. Here I am, in the presence of rtw royalty
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We hang out for a couple of days and mostly drink beer, looking at maps and talking about what’s ahead. But there’s another big show in town I want to see that I haven’t been able to go to: ‘Undressed, 350 years of underwear’. So I hijack Steph and off we go. But strictly no photos allowed. The show was small and disappointing, with the exception of the star piece, below
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Then, on the third morning, ‘RTW Shane’ (as he’s known) shows up and off we go!

Shane Smith is an Aussie on a DR650. He’s travelling west and is back here filing for his Pakistan visa. His bike is in India. The pic below is as he is on the road. He’s borrowed a local bike for his visit. No website, smart man
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It’s extremely rare for 3 solo rtw riders to meet. There are maybe only 15 to 20 going around solo at any one time. Steph and Shane are typical riders in their prime. 20 years younger than me… oh well
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Shane has a treat lined up for us and within minutes of his arriving, we head off
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This is Gold Coast, on the way
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Then we arrive at our destination: Nimbin
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It’s a hippie town
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Pot is sold retail, but they qualify you as it’s still illegal. Just say your from Vancouver. And they have their own vocabulary. ‘yandi’ is weed, ‘bush’ is the shake, the rest I didn’t remember! But this is all heresay anyway.

We went to a restaurant where they had ashtrays outside for pot but cigarettes were not allowed.

Crazy stores
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The three of us had a lot to talk about and were keen to learn about each other. As Steph says, it’s a good thing we stopped when we did before we learned too much. It was fantastic.

Comments

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  1. Tom D.,

    I checked out Steph’s site: Wow! A budget of 5 quid a day! Very inspirational…

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