The morning after Lucinda is finally ready we take her for a shakedown to Phillip Island and back. Plenty has been achieved and we’ll post a few pics later. The work has been done at BM Motorcycles in Melbourne who we were told earlier in the ride were one of the best shops in Australia. Here are James and Chris
I learned a lot from James as he walked me through areas and processes to add to my slowly growing knowledge inventory. He has the blog address so I won’t be too effusive, but working with him was an excellent and fun experience. He was patient and generous with his knowledge. This is the shop you want to apprentice in.
But not short. Parts took a while to arrive. Plus that particular Aussie thing of no long distance rider first-in-first-out privilege. So when you’re here, book your appointment well in advance, as we did, or you could be waiting a couple of weeks. We booked a month in advance but still our hours were allocated into a schedule.
Back to the track
One of the most famous rides in Australia is the Great Ocean Road. It starts almost immediately SW out of Melbourne and lasts about 100 miles before turning inland.
You ride a cut above the water through hills like this
It’s a good twisty road looking out over the deceptively blue Southern Ocean.
But we’ve picked the wrong day. The road is thick with traffic, mostly tourists, and it’s a Sunday. It’s a bit hazardous as once in a while a car will cross the center line or pull out of one of the many view spots too quick into traffic or two slow.
The beaches are covered in people
The road occasionally goes inland like this
The land behind the ocean
Most of the coastline is beach. Difficult access means no people and a better view
The is one of the Twelve Apostles, sea stacks just off the coastline. There’s a parking lot to the right of the road and a short walk to a viewpoint where you can see them all, but today it’s overflowing with cars and people and so one Apostle will have to do. I’ve heard that there are only 10 anyway, however that works
The next day the hills are gone and we ride a few hundred yards to a mile or so parallel to the ocean. It’s a pretty ride nonetheless
Farmland
We stop a few times and ride to the ocean. This is the site of Victoria’s (a state name) population of 600 Hooded Plovers, one of the world’s nearly extinct birds
And the beach looking east. Thankfully not a soul
Looking west. Time to slow down, sit down, listen, plugging in to the bigger thing that offers easy access at times like this
Later crossing more vegetation like this
To an estuary
Later, a 2800′ pier
The next morning gassing up, guess what, yet another DR650, nicely sorted, with a 30-ish litre tank. As we’ve said before Aussies love this bike and since they’re both motorheads and good riders we should take that as a solid endorsement
We take the Princes Highway the third day to Adelaide. Actually this is a little road, what we call a highway is further inland
And take a short road to the beach after a while
Beautiful
Later we pass flats of what appears to evaporated shallow ponds
Dominated by this tough and interesting plant
We ride out onto a huge flat, careful to ride between the plants. It’s soft but only packs below Lucinda to a cm or two
A quiet and good ride
Later this harsher environment
To another estuary. What the pictures don’t show is the feeling of remote wildness to this stretch of road. It’s memorable
And into Adelaide.