2500kms and 8 days

Its spring time down here in Oz, and a great time for an extended ride.
My brother, an old mate and my self had been planning a decent ride for a while, as it's been many many years since we all spent more than a day riding together.
A small detail was that we respectively live 600kms and then a further 400kms apart, but that can be sorted. Concurrent 'leave passes' was probably the bigger issue!

And so it was that with 8 days to play, we headed south from Sydney, with full tanks and a loose plan. We had some old friends to catch up with along the way, and we had some specific roads to enjoy (once again), but that was about it.
'Its all about the journey'... rolled off the tongue pretty easily.

The fleet comprised a Harley (since my bother moved to the dark side and sold his Ducati), an 1100 RS BMW (with the 'girlie' heated grips), and of course my Tenni 1200 SE. The Harley and the BMW could each get about 375kms out of a tank. The GRiSO's reserve light comes on around 210kms.
And as we were taking some of the more remote roads, I had '5 litres of 95 octane problem solver' strapped on the back. It never got used.

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We traveled through the coastal forests to the south, and then headed west up over the ranges to the high plains of southern NSW.
And then SE down through the Victorian forests of the East Gippsland.

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From there it was up into the Victorian Alps, where there is still some snow around (6 degrees C at midday - Oh for heated grips!!) but the roads are nice and dry.
And what roads they are!

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And then we headed north into the NSW alpine country. All the while watching out for critters (kangaroos, wombats and cattle) that lack much road sense, and hurt a lot if you connect at 110kph! We even startled a mob of wild horses - I blame the noisy Harley!

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The Snowy Mountains Highway is an old favorite of ours, with near zero traffic mid week and, wide open valleys, and clear vision way ahead.
With good weather, it makes for a great playground on big road bikes. I challenge anyone to be a 'responsible adult' on this road!

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Australia has a penchant for constructing 'big' things as tourist attractions.
Dotted around our countryside are 'big' sheep, lobsters, bananas etc etc etc.
Well I guess the 'tourist attraction' thing works ... as it's pretty hard to go past a freshly painted giant concrete trout, and not see it as a Kodak moment!

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And then a short detour into Canberra, to catch up with some relatives and mooch a few beers and a bed, and then back to Sydney.

We all agreed it was the best bike trip we had been on for a very long time - and so a repeat in 2015 has a 99% probability.

A few comments on SE and the way I've set it up...
> Ran like a charm for the duration - just the perfect 'tool for the job'
> Probably not my favorite bike for dirt roads, but not bad.
> The MRA screen I fitted is great, although I fabricated a further brace for the bottom of the screen that fixes to the headlight bolts, and stops vibration.
> Handled like it was on rails (with luggage) since I lowered the top fork yoke to the 4th ring groove on the upper fork legs.

Finally - how come every bug I hit has just drunk 1 litre of custard???

Spozzy

Looks great, last time i was in Australia i was in a kia hire car

But at least i got to race at the best bike race track in the world

For those who don't know its philip island.

Those are beautiful pics!!! Thanks!

Top pics, great route you chose.
I'm a big girls blouse these days and agree (for me) too the GRiSO isn't quite the right tool for the dirt roads, as stable as it is.

Thanks for sharing the journey with those of us stuck at home in Tasmania for one reason or another.

Fantastic stuff there Spozzy! Thanks for taking us along.

Is that a herd of horses in the roadway???

Nah Steak, just a couple of old nags out for a run
                                                                       Oh, you mean the brumbies practicing for the Melbourne cup?

Wild horses are everywhere up in the Snowy's. Brumbies, we call 'em.

Yep Steak, that's wild horses on the highway!
As Beetle says, they are fairly common in the high country.

Much of this country is unfenced, however in this instance there was a fence setback on one side of the road. The horses ran next to us at 75kph for a kilometer or so.
Damn hard to take a photo at 75kph!!

So I stopped ahead a little - and off with the gloves and out with the camera.
And they obligingly stopped and stood in the middle of the road behind me, for their photo.

Spozzy

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Cool ride Spozzy
Thanks for posting.

what a cool ride you guys had! Thanks for sharing.

spozzy wrote:

Yep Steak, that's wild horses on the highway!
As Beetle says, they are fairly common in the high country.

Much of this country is unfenced, however in this instance there was a fence setback on one side of the road. The horses ran next to us at 75kph for a kilometer or so.
Damn hard to take a photo at 75kph....................

Spozzy

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I grew up in the South of France on the Riviera mostly...
There is an area called "La Camargue". It's about 50 square kilometers where you can't buy land or build anything thus, no civilization.
It's unfenced and it's populated with wild horses among other wild life so yeah, you'll see them on the road.
Have to be careful...
For those who know the band Gipsy Kings, that's where they're from. They're not Spanish but French, well Catalans to be precis...

Big Gypsy Kings fan. Very interesting, did not know that...