It was a tight road with more twisties than a bag of
bluebirds, I reckon in a coupla weeks I will look like Arnie as steering Скиппи
is quite physical.
Stunning road and a lot of motos making the most of
the corners, arriving at Omeo we did a lap of the town to suss it out before
heading back to camp ground, after a few nights of National parks it was time
for a shit, shave, shower and shampoo as looking in the mirror an old man kept
steering back at me.
Arriving at the camp ground it is in an awesome
location, we clocked in and started to head towards our site, half way along
minding our own business a fello pops out from behind a camper van and waves us
down, my first thought is are we on fire or what has fallen off (it’s a Russian
thing) 😀😀
He says very proudly “I have one of these”, looking at
him I said you are haitch from the Ozzie Ural forum and an even bigger smile came
over his face.
So, we had corresponded and haitch had been a great
help with info so the chance that we would cross paths here was random at best and very very
cool.
We were promptly offered a coffee which we duly
accepted, we didn’t have much to talk about (LOL) and it wasn’t long we were
having a good yarn.
In the evening we had dinner and chats, good times, haitch and Marge left the following day (dunno what we said 😁) and we had an exploratory day around gold mines etc, the evening dinner at the camp kitchen, a fire and wine to seal the deal, poor ol Скиппи looking in from the outside like a dejected puppy.
Arriving back in Ozzie we had a lumpy start with
cancelled flights etc making us 2.5 days late, lucky we have travel insurance,
apparently with the Airline if inclement weather causes your delay or cancellation
then too bad it is your own cost.
Finally getting into Mildura we were greeted by Booza
who picked us up and took us to his dungeon where we were to be enslaved by the
Russian lady.
A coupla speed humps saw us go from 3 days to 4 days
to set up but everything worked in the end with a bit of kiwi ingenuity and
sideways thinkin.
Upon finishing we set sail south and turned off on the
first dirt road which followed the river for a shakedown test, all went well, I
was at this stage feeling a little crap from a head cold that was to set in big
time.
We headed down to Patchewollock where Booza originated,
we stayed at his old farm house for 2 nights while I tried to fend off the head
cold....which didn't work.
Speedy, a good friend of Boozas picked us up on the
Friday afternoon taking us for a tour of the district, onya mate well cool so we bought beers
and snacks at the pub.
We headed out to snowdrift sand dunes which was well
cool, then on down to the Grampians, we didn’t know till we got there it was
Melbourne Cup weekend…excellent choice I must say to enjoy the Melbourne masses
which had descended on the Grampians for the long weekend…as ya do.
We ended up camping at Lake Lonsdale for two nights,
I was in the middle of a near death experience man flu, (as real as UDF) it was serious
as I lost my smell of barbeque food for a day.
Making our way to Melbourne we stopped at a motorcamp
just out of the city, it was pretty average then our two stainless steel cups,
cooking oil and milk powder got stolen, we couldn't report it to reception as they
were closed for cup day, we did report it the following morning and left pretty
pissed off.
About 3 hours and 85km later the lady rang saying they
had “found” our items, it sounds like some local legend oxygen thieves had
taken them as they had observed the camera footage of the kitchen, she said we could come
back and pick them up, not happening riding that distance through Melbourne then
back again so yeap what a fuckin joke.
We headed into Eurobrit Motorcycles to get Скиппи serviced, with
no appointment they took her in and changed the oils and did a wee check as to
why we were gettingsome pinging,
unfortunately they couldn’t do the tappits as the bike has to be cold so I did
them instead.
I set the plug gap correctly and tried set the tappits
to spec, Yuri has done the nuts up mega tight from factory, after splitting a
socket it was a trip back to Eurobrit who kindly lent us a thin wall hex socket
and we cracked them all loose, again huge thumbs up to Eurobrit for their help.
Finally getting the tappits done was awesome and Скиппи was running better although we still have some pings, hopefully with
time and mileage it will settle down.
In between we were staying at Jeffs, one of Ellen
friends place so with some downtime we did a lot of work to his new home
including deadlock fitting, hardware fixing and fitting a bidai to name a few.
Finally getting away from Melbourne we took to the
green bits on the map which were national parks staying here and there, we did
bed down for 2 nights in Mrytlesford which is a beautiful wee town, the second
day was a bit groggy and wet so we just stayed not having to be anywhere in
particular.
Mt Buffalo we had in our sights, so no point in me gabbing
on about it watch the vid, pretty cool place.
Next up was through to Mt Beauty then up to Pretty
Valley and 1700 m, the top lookout 1800 m and was pretty epic.
On the way Скиппи threw up and engine light, it was
only 22 degrees so we don’t think it was overheating, again right up near the
top at 15 degree the engine light came on again, an inspection showed nothing
leaking or anything melting so we continued…actually we had no option.
Spending 2 nights up top the first night was cold and a
fire was our mate, the second night saw the wind pick up a little and the temp
was 2 degrees when we left the fire for bed.
During the night it tried to rain but being so cold it hailed. The
morning we woke to little white bits everywhere and the top of the water our
containers frozen a few mm, it would have dropped to -4 to -5 ish.
Next stop just down the road to Jokers Flat, only
about 60 km away, what an awesome spot, half the altitude and a little warmer, we swapped a fish for a pair of tongs with our neighbours so that was a good deal.
Ok, back to the Landcruiser gig, this has provided us
with 6 weeks of understanding Ozzie and seeing how it works, getting to know
the system, how much you can buy with Kiwi conversion and generally
understanding the language …translating it to Kiwi.
We needed to get a spare tire so head back into
Mildura and met up with Booza and his wife which was cool, he has a good mate
who built a Harley trike by himself. Things are falling into place with good bastids yet a again,
starting to see a picture forming here.
Post purchase of Скиппи we headed into the outback in
the Prado, it was straight into it, one minute we were in a town with normal
humans and shops nec minut out in the sandy abyss steering at the earths
curvature, a real contrast and the distances between towns is huge like the
Russian Siberian outback but more so…..and bald.
I have to admit at being spooked at first although
being an experienced 4wheeler and international moto traveller this just had
that added feel of real emptiness, we stuck to tar seal for a lot to get the
feel but soon enough the tar ran out and it turned to gravel, we hardly lost any time as we
were just cruising quietly letting traffic pass us, gave us time to gork out
the window and realize yet again how very insignificant and small we are
compared to mighty mum nature.
Understanding how brutal the outback could be to the
unprepared we were prepped while still travelling lite in prep for down sizing
into Скиппи.
We did the top of Camerons corner which is the
boundary of the three states of NSW/Queensland and South Australia ..cos..it
has to be done.
We came down using Camerons as our directional change,
436 km on gravel …..it was a big haul as the speeds are not big due to road
hazards skipping around us and Emus who always have to cross the road just as
you arrive.
Finally we came back to tar, still very remote with
the scenery not changing but the feeling of safety back in the bag again….weird
feeling.
Flinders range in our sights we sorta almost stuffed
up having stopped at the turn we should have taken to Arkaroola, anyway we
proceeded into Blinman before heading into the National Park
at Wilpena Pound.
Very nice place, $48 Ozzie slides to stay the night in
the camp in our tent…whoa…cough….cringe…etc.
It was very nice until later that evening when the
weather caved in, raining and blowing ….excellent. Next morning the weather
cleared enough for us to go up the valley on a hike and see the views before
peeling out from camp to go to Aroona ruins.
Another small hike and back to camp to set up, we
started to get a fire going and put the tent up and down it came in style, it
blew and rained all evening and continued during the night, our Hilliberg
Staica 2 tent took it in its stride being well versed with Mongolia storms and
Siberian rain, that tent is a piece of treasure.
Time to head back to civilization to get supplies we
headed to Hawker then on down to Almerta Station farmstay.
We were worn down a bit with drying our tent out day
after day having done 13 tent nights in a row and the last two night being less
than ideal, at Almerta Station the forecast was not good with a polar blast
covering the bottom of Oz and the cheapest shearers quarters was $200 Ozzie
slides per night (Dutch Quantity Surveyor and Chinese Acountant gasping), she
said we can stay in the wool shed which has a log fire…same price as a tent
site, we bought wood and set up, flash as Michael Jackson we had lighting,
power and all and this my friends is exactly where I was writing this.
To say it has been an interesting start is mild but
good, sets us up for the reality of travelling which defo has its ups and down,
as discussed on our Arctic To Antarctic trip the highs are higher and the lows
are much lower and that is called experience…..I strongly suggest experience is
worthy as 99% of the time the tests and trials are well overridden by
immeasurable feelings of gratitude and accomplishment…just sayin.
Stop, Ural time, you can touch this.
Finally, after 4 years we are now about to realize our
long awaited travel again albeit not in Russia and the Stans for obvious
reasons, time will tell but the new found 3 legged dinosaur looks set to
provide huge grins so we lucky we have lots of space, our phones are empty of
pics to keep the weight down ready to take more and show you Ozzie, Ur all
welcome to follow us on another andiventure.
