Back To Ozzie To Start The Moto Trip

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 getting some 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. 

 

 

Next stop Omeo.....