Christchurch Back To Cairns To Restart Our Restart And Up To The Top

We had flown back to New Zealand to say goodbye to dad who had the cheek to hang around till he was 90, we got to spend some quality visits with him before sending him to the garden in the sky.

He was a tough old bloke fightiing off one or two health issues but generally in very good health so we were blessed and lucky.

Dad passed at his home in his bed peacefully which was his wish, below is the day we took him out for lunch for his 90th, seeya mate.

Ok, back to the unusual programme, Urals, Mosqitos and warmer weather.

Back to Cairns we picked up Skippy and took her back to Patrick and Belindas, here we did a tyre change etc and got her almost ship shape ready for Cape York.

Our mission should we accept it was to breach to grips of the top of Cape York and return with all three of us intact.

Full credit to Skippy handing the (in places) very ugly road conditions.

One of our stops along the way was at Merluna Station with some pretty coul chooks hooning around and a walk around their lagoon with a salty and Termite mound.

At one stage we pulled over to let traffic go, I aimed for some flat dirt and we pulled over only to get sucked into a soft sandpit, lucky for 2wd and Ellen pushing or would have had to have waited for a tow.

  

Arriving at the top via the Ferry that keeps breaking down it was pissing down, not entirely warm and altogether a lees that mint welcome to the top.

We did however make it there and it was worth the ride, Skippy has now been to the furthest southern and the furthest northern points of AU.

Given the wet (Steady rain) and humid conditions we thought we would get a cabin for the night, they wanted $300.00 quid for a basic cabin, Ellen suggested a hotel then ...$440.00 quid, this did not fit well with our train of thought so we decided on a plan C.

The weather looked better lower down the cape so we decided to bail and head back to the Jardine Ferry that keeps breaking down and was FOOKIN exy ($80 quid for 80 meters), we had concluded our mission but the idea of being raped at the top for night didn't appeal.   

Ellen made a vid here if you are keen

 The return trip...next report

Johannes Bernadus Geradus Delis, 1935 to 2025.

1935 - 2025, age 90.

A young punk till the end.

His 90th birthday we took him our for a lunch, we were gonna do a nice cafe lunch but he simply wanted a good feed of greasies (Fish and Chips) on the beach front in the sun. 

Miss you dad.

The New Beginning...

or so we thought, we flew up to Darwin to get Skippy from the good hands of Niko, this part of this went superbly and Skippy came out with flying colours.

New oils, new battery, fresh new rubba and we were off, but first a hoon around Litchfeild Park with Niko and Yessi and a grand day out.

Phil Scott had taken delivery of our new tyres so we spooned these on at Nikos.

Kakadu National Park, anyone who is anyone knows that Crocadile Dundee was filmed here so for me it was a must stop and see, which we did.

On exiting the park after no cell service we had many messages to call home, a quick call to home established my dad had fallen very ill and very quickly, they gave him 6 weeks at best.

Our descsion was to either back track to Darwin or B line it to Cairns or Townsville.

Our descison was to Cairns as it appeared to be the only airport we could fly back to Christchurch direct. 

We rode 2596km in 4.5 days with the easterly wind in our face at about 70 km/hr all day so like trying to ride Skippy at 140km/hr all day, one day was 636km which was very hard.

A well earned stop in the middle at hot pools.

We made it to Cairns where we had organised a place for Skippy to stay with the help of fellow international travellers Belinda and Patrick Peck, they saved our arses for which we will be forever grateful.

Flying back to Christchurch was staright into the cold and with bad news looming so we were not exactly excited about heading back.

The End....Then The Start

The End

So, to infill the finish of the last segment it ended abruptly with a fall in a mossy creek perfected by me (nothing to do with the moto) and the result was subscapularis tendon and long head biceps tendon damage to my right shoulder. 

Such was the damage to me the last 10 km ride back to our camp was to be the end of our trip which quickly turned into part 1 with every corrugation torturing me with severe pain while riding skippy back to camp, given we were just off the Gibb river road the corrugations were so deep the kangeroos used them as shade from the sun which extremely hard work.

On return to camp I knew this was the end of this session.

A quick-ish trip in a landcruiser with some very nice people to Derby it was established that the help I needed was far beyond a satellite hospital, the scans showing two tendons torn off their mounts or what they call full thickness tears.

The look of hapiness 😂

The logistics for getting Skippy out of the Gibb river and shipped to Darwin took a LOT of work and money and helping hands from people involved from the PWS who were outstanding, the trucking company who took her up but most of all Niko in Darwin who has taken delivery and looked after her which is monumental. 

3 days after my stack we were back home to freezing NZ and the shit started because Alliance lied to us, because we had been outa Kiwiland for more than 6 months there was no ACC either.

I did get fixed up pretty quickly which was cool with our medical cover from Southern Cross NZ kicking in, Alliance are lying wankers having advised us to go back to NZ only to say when we got home .....no our policy is only valid in AU. 

My surgery went well, my subscapularis put/pulled back into place and held with the appropriate metalwork, screws and some Ali Express string, my long head biceps torn in half mean the top part was cut off and thrown to the dogs and the bottom half remaining and screwed back to the bone so I now have a popeye syndrome appearance, I think my days on the catwalk are numbered 😂.

Long story short it was a BIG repair job, slightly bigger than the surgeons had anticipated but took it in their stride and although it was done in August 24 and now it is May 25 I still have a big lack of strength but once back on Skippy it will have to be ok 💪.

It has been an interesting few months and not quite what we had planned but we made the most of what had happened and re-adjusted our lives to suck it up and carry on, but I do apologize for the radio silence as I got sucked in a dark hole for a while.  

The restart.

Back to Brisbane for a night to catch up with friends then carry on to Darwin to get the bike, reassemble etc and continue on our merry way.

Plan is to stay out of hospital and jail this time.