Buckin Broncos, Handlebars And Old Times

Finishing Carnarvon gorge and very satisfied we headed to Theodore to meet Marks mum Jan and Ross who had invited us to stay on their farm, their property is a beautiful setting and cool backdrops, we earned our keep assisting them with shifting Bulls, drenching a heard of around 100 and shifting them out to the back paddock (a long way).

Some fence work required as it had been very wet.

While in Theodore the rodeo was on which turned into a must do, they had motos there too performing backflips and all pretty cool, the barrel racers provided a fair stack of skills and entertainment as well as the bucking bulls.

The downside to the great night out is it got very cold which would lead to a grunty head cold that I still have 3 weeks on, I thought I had been singled out but no it has been going around Oz like a dose of the heavy shits.

While at Theodore I took Ross out for a skid in Skippy which he thought was amusing.

Concluding Theodore and the great fun we had there we were off towards Ken and Carol Duval’s who we had met and had heaps of fun when we were all young(er) punks but in between we had a stop at Handlebar Haven in Kilkivan, note the bike up the tree.

Handlebar Haven is a camp ground specifically for bikes and bikers of all races, genders, colour and heritage (moto style that is)…if you have handlebars you are made welcome….even Ural eccentrics.

They do have signs saying “no fuckwits” so they are clear about anyone wanting to cause trouble, Annie and her man Jock said they have had very few issues with the rest of the biker community keeping things on the straight and narrow while having cool musical gigs and moto parties.

For us it was a great place, Annie has a Harley trike and the are both in the process of setting up two KLR650s with sidecars for their Ozzie travel, a huge thanks for the hospitality and fun, see you again.   

We had met Ken and Carol in the USA, then again in Mexico and South America, on arrival at their place we were welcomed in like yesterday, so cool to say the least and great to see them again.

We had a great yarns and chewed the fat with many years of stories and experiences to catch up on, absolutely golden.

The afternoon we arrived I started to feel a bit shady and by that night I had a full blown bastid head cold that knocked me for a six.

The following few days were shit, barking like an old dog with horse breath and snotted up to hell so it was great fun…yeah, but still we made the most of it however unwantingly I had shared it with Carol…very very sorry for that.

Next up and away we hit it to Brisbane to meet up with other 4 wheeled travel mates.

Off Into The Abyss...And Beyond

Saying goodbye to Mark and Linda we headed toward Charters Towers, the road was not entirely scenic however one has to tie the coolas bits together with a few transit roads.

The history at Charters Towers was awesome with big ties back to Marks family.

After staying in Charters Towers we bailed south again ending up at Bedford Weir, a very nice place indeed, yarning with some locals they too recommended Carnarvon Gorge so our sites were set.

Blackwater just around the corner we decided take the opportunity to repair Skippys sidecar mudguard that was slowly tearing, some serious size washers and grunty braces for a bit or AU cash and we were on our way.

Yet again we peeled off through shortcut backroads which are much nicer than the traffic infested main roads.

Carnarvon Gorge, BIG4…..can highly recommend it, beautiful setting and awesome campground.

We spent 4 days in total wondering around like lost muppets enjoying the landscape with my fav being the Amphitheatre, nothing short of a geological meca.

The entire gorge is full of cool features carved by mum nature and the top lookout view was well worth the hoof to the top.

You can just keep taking photo after photo, at some point you have to cut it and just enjoy your time there and appreciate this epic world.

 

Terrorurism, Long Lost New Family And Ural Wall Of Fame

Port Douglas, two kiwis doing the terrorurist thing playing on the reef as ya do, a must do on our list for a long time.

Belinda booked our trip so we had a committed date, we then tried to get a camp site…school holidays made quick work of making this difficult, we did however manage to get a site at a slight premium.

We had a day out on the Great Barrier Reef with 3 lots of snorkeling and the most fish we have ever seen per sq metre, to say it was awesome was an understatement so for us a great day out doing civilian things like normal humans.

From Port Douglas it was back to Cairns to Patrick and Belindas to do a round of oil changes, bolt and nut tightening and just a general check over after the roughness of the cape, while we were there this wee jet boat was there.

Cairns in the background from a roof top bar

A couple of social days relaxing then on our way south towards Townsville with an overnight stopover in between.

Houston and Emily, two young moto travellers we met down in Tassie, we call them our kids… good buggers!!, Townville in the home of Emilys Mum and Dad otherwise known as Mark and Linda.

We were invited to meet and stay with them which was so cool, both having seen us in Emily and Houstons vids they felt like the already knew us…..boy were they in for a shock!

They are both keen moto riders having CFL300L to travel their locale on, Mark was pretty keen to see the strange tripod in person too, one part of our mission was to take Linda for a skid in Skippy...good fun. 

Again we were made to relax and suffer a drink or two...apparently its social...or something 😂 and a mandatory trip to the central lookout, Mark is a wealth of knowledge giving us the info on the surrounding areas, while nearly the top a Russian Freightliner came in to land at the airport and it was massive, it looked stunning slowly coming in, to me it is amazing something that weighs so much can fly. 

The last mission for Skippy was to check the sidecar alignment after the cape, with the straight edges, tape measures and two engineers we corrected the alignment and did check measures…job done, the sidecar fender had nearly split in half as well so we did and 4 bolts and backing plate panel job to hold it all in place till we get our new guard, Mark gave us a full concrete warrantee for the repair. (Once Skippy was off the concrete that was when the warrantee exipried 😂)

We sat down each night for a few quiet ones as Mark and Linda were up for a few yarns.

The Monday was a holiday but we managed to catch up with Bruce at TSV Sidecars, the Ural Dealer and sidecar fabricator in Townsville.

We got to write our date etc on Bruces wall of fame of Urals which made it to the top and back.      

Move over Lee the Kiwis are invading 😂, all in all yet again to a town we don't know the people have made it and we have thoroughly enjoyed it, enjoys Ellens vid

Crocs And Disappearing Kiwis

Musgraves, our next turnoff to excitement arrived, the bad news of a death had become apparent as we discovered Kiwi had broken both his legs off on the coros and bailed, a little over 30000 km was his life but he did see a lot of Oz.

Although we had gone to the top of the Cape the second half was still waiting, our approach was to sneak ahead of the impending school hols by going straight to the top and as the masses arrived we would be on our way south…this plan worked very well.

The intense line of traffic carving its way to the top was astounding, we only had a max 2-3 minutes of vehicle free then again another long line snake of autos and trailers.

Turning off from Musgraves the ride would take us through Lakefield National Park.

It wasn’t long and we found camp to enjoy the sun and warmth, something we had missed as it had been very wet, we chatted to a couple in a beautiful overland truck for some more bad ideas.

No neighbours ...WOHHOH

After our usual setting up etc the walk around the area netted us seeing a 4.5m – 5.0m croc sunning himself on the bank, he was a biggin and looked pretty glam before he got wind of us and slinked off into the water, that feeling and fear of seeing something like that in his back yard was awesome.

The raos with quite a few water crossings up to about 400mm deep these were perfect bike washes to remove some of the Cape from under Skippy.

Bar a few vehicles this road was much quieter than the main affording us the time and ease back to take in our ride rather than watching for traffic and heavy coros.

The road we had taken set us up well for the entry to Cooktown, we stayed a couple of days the in an adventure camp nearer the airport, the camp was a beautiful setting and very relaxing.

Cooktown included a tour through the museum and a stomp around town, given our historical ties with Capt.James Cook it was worthy to see this.

From Cooktown we headed south again via Cape Tribulation, this road was pretty cool and steep in places again with water crossings, our next desto Port Douglas.