Inverell ...Home Of Wayne And Kristy... Ural Rider Extraordinaire.

Inverell, Wayne and Kristys, Wayne works as a mechanical, electrical and hydraulics engineer, he gets all the impossible things to fix and brings them back into life, a talented man.

His new project is building a sidecar from a Royal Enfield 650 Bear, discussions were had on wheel sizes, Earles forks, reverse gears and all over a Gin or Bundy Rum, we look forward to seeing this come to fruition.

They took us on some cool back roads, “no through road”(s) and some pretty neat wee spots involving some mild 4 wheeling tracks, 2 hot lusties in their natural environment.

A bit of bush bashing as many trees were down from the recent heavy weather, everything from big winds, heavy rain and even snow.

Our tour included the Carnarvon mine, an awesome area not very well known, outstanding to say the least and some fun was had on various tracks.

A ride down to the reservior was interesting with some techy riding.

Saying goodbye to Wayne and Kristy we headed to Coffs Harbour via some very cool backroads and a majestic camp, a campfire was had with a neighbouring camper and a good yarn had.

The back roads took us through to Coffs Harbour to meet up with Dave Wright, a fello KTM 950 Super Enduro owner who had stalked us on the Americas run.

We also met up with Kev, a fellow we met up at Tarraloo camp in Northern Queensland, Kev gave us a map of the cape and suggested roads and gave us a wealth of information.

We met up at a pub in Coramba, much to his surprise we gave him his map back in pretty much the same condition other than having some extra hightlight of roads to take, in the spirit of travellers it can now be handed on to someone else to make good use of.

Finishing at Daves we took a stunning back road and interesting gravel state forest road, the day was cold, around 5-6 degress, our mission was to get to Uralla to the Ural headquarters and part of that took us up to 1370 meters high and bitterly cold.

Heated grips on the top setting, winter gloves, wet jacket etc all required, even by Kiwi standards this was pushing the level of comfort to the edge.

Finally getting to Uralla we caught up with Clare and Mat, at that stage only needing an oil filter for an upcoming oil change.

We were going to stay in Uralla however the forecast was for cold, heavy rain and possible snow ….. the appeal for this was wearing thin I would have to say and Noel invited us to arrive early so this defo took the first place with the next day proving ugly.

A catch up and pic session we bolted for cover in Tamworth.

   

Stanthorpe, Balancing Rocks And a Cool Chook

Stanthorpe, not much to say for Ozzie warmth other than it was cold again, our Aunty of senior years saying to us 2025 has been one of the coldest and wettest years she can remember, my head cold still not letting go it was extremely nice to be given a room a fireplace etc.

Nick and Mary Jane were extremely nice people and welcomed us in like long lost family proving yet again that 99.9% of people in the world are still good honest people.

There is a famous Gin distilery (Conrads) which Nick forced us to go too...and made us have some samples etc, the place was coolas with a sidecar theme, turns out the owner is a Ural nutta too.

Nick and Mary Jane unfortunately had a passing of a close friend just prior to us landing at their place so we helped run their block with two cows, one chicken and a Golden Retriever in conjunction with their Kiwi neighbour Dave.

Domestic duties with Ginger taking us for a walk.

We met a bunch of BMW riders, some with Urals at a ride we were invited to, again ex Kiwis it was great meeting them and having a yarn.

Gireween National Park, balancing boulders which are well cool, we did a lot of walks and with my headcold still draining my energy some accents were slow going however we did manage to summit the walks and getting out an breathing deep was a great help.

Photo time.

Girraween National Park was excellent, so many cool spot and balancing rocks, we could kill the rocks with pixel poisoning ...

Finishing Stanthorpe and handing over the place to Dave the Kiwi we headed to Inverell to catch up with Wayne and Kristy, Ural rider extraordinaires we met in Tasmania.

Brisbane And 4x4 Buds

Francois (pronounced Francewah) and Christene, we met them at 80 Mile camp ground in WA.

First, F, can I take a picture of your bike?…..Me, no worries, morphed into a chat about we were from etc and continued to their camper trailer having an issue with a split water tank so bein a Kiwi I offered to help if I could.

I only had aquaseal onboard skippy but it was a good try and partially worked, Francois found some alloy angle and used some strops to tighten the bottom of the tank and hold it together, the repair is still holding after the Gibb River road and their trip back to Brisbane.

Good times for a catch up, unfortunately the grunty head cold grip was not letting go so it did dampen thinks a bit for me, a quick trip to the doc to make sure I wasn't gonna die this week pissed me off even more with this stupidity....when the fuck is the world going to return to normal???

We still went out and did the things we wanted but yeap I was under the weather, they were so accommodating for the crook kiwi.

While there we all went over on the Ferry to North Stradbroke Island for a day trip which was well cool, the weather was very nice other than a saucy breeze which sliced through me (only cos I felt like shit)((actually I looked like shit too))(((actually I was shit))) but a good feed of greasies for lunch made the afternoon.

Christene and Ellen 

North Stradbroke Island was a great place with walks and a cruzy atmosphere, throughly recommended.

A civilise we were here picture.

Yes...old pissing kissing and cuddling 💖

They had taken delivery of a new rear tyre so with that onboard we were off towards Boonah to catch up with Craig and Sharon Idema who we met under a tree…literally., picture from 2012.

It was the Sequoia National Park in the USA and they came riding through the road through the middle of the tree, we all stopped for yarn to find out we were neighbours with them living on the little island to the west of New Zealand, again we bumped into them on several occasions on our Americas travels so our desto was to see them.

We went early and chose to grab a motel for a couple of nights (rather than cold camp in the tent) where I could cough my lungs out and spit out all the head cold crap including my brains, I had coughing fits and was so sore around my whole torso it hurt to breath, technically I shoulda got a 6 pack LOL.

I was miserable to say the least and to have somewhere quiet and warm to die for a coupla days was a good choice.

Catching up with Craig and Sharon was so cool, Boonah is a beautiful we town, in true moto traveller fashion I helped him change his rear tyre, replace wheel bearings etc and get his other bike running, he was stoked to have a shed mate for a coupla days and I enjoyed doing that work with him in the warmth of the sun as well…good times.

Boonah is a stunning wee town, super cool Steam Punk clock and other metal artworks.

We stole local knowledge from Craig and Sharon (Garmin GPS does not have a Local Knowledge And Cool Shit button) so Goomburra National Park it was for some light weight hiking and heavy weight scenery.

We spent two nights there with the second night lightly frosting so it was cool enough for a sick bastid.

On the exit we stopped to check out the roadart which was well cool.

Stanthorpe our next desto, invited by RTW travellers Nick and Mary Jane, ex Ural owner (Yeah I know…I was thinking that too). The weather started beautifully then the day we chose to go to a National Park the weather caved in which allowed me to write this....next up Stanthorpe.