Island Bend Kosciusko ride Jan 30-31

[Mal S7]

You done good to persist fellas! Glad you enjoyed it.

I drove my car on Friday and kicked myself as it stopped raining just outside Dubbo and not a drop fell again til I hit Canberra. The drive home on Saturday was the same, an absolute pearler of a day for a ride, the perfect temperature with just the odd thunderstorm roaming the countryside to make it interesting.

Oh well, I look forward to the next run. We will have that Zombie rally!

[Zombie Master]

You done good to persist fellas! Glad you enjoyed it.

I drove my car on Friday and kicked myself as it stopped raining just outside Dubbo and not a drop fell again til I hit Canberra. The drive home on Saturday was the same, an absolute pearler of a day for a ride, the perfect temperature with just the odd thunderstorm roaming the countryside to make it interesting.

Oh well, I look forward to the next run. We will have that Zombie rally!

Well....I've been waiting to hear on a few issues with this trip. So while I still plan to come down under, it looks like I will be going just to NZ. My buddy mate who is a prof up at the University Uni in Adelaide, has had a change in his work that won't allow him to ride as we had planned. When I did research on OZ, I realized that a few weeks would not do. I'd need to be there 2-3 months to see much. I would like to spend that much time, and hopefully I will get to do that. If all goes well, I'll spend a month in NZ for my first trip down there. Hopefully my friendmate will be available in the not to distant future to do some riding in OZ. I would very much like to meet anyone of you, after what I've learned about you from your posts.

BTW any wisdom you would care to share about NZ would be most appreciated:)

[Airbear]

Another great weekend was had. The weather is best described as 'changeable'. I rode through a bit of wetness on the Friday but managed to wait out the biggest dump of rain at the Khancoban servo.



The roads were as good as ever and a little extra care on the wet parts made the trip just as enjoyable. Brunhilde behaved and purred along beautifully. I got to the camp at around 5pm with a storm threatening, put up the tarp and tent and watched the storm slip away to the west.



I checked my phone at this point and got the message from Bob that he was in Jindy. No bars on my phone so not much I could do. I hope you had a good night, Bob. The weather cleared, the wind stopped and I had a good feed and enjoyed a sky full of stars. I had collected some wet firewood before dark but not enough to bother trying to light it. By the time I went to bed the river had got a lot noisier and had risen about half a metre.

On Saturday I went back to Jindabyne and Bob and I traded text messages, so I knew he was headed back to the coast. I assumed that Mal had also decided to bail, so I headed back to the camp just in time to shelter under the tarp from a good dump of rain. Then the sky cleared and I settled in for a perfect afternoon of reading.



Around 4pm (I think) a distant roar heralded the arrival of a bunch of bikes. Jeff, Pete, Ken, Luke, Jim, Hamish and Paul turned up. More firewood was gathered and a good fire built up. Here's a fire starting trick: Take a beer can, cut it in half, fill with petrol, stand it in the fire pit so it won't fall over and light. It doesn't go "whoomp", it just burns with a flame about 150mm high. Then build up a stack of wet twigs and sticks in increasing size until those great big logs can be thrown on. The fire was still going well in the morning.

We had a few showers during the evening but managed to fit everyone under the tarp as required. A bigger tarp would have been better but it was fun anyway. It was a good night and the morning was dry for packing up. We rode through the occasional shower on the homeward run, but with good long runs through the twisties on dry roads too. Stopped at Khancoban for food and waited out another shower. Here we are at the Geehi picnic shelter:



I got pretty wet on the last leg to home - it was quite heavy going over the Granya Gap but I was warm and dry. I'm very happy with my wet weather gear, tent and tarp. An excellent gathering it was. Thanks all. I hope everyone made it home safely.

[Airbear]

Well....I've been waiting to hear on a few issues with this trip. So while I still plan to come down under, it looks like I will be going just to NZ. My buddy mate who is a prof up at the University Uni in Adelaide, has had a change in his work that won't allow him to ride as we had planned. When I did research on OZ, I realized that a few weeks would not do. I'd need to be there 2-3 months to see much. I would like to spend that much time, and hopefully I will get to do that. If all goes well, I'll spend a month in NZ for my first trip down there. Hopefully my friendmate will be available in the not to distant future to do some riding in OZ. I would very much like to meet anyone of you, after what I've learned about you from your posts.

BTW any wisdom you would care to share about NZ would be most appreciated:)

G'day Neil. Very sensible to plan on spending more time here when you come. There is a lot to see and some big distances to cover, even if you are only seeing the south-east corner of the country. Keep us up to date with plans so we can organise the Zombie Rally.

I can't help with NZ info, except to say that they are friendly and talk funny. It may be worth checking out the ADV forum devoted to Kiwis: http://advrider.com/index.php?forums/new-zealand.65/

Edit: They even have a "sticky" thread at the top called "The Official NZ FAQ Thread: Bike hire, trip planning, NZ info etc look here first": http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/t ... st.712784/

[Mal S7]

Too bad you ain't comin' yet Neil but you will enjoy NZ. Haven't been there but its on the list. I hear its like British Columbia and that's saying something.

We should proceed anyway with the inaugural Zombie Rally in your honour. I'll start a new thread.

[Zombie Master]

Too bad you ain't comin' yet Neil but you will enjoy NZ. Haven't been there but its on the list. I hear its like British Columbia and that's saying something.

We should proceed anyway with the inaugural Zombie Rally in your honour. I'll start a new thread.

Wow a Zombie Rally. I guess I will have to come in the not to distant future.

I've booked for NZ now I'll be there for 6 weeks. I'm renting a well equipped Suzuki DL650. I was going to go with the GS1200 but they didn't have any available for the time I'm going be there. The DL should be decent.

[grant81rs]

Gidday,

Ya coming all that way ZM but not quite.... You could stand on the sheep covered cliffs of the NZ coast and with a good easterly blow'in over ya shoulder, a guts full of red wine etc... a fit bloke like yourself could piss onto the golden sands of an Oz beach.

So close!!

[SteveD]

Gidday,

Ya coming all that way ZM but not quite.... You could stand on the sheep covered cliffs of the NZ coast and with a good easterly blow'in over ya shoulder, a guts full of red wine etc... a fit bloke like yourself could piss onto the golden sands of an Oz beach.

So close!!

Prostate dependant!

[ME 109]

I've been prostrate with a gut full of red wine.
And beer.