The Great Ocean Road and Painted Silos

There are a few rides that we’ve talked about doing for many years, the two main ones, Tasmania and Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Both iconic destinations in their own right and both great riding destinations. We’ve had plans for Tassie a number of  times over the last three decades but they’ve always fallen through, and while I’ve done the Great Ocean Road a few times we haven’t ridden it together.

With Deb having a conference in Melbourne on the weekend we booked ourselves a week off to ride the Great Ocean before I drop her at the conference and I’ll continue riding to meet up with some long distance riding friends in Echuca for our annual muster.

Camping with the Folks

Camping at Shoalhaven Heads with my parents was a great chance to just hang out. However it wasn’t all smooth sailing with us holding our tent up on Saturday night.! Literally holding it up so it wouldn’t come down on top of us as it buckled under the force of gale force winds and driving rain. The joys of camping.!

Honda ST1300 LED Lighting Upgrade

After purchasing the ST1300 I upgraded the halogen H4 and some cheap LED driving lights mounted under the mirrors. This was better … but not a dramatic improvement. With a couple of big rides coming up with a lot of night riding and road conditions deteriorating after all the rain better lights would be a great investment.

One of my aims is to improve the low beam, as it’s unsettling not having good coverage of light on country road when there is a lot of traffic around at night.

Easter Camping by the Murray

With the disappointment of not getting away on the bike in March we were able to get away over Easter for some time under canvas (well nylon). A recommendation from a riding friend suggested a small village on the Victorian side of the Murray River, Tintaldra. That was enough of a recommendation for me and they had space. Done.

The Silo Run

This morning I was going for a ride with Ed who is heading to Western Australia to visit his folks as he hasn’t seen them since before Covid. I had set my alarm for 3:45am and was planning to meet Ed on the highway at 4:45am and tag along with him for 500km to Hay where I would peel off and drop down into Victoria and check out some more silo and water tower art to add to my collection before heading home. I packed an overnight bag in case I needed to stop.

Getting away for a few days

With a few days off between Christmas and New Years we took the opportunity to escape for a few days and get some much needed open road therapy before we head into another year of unknown. The plan was pretty simple, catch up with Deb’s sister in Denman, head west to check out some painted silos and find somewhere to stay, then head back to Canberra. All up about 1,200km.

And That’s a Wrap

It’s hard to believe after all the planning and preparation for this trip and how quickly the trip is over.! It’s just over three weeks since we rolled out of our driveway in Canberra and now we’re back home. In total over the three weeks we traveled over 7,070km, staying at over 13 locations, travelling…

Time to Turn Back?

What are we doing.! As the sun was setting the temperature had dropped to 5 degrees. Is it too late to change our minds and head back to the warm..?? It now really feels like we are on our last leg of our trip as these are roads we have done often. From the Sunshine…

The Long Haul

The word for this leg is “roadworks”. I have never seen so much roadworks … just as you get back up to highway speeds you hit the next lot of roadworks. 100 – 80 – 60 – 40 – 60 – 80 – 100 – 80 – 60 – 40 – stop – go –…