TRAVEL FEATURE - A u s t r a l i a
RICHARD REED
" I
THOUGHT YOU WERE
A
GONER !"
“
How hard can it be ?”, the immortal words of my travelling companion , Justin , weren ’ t encouraging . “ As long as we keep going east , we ’ re fine !”
Amusing , certainly , but not entirely instilling that sense of confidence required from a trusted partner on a motorcycle adventure . A few days later , off we went , west .
Everyone will tell you my adopted nation of Australia is huge ; it ’ s the largest island in the world and the flattest , driest inhabited continent on earth 1 . To walk across this massive four-thousandkilometre country would take over thirty days , with the caveat of having to walk for twenty-four hours per day .
Riding across this vast tundra on motorcycles just seemed more practicable , and so two months out we started purchasing the necessaries ; camping equipment , motorcycle riding gear , repair kits , and probably most important , motorcycles . And for the geographically challenged half of the team , obtain their motorcycle riding license . It was just like Charley and Ewan .
Justin purchased a single cylinder 650cc Aprilia Pegaso , Peggy , from Queensland . A repairable write-off , he later found out , but at least he could get his feet on the ground , unlike myself who ’ d gone the whole hog and purchased an old BMW 1150GS . With a youthful 160,000kms notched up from several Big Laps by a Melbourne based club member . I was immensely pleased with it and figured that out of the four team members ( men and machines ), at least my girl might know the way .
With hobbit legs , I quickly realised that if I did fall-over I ’ d have to channel the soul of Sampson to lift its wet-weight of
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