TRAVERSE 186
Pandemic , it had covered somewhere around 80,000 kilometres , much of those over billions of corrugations , sand dunes , water crossings , and everything else Australia can throw at a machine .
I ’ d had a few issues , I would not have expected anything less given the environments I ridden it through , a stator failed north of Broken Hill , I had to eliminate as much electrical drain as possible to get back to Sydney , a headlight
bulb blew , twice , when crossing the Lut desert , I suspect it was the fifty degrees plus temperatures in Iran & southern Pakistan that caused that failure . I also needed a new exhaust and intake rocker in Kuala Lumpur after travelling through Indonesia . All in all , I considered the bike pretty reliable as nothing had caused any major impediment or delay to my travels .
We had got a clear run of road with the corners getting better and
more predictable , the incline became steeper , but no more snow on the road and almost no traffic , it had been fun , and with every passing kilometre we were getting closer to Babusar Pass at 4,179 metres , and our anticipated descent into Gilgit- Baltistan .
Then it happened , accelerating up a reasonably steep section on a right-hand bend , leaning into the corner , I had a huge smile on my face , the road was beautifully
TRAVERSE 186