Tag Archives: motorcycle hospitality

Day 59 – Bye bye Rocinante

Workshop impressions, all packed and ready to go.

Workshop impressions, all packed and ready to go.

All the maintenance on the bike had been done so packing was the only thing that was left to do. We bought a lot of expensive gear in Australia for which we are trying to get a GST refund. However, this means that we will need to show the gear at the airport and cannot ship it with the bike. In the end, three bags were strapped to the bike while the panniers and our clothes stayed with us.

Flo set out to get the carnet stamped and drop the bike off at the shipping agency. It didn’t take long until Tig and I could pick him up. On the way back, we stopped at a motorcycle shop and I got to buy new summer gloves. Using the leather gloves for winter only makes a very limited amount of sense in this weather so I am really happy with the purchase.

It's been a while since we have seen "so many" people gather ... ahh, NZ

It’s been a while since we have seen “so many” people gather … ahh, NZ

It was Flo’s first afternoon off since we arrived in Darwin. We, quite lazily, had a look at the public transport system for the first time as we wanted to go to the Mindil Beach Sunset Market in the evening. In the end, we hitched a ride with Liz and Borha instead, though.

The market is as cool as advertised, with us just arriving in time for the picture perfect red sun plunging into the sea beyond the namesake Mindil Beach. And what do you know, just after sunset we ran into Frederike and Lars again, who we’d almost expected to be on their way home already.

So we decided to browse the market together. Everyone found something they’d enjoy sooner or later. Nina got the recommended Borneo fusion veggie combo and a chocolate mud cake muffin, I got my croco sandwich and Frederike got an necklace souvenir that she was very happy with.

Like Christmas market at home

Like Christmas market at home

After two hours or so, we headed ‘downtown’ to get a beer for the guys. Having a beer together in Darwin had been discussed previously and now was the perfect time to make it happen.

I, unfortunately, was very tired but had fun anyway. Coke got be back on my feet for a while though. It was a fun evening with a bit of interruption of the adjacent 18th birthday party. 🙂 Flo and I then took a taxi home as the buses stopped running before 11pm at night. Frederike and Lars had one more day in Darwin left before flying home. Maybe, just maybe, we might see them again on the road somewhere. Maybe even in NZ.

This post is a combined effort of Flo and me. I apologize for the confusing jumps in the use of ‘I’. You are all smart people and will figure it out. 🙂

Day 56 – Arriving in Darwin

It was a weird feeling when we packed the tent for the last time for a while. Given that we camped for an estimated 25 nights in a row, Flo and I were mighty tired of packing up every morning. On the other hand, it has been our home for the last month and maybe even a bit longer. We will probably not use it through all of Asia as rooms are cheap enough to not bother with camping.

This little fellow lived in the tap

This little fellow lived in the tap

After packing and a short fright when I flushed a frog out of the tap onto my water bottle, we left Mary River National Park and headed for Darwin. For the first part of the route, Flo tried to read up on attractions along the road but then we both decided that we could do with half a day in a city and thus headed straight for Darwin.

The only stop we took afterwards was crossing the Adelaide River and seeing a giant jumping crocodile statue. It is at the place where all the “jumping crocodile tours” leave from.

The similarities...perplexing :P

The similarities…perplexing 😛

Arriving in Darwin at lunch time, we both enjoyed being in a city again. There is food everywhere and supermarkets with everything rather than a road side gas station that mainly stocks cans and tins. So we had a lovely lunch and were prepared to spend half a day while waiting for our hosts to come home when Flo checked his mails and we got the information that Tig was off work for the day and we could just drive to Coconut Grove right after lunch.

Celia and Tig’s house (it is more than a flat) is very tropical. No closed walls, slatted windows (it makes sense here) and one story up in the foliage of the palm trees. Getting out of our gear, we had a frantic hour or two. Flo started to organize shipping the bike and the information that we kept getting was quite different to what we got on the road. At some point the option was shipping today or waiting till October 23rd so we rushed around to maybe make it in a couple of hours. Luckily, all of this cleared up at some point and the cut off for the ship is now on Thursday as we had expected.

Tig gave Flo a ride to the motorbike shop to pick up all the parts that he had ordered and then we had a lovely afternoon/evening in the shade. Our hosts then invited us for dinner and cooked a delicious meal for us. We were joined by their flatmates Liz and her partner. It was Liz’s birthday so lovely Celia had bought champagne and we had a merry first night in Darwin.

Day 35 – Hello Adelaide

We had an appointment in Adelaide with a workshop to get something on the bike fixed. I’m not qualified to tell you what it was but some part leaked oil so it needed a polish, new seals and “socks”. There you go. 🙂 That is about as much as I understood.

Flo’s insert: The front fork seals were leaking fork oil, because the rust on the chrome rods was not polished off in Wellington and cut into the new seals in a month.

Adelaide Central Market 1Lake Albert was a bit further away from Adelaide than we thought so it took us about 2 hours to make it to the workshop. On the way my headset played up and it ended with me not being able to hear anything while Flo still heard me talking. We changed the headset at the workshop as well because that was just no fun.

Delivering the bike, we then had about three hours to kill in Adelaide. Luckily, there was a bus stop outside bringing us directly into the city.

We started with the Central Market. Markets are just so awesome and so full of food. 🙂 Flo had spaghetti with clams for lunch and was very happy about his choice.

From the markets, we went through Victoria Square, up King William Avenue and into Rundle Mall. Rundle Mall is pedestrian only and it was full of people, street musicians and too much stuff to buy. In the middle of it, there are two big metal balls. We had to take an inception selfie, right?

Nina approves

Nina approves

The far end of the mall was more our turf: Hipster cafes, little shops and side alleys. I managed to get Flo into Cocolat and had a delicious chocolate-y dessert while Flo had a coffee.

Time to head back to the workshop. Everything was done but it cost so much that I nearly had a heart attack. We simply packed all our gear back onto the bike and left. Flo had written on the forum of Horizon Unlimited previously and we had a bed on offer in Victor Harbor which is about an hour south of Adelaide. So this is where we went. Geoff and Colleen welcomed us very warmly; Flo got lamb rump for dinner and I got apple pie for dessert. 🙂 Having a real bed every now and then is just unbeatable.

 

Day 14 – Battered and bruised

Yesterday started great and ended great. The middle, though, was unpleasant.

Our great little cabin by the beach was looking out over water when we woke up. We had a quick breakfast and then a great coffee stop at “The Parsley Pot”.

Picking up our world map sticker from “ECM signs and motorbikes“, Leigh had a surprise for us: He gave us a t-shirt each for free! And they are great t-shirts!

We got those tshirts from Leigh when we picked up the world map sicker for our panniers.

We got those tshirts from Leigh when we picked up the world map sicker for our panniers.

Afterwards, we hit the road. Auckland was really close already so we took our time and went down the west coast towards Auckland. Bought lunch and headed off to the black beaches on this side of the coast. This is where our problems started. The gravel road towards the beach was fine but there was a short drive from the carpark to the beach over sand. I hopped off but Flo actually tried the ride. Turns out that it is really deep and fine sand and there was no way that we could actually get Rocinante up there with a completely worn rear tire. So instead, the bike dropped on sand and we had to completely unload it before we had any chance of getting it up again. In the fine sand, we mostly pushed it around rather than getting it up.

Good enough lunch spot though

Good enough lunch spot though

Quite exhausted, we had lunch at the beach with the bike safely back in the carpark. Happy to get to Auckland and a nice spare room with fellow bikers Ruth and Damien, we hopped back onto the bike. A couple of kilometers down the road, we stopped to look up the exact address…which is when Flo realized that his phone was missing. Retracing our steps for almost 100km didn’t help; the phone remained gone.

So we did the sensible thing and just chose to get to our destination. About 2km away from the bed for the night, we stopped at a red traffic light…and the bike dropped. Having no panniers means that it doesn’t stop at a 45 degree angle anymore but falls down all the way, so we both dropped to the ground. It was really quite the fall or I am just unlucky that I have no hip protectors. Anyhow, it hurt. And we cracked a mirror.

As soon as we arrive at Ruth and Damien’s place, things improved dramatically. Sitting down, having a tea and a coffee, talking and getting to know Gypsy, their dog, was great. Flo got to borrow a water blaster which made cleaning the bike very easy. It went from a dirt bike to a shiny one in no time.

In the meantime, Ruth cooked a very yummy dinner for all of us and we had a nice evening after sorting out the logistics from Tuesday.

Day 7 – Week-i-versary

Celebrating our first week on the road! Only many more to come. 🙂

 

Frost just out of Katikati. There was hail left in the ditches, too.

Frost just out of Katikati. There was hail left in the ditches, too.

Since we had a lovely warm bed and a breakfast with home-made lemon curd in the morning, we were able to hit the road at 8am. Looking out for the first time in the morning, we realized how cold it must have been in the night: Everything was frozen. This made for some awesome winter pictures on the road and a couple of stops more to warm up hands and stretch next to the road.

The weather forecast didn’t look too bad so Flo and I decided to face Coromandel one more time. Maybe, after that rainy Christmas in 2012, we could see it in sunshine?

Sunshine was lovely and we made good progress up the east coast of the Coromandel peninsula. In Coromandel town we had lunch at the Driving Creek Cafe which is quite dear to us as it sheltered us in 2012 when we got drenched. This time, we arrived in sunshine. Filling our bellies with nachos and hot peppermint tea, a hail storm started outside. Hail is really unhelpful on the road so we waited it out with another coffee.

The weather coming around as we come close to camp

The weather coming around as we come close to camp

At 3pm, still in rain, we started northwards as we wanted to stay at a DOC campsite at the top of Coromandel. We had a recommendation from Michael for either Stony Bay or Fletcher Bay. Going along and around the coast seemed like the option with a better chance of the sky clearing so we went to Fletcher Bay.

The Coromandel coastline is beautiful. Even in rain and on gravel. The rain stopped before we reached the campsite so we were able to put the tent up dry. We had the whole beach to ourselves, no one else was staying here.