Monthly Archives: September 2015

Day 37 – That’s Australia!

A cloudy start

A cloudy start

Waking up in the Barossa Valley, the clouds were hanging very low. So low in fact that the tent just wouldn’t dry at all.

We had breakfast, packed up and headed to one of the wineries for a wine tasting. The lady in the tourist information yesterday had suggested a couple of places we might want to look at i.e. if you like red wine. So we went to Peter Lehmann’s.

The wine tasting is in a really posh place. A couple of men in suits with golf clubs under their arms entered right before we did and not being a wine drinker myself, I couldn’t have felt more out of place standing there in my motorcycle gear.

To our suprise, Nina liked both

To our suprise, Nina liked both

However, the lady behind the counter was incredibly nice and while Flo was trying his way through some red wines, she got a bottle of their sweet white wines out for me: Princess Moscato. It’s low on alcohol and guess what…I liked it. Flo bought a bottle of it for my upcoming birthday and also a shiraz for himself.

After that, we felt as if we were good with the Barossa Valley now; after all there is only that much wine you can try in a day without spitting it all out. So we left in the northern direction.

Coming out of the valley, we had the feeling as if the landscape started changing immediately. It got warmer. Lunch was at a small parking area next to the road where a couple of other travellers (in a car) had parked. We had a delicious avocado toast lunch before continuing further north, past Burra and into Petersborough.

The clouds start to break

The clouds start to break

On the way to Petersborough, the whole landscape had changed for sure. I’ve never been to Arizona but this was how I imagine Arizona to be: So much open space everywhere. The land is flat until far on the horizon a hill might block your view. And above all is a vast expanse of sky.

Between Petersborough and Hawker, where we are staying tonight, Flinders Range came into full view. I tried to capture it in the pictures but I’m not convinced that I managed to. The mountains in the otherwise rather flat landscape are quite epic.

Now we’re camping in Hawker, a 300 people village, where the gas station is also the general store and the visitor’s center.  🙂

Day 36 – Chocolate and Wine

Writing the blog at our host's table

Writing the blog at our host’s table

We had a very comfortable start into the day after a very comfortable night. Leaving Victor Habor, we took a couple of roads that Geoff had suggested and ended the ride in Hahndorf for lunch. Hahndorf is a German-founded little town that has a high kitsch factor today. Flo found it very cringeworthy but still enjoyed some Leberkäs’ in the Kaffeehaus.

Then, it was time for my treat. I realized yesterday already that Adelaide has a Haigh’s chocolate factory. Today, we went there, took part in the free tour and bought chocolates. J The founder Haigh learned his chocolate craft in Switzerland with Lindt and it is a real chocolatier. Everything is still handmade.

The teddy bears with the tin suitcases did grab my fancy

The teddy bears with the tin suitcases did grab my fancy

The tour was great and quite informative. I am really happy that more and more people realize that chocolate is like coffee: Different origins produce different flavours.

We ended up buying some hazelnut wafer bars for me, chili and lime dark chocolate seconds for Flo and a bag full of “chocolate nibbles”. Since it is a factory, they sell a small amount of seconds which are products that are totally fine but don’t look quite up to scratch. The bag of chocolate nibbles is filled of chocolate covered nuts, fruit and liquorice. Just a bag full of surprises. 🙂

After the factory visit we drove up to the summit of Mount Lofty to look down at the city of Adelaide. We were lucky that the clouds were high enough for us to have a view, as the view down onto the plains and the city were pretty spectacular.

Our camp for the night at Barossa Backpackers

Our camp for the night at Barossa Backpackers

Next, we drove on through windy back roads into the Barossa Valley. Flo’s favourite Australian wine “Chocolate Box” is made here. It is a big wine region producing about 40% of Australian wine. Got some information about the vineyards and the wine tours for tomorrow from the tourist information and then tried to find a camping spot.

We had read that the Barossa Backpacker also offers campsites but this is only true in summer. A room was too pricey for us and we were just about to leave when the guy at the reception was really interested in our travels and very helpful as well. He called his boss to see if we could be the exemption and still camp and it actually worked out! We are allowed to camp here for a very good price as well. 🙂

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 34 – pushing it (into overtime)

Today was a long day, quite literally. 24.5 hours. But we did not realise this until it was almost over …

That was quite the run for 12 seconds ...

That was quite the run for 12 seconds …

We knew that today would have to be a bit of a push to make it in time to Adelaide. Have I mentioned this before? We have an appointment with Moto Adelaide, or better Rocinante has. Both seals on the front fork are leaking, something that should have been fixed by the workshop in Wellington just before we left for our trip. Unfortunately, they only replaced the old broken seals and fork oil, but not the root cause: Tiny specs of rust on the chrome cutting the seals with every suspension. So this time, new seals, a polish and neoprene protectors. Hopefully that will last me more than 4500km …

Some serious inclines on the way. Dunes as mentioned in the back.

Some serious inclines on the way. Dunes as mentioned in the back.

The day started with a short walk up the massive sand dunes separating the area with the camp ground (Swan Lake) from the sea. You have to believe me or google it, though: we brought our camera, but not one of our 5 SD cards.

Once again I have successfully avoided face planting us on the sandy dirt road back to the highway. I love the K60 scout on the back, can’t wait to have the matching set once the Shinko front one is dead (although that set got us around fine for 9k km in NZ). And it handles great on the road as well, way better than I would expect from such a rough tire.

First stop was Mount Gambier for provisions and the Obligatory 50m sinkhole in the middle of the town. We even managed to find the fuse for the battery charger I needed to replace since we started the trip.

You can see the rain rolling in, we were good :)

You can see the rain rolling in, we were good 🙂

The idea was to push the 85km to Beachport and have lunch there. About 20km before that though, through what turned out to be a stroke of genius we stoped “in” a roadside shelter / picnic spot. During lunch the heavens opened and Australia showed us that it can rain properly after all. Even better, that was the only spell of hard rain for the entire day, and we sat it out under a roof with a nice cuppatea!

We made it to Beachport after all and the sun came out for the first time. For now, it was only over Beachport that the blue sky gave a shy peep show through the clouds.

Straight straight lines ...

Straight straight lines …

After a super brief peek into Robe, the rest of the day was pretty much exclusively filled by riding. Today, for the first time we got a notion of the new sense of distance in Australia. I think for almost an hour straight we did not drop under 100 km/h. In the end, we will have done 420 km today (1111km in AUS in total). Our approach worked out beautifully though: Audio book on via the intercom, drop into the zone and just eat those kms!

About 50 km before our planned camp for the night at Lake Albert, we decided on one last detour for the day. The Prince Highway we were on for most of the day marks the border of the Coorong National Park, a 150 km long strip of marsh and flood lands between the road and the sea. The vistas from the road are somewhat limited, so we decided to take a 13 km loop road that runs mostly parallel to the highway, but give a much better impression of the national park.

What an impression that was! We almost turned around because the surface was again the upper end of what I am comfortable riding on fully loaded. The wetter spots had patches of soapy mud, up to 5cm deep. So glad we did not. There was one slightly hairy wobble, but no fall. But the views … I had goose bumps. I think sublime is a fitting description.

And so we end with the reason the day was particularly long. At some point during the day I have noticed that the clocks on the bike and the GPS were 30 minutes out, although I have set the bike’s one just the other day. We did not think much of it at the time and were good in time to make it to camp before 6 for Nina to skype with her family back home when I noticed something odd. The sun was quite low. Yesterday it set at 18:10, so we should have plenty of light left, but now at 17:30, it was almost gone.

At that moment it stuck me: We had crossed the border to South Australia early this morning and my diligent GPS adjusted the time to local time. Which, at the moment is 30 min before Melbourne time …

Day 33 – People are awesome

Not procrastinating at all

Not procrastinating at all

Even though we slept in a bed and had a room for the night, we had a relatively late start into the day. Flo was tardy. :p

Our first stop was at the Twelve Apostles Visitor Center which is where you need to park if you wanna go onto the viewing platforms. I know, the Twelve Apostles are the most touristy thing you can do along the Great Ocean Road and yet they are nonetheless impressive.

Big pillars out of limestone stand in front of the coastline in the surf. The coastline itself is a sheer cliff out of limestone. I tried to capture it in a picture as best as I could. Some of the surf, further along the coast, would spray up and the spray move inwards over land in its misty form. Quite the atmospheric place despite all the tourists.

There are just too many lookout on this stretch of the Great Ocean Road. We decided to have a look at the “London Bridge”. It used to be a double arch leading out into the sea but the one closer to the coast collapsed a while back so now it’s a platform offshore with an arch.

this was the bargain - $20 for the sleeping bag and $25 for the waterproof

this was the bargain – $20 for the sleeping bag and $25 for the waterproof

On our way to Warrnambool, we stopped in “Cheese World” in Allansford to buy cheese for lunch and have a milkshake.

Warrnambool itself was way bigger than we expected so when we drove through a large shopping complex before even coming to town, we stopped to try and replace my sleeping bag. It still breaks my heart a bit that we lost my most awesome Fairydown bag. L It was the best sleeping bag ever. So now a replacement, huh? The first shop we found only had one goose down sleeping bag for $500. *gulp* So instead of going for it, we thought to compare prices with the next shop which was a blessing. I had my doubts when we pulled up to “Boats Camping Fishing”, looking for a sleeping bag but we were lucky because people are awesome. A young man from the store asked us if he could help and we looked at the assortment of sleeping bags together. The store definitely caters more for boat people than hiking people and light weight was nowhere to be found but Flo spotted a large sleeping bag which may fit both of us actually (spoiler: It doesn’t). We were thinking of buying it when the young man suddenly remembered that a particular kind of Coleman sleeping bags were on sale for $20! He had a look if one was still available and it was! So we bought a waterproof bag for $25 to go with it and put it on the bike.

12 ApostleIn Port Fairy, we stopped for a late lunch next to the wharf. Then, we needed to get some mileage done towards Adelaide and drove through to Portland.

It was getting late already (well, sunlight late) and Flo and I discussed if we really should make a detour to Cape Bridgewater or if we should rather buy food for dinner and head towards our camping spot on the road to Nelson. Our GPS still had Cape Bridgewater as the next destination so we randomly pulled up in a driveway to sort it out and find the next supermarket. And again, people are awesome. J The lady of the house, opened up the driveway to ask us if we need help and when she realized we were looking for food, invited us into her garden and gave us home-grown lettuce, kale and a broccoli! We only bought a tomato, an avocado and some dressing and had a beautiful salad for dinner. Thank you so much!

free food from good people is the best

free food from good people is the best

From Portland, we started on the Nelson road towards our campsite. Once we took the turn onto a dirt road, we saw more wallabies along the road, hopping away. Unfortunately, they were gone too quickly for a picture. The dirt track looked like sand and I didn’t feel very comfortable at all. J

Set up our tent and went for a little wander around the place when we came across a kangaroo family including a, rather big, baby in the pouch!

A delicious and healthy dinner later, we are about to test our new sleeping arrangement. As spoilered above, we don’t both fit into the sleeping bag but we use it as a blanket now. I’ll let you know how it goes. *fingers crossed*

Day 32 – Month-y-versary!

If only the Kakadus swooping over our tent this morning could have warned us!

The last picture of the red bag ... :(

The last picture of the red bag … 🙁

They would have said: What is as big as a 6 month old baby, fire engine red and can disappear without a trace between one photo stop and the next 10 km apart? No clue? Check all of our previous photos of Rocinante and you will find a bright red Ortlieb bag on the left pannier. Until today, that held Nina’s down sleeping bag and one of our two fleece liners.

So, that’s gone now. The police, as always, was of no use to us. Maybe someone has picked it up as a road hazard, but it did not make its way back to us. We also doubled back, but no trace. This time, there is really no one to blame. The new tie down straps / handles for the panniers are still a bit smoother than our old ones. The same setup worked with no issue for 30,000 km so far, so we did not expect this to loosen and open up and allow the wind to “eject” the bag.

Posing for the cam. 10 secs later we notice the missing bag.

Posing for the cam. 10 secs later we notice the missing bag.

The biggest bummer is that the lost fleece is of a matching set that zip together. Hopefully we will be able to get the same one down here.

Which is all such a shame. Although it was a bit overcast, this day would have otherwise been spectacular. The Great Ocean Road is a legendary motorcycle ride, and it holds up to a lot of praise.

First stop after the failed search and rescue was Apollo Bay for lunch. The next real stop was a brief rain forest walk, where we met a lovely German couple. We left in great spirit. Sometimes talking about what we are doing at the moment helps to remind ourselves that we are on this amazing adventure. Day to day hardship bogs us down until we sometime loose sight of how cool it actually is.

Wind-swept Nina

Wind-swept Nina

 

Turned out Cape Otway Lighthouse is a tourist trap. Avoid. Much better was our last stop for the day, Johanna Beach. Smooth sand, big waves and big skies. A little bit bitter sweet, since we had to leave that spot and its free camp site to go find a horribly expensive room (lost sleeping bag makes for sad camping).

Day 31 – Back on the road

It took us quite a while to get going. Flo had to pick up the bike from the workshop with a shiny new Heidenau K60 Scout rear tire.

We also had to repack all our things and pack a parcel with things that we wanted to send back to Germany now, like my second motorcycle jacket that we just can’t seem to fit on the bike. J

We also fitted new mirrors and soft panniers in the front.

So in the end, with all the picking up and packing, we left Melbourne at 2.30pm.

A big shout out needs to go to our lovely AirB&B host Leah who was amazing and gave me a place where I could be sick in a real bed. It was so comfortable staying with her that we shortly debated staying another night as it was quite a late start.

The first and only picture - you have to trust in Nina's words.

The first and only picture – you have to trust in Nina’s words.

And then, we were on the road again. It is so weird: You know you’ve done this two weeks ago and yet, everything feels odd. The gear is so stiff and heavy, the first Australian motorway freaked me out and yeah, sitting on a bike again.

It took us a while to get out of greater Melbourne, but we managed to make a start on the Great Ocean Road. Immediately, the landscape got impressive. Unfortunately, we only have one picture from right at the start of the track and not the wild coast afterwards but the sun was about to set and I really wanted a camp spot before dark. So all those pictures of the coastline will have to be taken tomorrow.