Australia - G'Day Mate - I'm looking for an Adventure !
5th - 24th August
We had breakfast with Sally & Bronwyn and caught up on a few tales of our respective lives and adventures. About 2 hours later Sylvia and I were struggling to stay awake and so staggered off to Sally’s bedroom which she’d kindly loaned to us to get some catch-up sleep. 4 or 5 hours later we woke up and had an easy evening chatting with Sally, and started to come to terms with the luxuries of a first world country again and our new time zone. We then all retired to bed again…….
On Sunday we spent the day relaxing and continued to catch up on old and travelling times and Sally filled us in with the running of her flat so we would know what was where when she as at work.
Monday, an official start of the working week for most, and the start of a search for a BMW Adventure(and some equipment) for us. The criteria was simple…or so I thought. I was looking for an 1150 GS or 1200 GS Adventure with ABS and heated grips. Price was not an issue providing the bike merited it's price so that we could reasonably hope to re-coup a fair proportion of when we came to the end of our trip and had to sell it.
We’d been looking at the Australian market from India and had been surprised how few second hand Adventures were for sale. I’d e-mailed nearly all the prominent BMW dealers on the East coast(that was from Sydney to Cairns !!!) explaining my trip and travel and motorcycle requirements-I don’t think even one replied. Now we were here, their general help didn’t improve much and the odds seemed to have significantly gone against us. ( I learnt from Sally that Australians in general are not like us Europeans and most things are ‘ No Worries’ or ‘No dramas’ which is nice on a social level but frustrating in business. )
After two days of research we were left considering one 2006 1200 Adventure (from a dealer) without ABS or any fixed or soft luggage with 2,600km on it and a years remaining warranty for $23,000, a local 2005 1150GS with 10,000km and recent service for $18,000(which when we showed real interest in discovered that it had been promised to someone else), or an immaculate 2006 1150 GS SE with full Jesse luggage set-up, 2,500km, nearly a year left of the original BMW warranty and a years Tax/Mot/Insurance as we would know it in England for $23,000. On first sighting of 2 photographs Sylvia and I loved the white SE, it really looked like brand new but the price was far too high. We’d originally heard about the SE from Lachlan, a very helpful chap who sells the Jesse panniers down here. I told him that the price was too much and he agreed. The 1200 was tempting but required a further $2000 to get it ready for touring with hard luggage etc, had no ABS and I’d always fancied an 1150 anyway.
Meanwhile I got a phone call from Adrian, a man who’d heard what we were looking for from a dealer(I'd actually rung this one once we were here.) Adrian lived in Townsville and had a 2004 1150 Adventure with BMW panniers/GPS, aftermarket exhaust and 10,000km on the clock for $20,000 and "wouldn’t mind changing it for a 1200 Adventure". I had quite a long chat with him and he explained to me that the bike really was immaculate, no marks or damage etc. $20,000 was a lot but there was nothing else to consider and time was ticking by and so Sylvia and I agreed to fly up and take a look at it. We booked our flights and accommodation for the Saturday which was in two days time. Meanwhile Adrian sent us some pictures, all of which were on a fire track or looking pretty dirty. We weren’t impressed and in fact were worried.
Just after receiving these photos I got another e-mail from Lachlan who said that the white SE had been dropped in price to $21,750, the highest we had initially been prepared to pay for it. Excited I rang the owner, Peter, and discussed his bike. He though apparently still wanted $23,000 to which I said the only reason we were ringing was because we’d been told $21,750. This went on for a while until I said we’d leave it as it was too expensive. Finally we got to $22,000 and I wasn’t going to let it go for $250 so we agreed it there and then to buy it ….on the phone !!!
I rang Adrian to say we’d found another bike and apologised-he was fine as his wife wasn’t that keen to say good-bye to the 1150 anyway. I re-arranged our flights and changed our accommodation plans and we were set to fly down to Sydney, some 1200 km’s away !!
We flew with Virgin Blue who have made a huge impact on the domestic market down here. Apparently before Sir Richard set up Virgin Blue the domestic market was ‘closed’ and very expensive. Thanks to him the market is now wide open and people can travel fairly cheaply. It is worthy of note that Sir Richard wasn’t sure they were even going to be granted their operational license until the last minute and then in less than one year of operation he was offered around $400million for his set-up by the rival companies!! You have to see the impact Virgin has made here to believe it, You’d think Virgin was Australian !! He has a higher profile and better quality of reception areas than BA do at terminal 2 in Heathrow for the relative size of the market here.
As we flew into Sydney I got my first glimpse of the Sydney opera house and wished in a way that John was still with me to celebrate this from the Top-of the-world-to-the-bottom-of-the-world-moment. It had been a long held desire of mine to see the opera house and the moment was made more impressive by my journey to get here. Sylvia and I looked out of the window and were excited like a couple of kids at being at the bottom of the world viewing Australia’s most iconic building.
Soon we were landed, reclaimed our luggage and got on the train to the Prestons, where Peter lived. The train ride was fairly short about 30-40 mins as I re-call and Peter had kindly offered to meet us from the station in his car.
Peter and his beard met us from the station and took us to his house. On first appearance you would be forgiven for thinking he belonged to the local chapter of Hells Angels. In fact he his a traffic policeman who is currently off work on medical leave due to a number of physical difficulties he thinks are as a result of too many years on the road. The main ones being his back and ankle-these ailments are also his main reason for selling the GS.
After meeting the dogs and being given a very nice coffee we went out to the garage to see the bike. It was immaculate and everything we hoped it would be. We ‘agreed’ the purchase for the second time and I set all the wheels in motion for the money transfer to occur from England to Australia. The Jesse panniers though had both Sylvia and I’s jaws wide open as they were supposed to carry 109l between them, the 'same' as the Dakar ones I’d had made by Overland solutions in the UK…..BUT they were no where near as large and we were left wondering how Sylvia would magically fit all our clothes and equipment into such small spaces.
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Where would Sir & Madam care to take dinner ?Imaculate !!
The money transfer was made a little more complex due to the nature of Peter having his bank account within one large account(managed by the Police Federation) held with ANZ. However I explained this all clearly to the Cooperative bank in a fax and they managed the transfer within 3 days(which is the fastest anybody can do.). They may be small but they are very good and I would recommend them and the Nationwide for their personal service over any of the big money-grabbers/poor service Banks in the UK.
Whilst we were waiting for the money to clear we took a trip into Liverpool (believe it or not), which was the most local town to our Motel. As we had time on our hands we decided to visit it by bus for a bit of Window Shopping and generally settling into Australia. We went to the cinema in the evening to see Die Hard 4 which we really enjoyed !, more than I can say for a too spicy Thai salad I had afterwards.
By now we were starting to get a bit better understanding of Australian culture which is very different to what we’d expected. Most shops close around 5, some even at 4:30, and most restaurants stop serving dinner at 9pm as nearly all their cliental has gone home. As I say, not what we’d expected as it doesn’t seem to fit into a ’No worries/No Dramas’ culture.
The following day we took the train into Sydney to take in some of the sights and visit a bike shop recommended by Peter for a tank bag. It was a nice, if cool day, and I decided I’d like to do a bridge walk over the Sydney harbour bridge..that is on the supporting structure over the top. That’s planned for when we return sometime in December.
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Probably Australias most iconic man-made land mark.
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The following morning we get confirmation form Peter that he’s received the cash and we can collect the bike so we go over. In the end we spend the best part of the day getting sorted out with Insurance and paperwork. We also learned that you have to pay stamp duty for vehicle transfers/registration in Australia and that amounted to nearly $700 !!!! We finally leave at around 4pm with Peter giving us permission to use his address to register the bike at as keeping it registered in the same state makes for a much easier and cheaper transfer than if we’d transferred it to another state such as Queensland.
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The first handover of ownership shot.
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Peter, the proud previous owner ..... and his beard.
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Mike, the new and slightly nervous new owner !!
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The official hand-over.
We get to the local RTA office obviously late in the afternoon and learn that to register the bike in our name at Peters address they require a form completed by him which basically confirms his agreement to act as a referee for us at his address, and they were about to close. We rode back to Peters with the form and he kindly signed it for us. We though had to defer the registration process for another day and town nearer the Queensland/New South Wales border. Quite a privalege being refereed by a Policeman who’s only met you once or twice. We were grateful to Peter for his friendliness, trust and help and headed off towards Sydney to get a tank bag and an anti-theft device as we headed in the general direction of Brisbane.
After getting the tank bag and a disc alarm we headed off towards Brisbane. We only covered about 100km in the end but it was enough to get us away from Sydney and to a decent Motel where we rested up for the night. The alarm seemed to be a bit nervous on its first century duty in the real-world and went off prematurely a couple of times in the night. On both occasions there was nothing I could see.
The next morning we got up fairly early as we hoped to get all the way to Brisbane today, about 900km. In the end it proved too much as we spent 2 hours on lunch and getting the bike registered and that meant we would have arrived back at my friends place at around 23:00/00:00 which wouldn’t have been fair on her. We covered around 700km and again found a reasonable Motel and local bar/restaurant for the evening.
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Sylvia and 'Skippy' outside our Motel room before heading off towards surfers paradise.
We left the following morning reasonably early again and decided to visit Surfers paradise on the way back to Brisbane…as it sounded so nice. In reality it is a Costa del Oz…..full of high rise Hotels and not nice at all……….We did however find a nice selection of sandwich and cake shops to take the pain away of our disappointment…..(ok, to indulge in !) We got back late afternoon to find Sally & her friend Bronwyn hanging curtains and pleased to see two large hand-made chocolate cookies we‘d bought them from Surfers Paradise.
On the Sunday, Sally, Bronwyn, Sylvia and I decided to visit Glass Mountain for a walk and barbeque. It was raining when we left, it rained on the way up and rained when we were there ! We’d been told it hardly ever rains here !! Hmmmm, same as England I thought….hardly ever rains their either !! >8;O) None-the-less we had a nice day.
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On the way to Glass Mountain.
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Our barbeque in the wet with Bronwyn and Sally.
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Australian sausages....look good and taste bland...all of them so far. We met an Irish man later in the trip who longed for an Irish/English sausage.
On the Monday we were all back at work again and Sylvia and I were busy trying to replace some of the larger items we were carrying as a result of seeing the compact Jesse panniers, such as our sleeping bags and my matress, with smaller ones. After a lot of faffing we managed to find all that we needed in Brisbane’s main shopping area and set off. Most of the whole week we spent shopping or preparing the bike to go.
Finally on late Friday afternoon we were ready to leave. We arranged to meet Lachlan in Coloundra(on the Sunshine Coast) to take him and his wife out to dinner to thank him for his help in finding a bike.(there were more opportunities found by Lachlan than I’ve credited him with here.) As we neared Coloundra it poured down…really poured and I was left fighting for any sort of visibility as it just saturated my vision through the visor and clear glasses. We even saw a road-train type truck that had been blown into a water drainage ditch on the side of the road. Apparently we’d driven into the end of a cyclone which had had 120kph winds where the truck had become a victim.
Finally we made it to our motel and checked in to a warm & dry room. Ahhh ………..BUT soon realised that I’d forgotten Lachlans telephone number !! I got some great assistance from the receptionist and soon managed to get Lachlans number from the Internet. He came and picked us up and we spent a nice evening in a Hog’s Breath restaurant which is a good chain famous for slow cooking their steaks for 15 hours before serving. Sylvia and I had the rack of ribs and sirloin steak ‘combo’ followed by a very full-cream fat desert followed by a food coma brought on by two bloated stomachs groaning back in our Motel room.
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We popped round to see Lachlan the following morning before heading off.
The following morning the rain had subsided and we took the opportunity to get some vinyl signs cut for the bike. After which we headed towards Hervey Bay, an area famous for its Whale watching.
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Our first sighting of a Kangeroo.
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On the way to Hervey Bay I wanted to test how far we can take the Adventure on one full tank of petrol. (I can hear you groaning from here !) It ran out after 535km's. We managed a further 15km's from using our cookers fuel but that still left us 30km short of the nearest petrol station. Fortunately I managed to hitch a ride both ways within minutes of sticking my thumb out. In my defense we hadn't seen a gas station for over a 100km's...Sylvia.
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The weird site we stopped at after our final drop of fuel...it was an old gas station which had held out some hope for us for a few minutes.
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Bright and chirpy again with gas in my tank !! (but still slightly grumpy) we head off again.
Mike
5th - 24th August
We had breakfast with Sally & Bronwyn and caught up on a few tales of our respective lives and adventures. About 2 hours later Sylvia and I were struggling to stay awake and so staggered off to Sally’s bedroom which she’d kindly loaned to us to get some catch-up sleep. 4 or 5 hours later we woke up and had an easy evening chatting with Sally, and started to come to terms with the luxuries of a first world country again and our new time zone. We then all retired to bed again…….
On Sunday we spent the day relaxing and continued to catch up on old and travelling times and Sally filled us in with the running of her flat so we would know what was where when she as at work.
Monday, an official start of the working week for most, and the start of a search for a BMW Adventure(and some equipment) for us. The criteria was simple…or so I thought. I was looking for an 1150 GS or 1200 GS Adventure with ABS and heated grips. Price was not an issue providing the bike merited it's price so that we could reasonably hope to re-coup a fair proportion of when we came to the end of our trip and had to sell it.
We’d been looking at the Australian market from India and had been surprised how few second hand Adventures were for sale. I’d e-mailed nearly all the prominent BMW dealers on the East coast(that was from Sydney to Cairns !!!) explaining my trip and travel and motorcycle requirements-I don’t think even one replied. Now we were here, their general help didn’t improve much and the odds seemed to have significantly gone against us. ( I learnt from Sally that Australians in general are not like us Europeans and most things are ‘ No Worries’ or ‘No dramas’ which is nice on a social level but frustrating in business. )
After two days of research we were left considering one 2006 1200 Adventure (from a dealer) without ABS or any fixed or soft luggage with 2,600km on it and a years remaining warranty for $23,000, a local 2005 1150GS with 10,000km and recent service for $18,000(which when we showed real interest in discovered that it had been promised to someone else), or an immaculate 2006 1150 GS SE with full Jesse luggage set-up, 2,500km, nearly a year left of the original BMW warranty and a years Tax/Mot/Insurance as we would know it in England for $23,000. On first sighting of 2 photographs Sylvia and I loved the white SE, it really looked like brand new but the price was far too high. We’d originally heard about the SE from Lachlan, a very helpful chap who sells the Jesse panniers down here. I told him that the price was too much and he agreed. The 1200 was tempting but required a further $2000 to get it ready for touring with hard luggage etc, had no ABS and I’d always fancied an 1150 anyway.
Meanwhile I got a phone call from Adrian, a man who’d heard what we were looking for from a dealer(I'd actually rung this one once we were here.) Adrian lived in Townsville and had a 2004 1150 Adventure with BMW panniers/GPS, aftermarket exhaust and 10,000km on the clock for $20,000 and "wouldn’t mind changing it for a 1200 Adventure". I had quite a long chat with him and he explained to me that the bike really was immaculate, no marks or damage etc. $20,000 was a lot but there was nothing else to consider and time was ticking by and so Sylvia and I agreed to fly up and take a look at it. We booked our flights and accommodation for the Saturday which was in two days time. Meanwhile Adrian sent us some pictures, all of which were on a fire track or looking pretty dirty. We weren’t impressed and in fact were worried.
Just after receiving these photos I got another e-mail from Lachlan who said that the white SE had been dropped in price to $21,750, the highest we had initially been prepared to pay for it. Excited I rang the owner, Peter, and discussed his bike. He though apparently still wanted $23,000 to which I said the only reason we were ringing was because we’d been told $21,750. This went on for a while until I said we’d leave it as it was too expensive. Finally we got to $22,000 and I wasn’t going to let it go for $250 so we agreed it there and then to buy it ….on the phone !!!
I rang Adrian to say we’d found another bike and apologised-he was fine as his wife wasn’t that keen to say good-bye to the 1150 anyway. I re-arranged our flights and changed our accommodation plans and we were set to fly down to Sydney, some 1200 km’s away !!
We flew with Virgin Blue who have made a huge impact on the domestic market down here. Apparently before Sir Richard set up Virgin Blue the domestic market was ‘closed’ and very expensive. Thanks to him the market is now wide open and people can travel fairly cheaply. It is worthy of note that Sir Richard wasn’t sure they were even going to be granted their operational license until the last minute and then in less than one year of operation he was offered around $400million for his set-up by the rival companies!! You have to see the impact Virgin has made here to believe it, You’d think Virgin was Australian !! He has a higher profile and better quality of reception areas than BA do at terminal 2 in Heathrow for the relative size of the market here.
As we flew into Sydney I got my first glimpse of the Sydney opera house and wished in a way that John was still with me to celebrate this from the Top-of the-world-to-the-bottom-of-the-world-moment. It had been a long held desire of mine to see the opera house and the moment was made more impressive by my journey to get here. Sylvia and I looked out of the window and were excited like a couple of kids at being at the bottom of the world viewing Australia’s most iconic building.
Soon we were landed, reclaimed our luggage and got on the train to the Prestons, where Peter lived. The train ride was fairly short about 30-40 mins as I re-call and Peter had kindly offered to meet us from the station in his car.
Peter and his beard met us from the station and took us to his house. On first appearance you would be forgiven for thinking he belonged to the local chapter of Hells Angels. In fact he his a traffic policeman who is currently off work on medical leave due to a number of physical difficulties he thinks are as a result of too many years on the road. The main ones being his back and ankle-these ailments are also his main reason for selling the GS.
After meeting the dogs and being given a very nice coffee we went out to the garage to see the bike. It was immaculate and everything we hoped it would be. We ‘agreed’ the purchase for the second time and I set all the wheels in motion for the money transfer to occur from England to Australia. The Jesse panniers though had both Sylvia and I’s jaws wide open as they were supposed to carry 109l between them, the 'same' as the Dakar ones I’d had made by Overland solutions in the UK…..BUT they were no where near as large and we were left wondering how Sylvia would magically fit all our clothes and equipment into such small spaces.
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Where would Sir & Madam care to take dinner ?Imaculate !!
The money transfer was made a little more complex due to the nature of Peter having his bank account within one large account(managed by the Police Federation) held with ANZ. However I explained this all clearly to the Cooperative bank in a fax and they managed the transfer within 3 days(which is the fastest anybody can do.). They may be small but they are very good and I would recommend them and the Nationwide for their personal service over any of the big money-grabbers/poor service Banks in the UK.
Whilst we were waiting for the money to clear we took a trip into Liverpool (believe it or not), which was the most local town to our Motel. As we had time on our hands we decided to visit it by bus for a bit of Window Shopping and generally settling into Australia. We went to the cinema in the evening to see Die Hard 4 which we really enjoyed !, more than I can say for a too spicy Thai salad I had afterwards.
By now we were starting to get a bit better understanding of Australian culture which is very different to what we’d expected. Most shops close around 5, some even at 4:30, and most restaurants stop serving dinner at 9pm as nearly all their cliental has gone home. As I say, not what we’d expected as it doesn’t seem to fit into a ’No worries/No Dramas’ culture.
The following day we took the train into Sydney to take in some of the sights and visit a bike shop recommended by Peter for a tank bag. It was a nice, if cool day, and I decided I’d like to do a bridge walk over the Sydney harbour bridge..that is on the supporting structure over the top. That’s planned for when we return sometime in December.
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Probably Australias most iconic man-made land mark.
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The following morning we get confirmation form Peter that he’s received the cash and we can collect the bike so we go over. In the end we spend the best part of the day getting sorted out with Insurance and paperwork. We also learned that you have to pay stamp duty for vehicle transfers/registration in Australia and that amounted to nearly $700 !!!! We finally leave at around 4pm with Peter giving us permission to use his address to register the bike at as keeping it registered in the same state makes for a much easier and cheaper transfer than if we’d transferred it to another state such as Queensland.
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The first handover of ownership shot.
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Peter, the proud previous owner ..... and his beard.
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Mike, the new and slightly nervous new owner !!
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The official hand-over.
We get to the local RTA office obviously late in the afternoon and learn that to register the bike in our name at Peters address they require a form completed by him which basically confirms his agreement to act as a referee for us at his address, and they were about to close. We rode back to Peters with the form and he kindly signed it for us. We though had to defer the registration process for another day and town nearer the Queensland/New South Wales border. Quite a privalege being refereed by a Policeman who’s only met you once or twice. We were grateful to Peter for his friendliness, trust and help and headed off towards Sydney to get a tank bag and an anti-theft device as we headed in the general direction of Brisbane.
After getting the tank bag and a disc alarm we headed off towards Brisbane. We only covered about 100km in the end but it was enough to get us away from Sydney and to a decent Motel where we rested up for the night. The alarm seemed to be a bit nervous on its first century duty in the real-world and went off prematurely a couple of times in the night. On both occasions there was nothing I could see.
The next morning we got up fairly early as we hoped to get all the way to Brisbane today, about 900km. In the end it proved too much as we spent 2 hours on lunch and getting the bike registered and that meant we would have arrived back at my friends place at around 23:00/00:00 which wouldn’t have been fair on her. We covered around 700km and again found a reasonable Motel and local bar/restaurant for the evening.
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Sylvia and 'Skippy' outside our Motel room before heading off towards surfers paradise.
We left the following morning reasonably early again and decided to visit Surfers paradise on the way back to Brisbane…as it sounded so nice. In reality it is a Costa del Oz…..full of high rise Hotels and not nice at all……….We did however find a nice selection of sandwich and cake shops to take the pain away of our disappointment…..(ok, to indulge in !) We got back late afternoon to find Sally & her friend Bronwyn hanging curtains and pleased to see two large hand-made chocolate cookies we‘d bought them from Surfers Paradise.
On the Sunday, Sally, Bronwyn, Sylvia and I decided to visit Glass Mountain for a walk and barbeque. It was raining when we left, it rained on the way up and rained when we were there ! We’d been told it hardly ever rains here !! Hmmmm, same as England I thought….hardly ever rains their either !! >8;O) None-the-less we had a nice day.
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On the way to Glass Mountain.
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Our barbeque in the wet with Bronwyn and Sally.
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Australian sausages....look good and taste bland...all of them so far. We met an Irish man later in the trip who longed for an Irish/English sausage.
On the Monday we were all back at work again and Sylvia and I were busy trying to replace some of the larger items we were carrying as a result of seeing the compact Jesse panniers, such as our sleeping bags and my matress, with smaller ones. After a lot of faffing we managed to find all that we needed in Brisbane’s main shopping area and set off. Most of the whole week we spent shopping or preparing the bike to go.
Finally on late Friday afternoon we were ready to leave. We arranged to meet Lachlan in Coloundra(on the Sunshine Coast) to take him and his wife out to dinner to thank him for his help in finding a bike.(there were more opportunities found by Lachlan than I’ve credited him with here.) As we neared Coloundra it poured down…really poured and I was left fighting for any sort of visibility as it just saturated my vision through the visor and clear glasses. We even saw a road-train type truck that had been blown into a water drainage ditch on the side of the road. Apparently we’d driven into the end of a cyclone which had had 120kph winds where the truck had become a victim.
Finally we made it to our motel and checked in to a warm & dry room. Ahhh ………..BUT soon realised that I’d forgotten Lachlans telephone number !! I got some great assistance from the receptionist and soon managed to get Lachlans number from the Internet. He came and picked us up and we spent a nice evening in a Hog’s Breath restaurant which is a good chain famous for slow cooking their steaks for 15 hours before serving. Sylvia and I had the rack of ribs and sirloin steak ‘combo’ followed by a very full-cream fat desert followed by a food coma brought on by two bloated stomachs groaning back in our Motel room.
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We popped round to see Lachlan the following morning before heading off.
The following morning the rain had subsided and we took the opportunity to get some vinyl signs cut for the bike. After which we headed towards Hervey Bay, an area famous for its Whale watching.
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Our first sighting of a Kangeroo.
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On the way to Hervey Bay I wanted to test how far we can take the Adventure on one full tank of petrol. (I can hear you groaning from here !) It ran out after 535km's. We managed a further 15km's from using our cookers fuel but that still left us 30km short of the nearest petrol station. Fortunately I managed to hitch a ride both ways within minutes of sticking my thumb out. In my defense we hadn't seen a gas station for over a 100km's...Sylvia.
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The weird site we stopped at after our final drop of fuel...it was an old gas station which had held out some hope for us for a few minutes.
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Bright and chirpy again with gas in my tank !! (but still slightly grumpy) we head off again.
Mike
