Australia - Melbourne, preparing the Adventure for New Zealand & flying to Tasmania

ExploringRTW

Active member
UKGSer Subscriber
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
214
Reaction score
1
Location
Kent & Berkshire
Australia - Melbourne, preparing the Adventure for New Zealand & flying to Tasmania

30th - 3rd December 2007

Australia - Melbourne, preparing the Adventure for New Zealand & flying to Tasmania

I rode the Adventure into BMW Melbourne for its now-late 20,000 mile service. They loaned me an F800ST for the day, and whilst I was initially very sceptical as to it’s physical size and performance, I really enjoyed its revvvy engine and tight handling, if only for a few Km‘s, in the end. The only small problem I had was forgetting how good the Adventure’s steering circle was and nearly falling off the F800 ST when I tried to turn too sharply !!

Whilst the bike was being serviced Sylvia and I went shopping to replace a few bits & pieces and buy some bags to take our stuff to Tasmania & New Zealand in. Melbourne was ok for a big city, however, not in our opinion as nice as Sydney.

Later we collected the bike and headed back to the campsite, both tired out from too much shopping.

The following day we tried to find a replacement tank bag as the other ones zip had come away from the main material….as a result of us over-packing it for the umpteenth time - plus some sort of animal had tried to chew through the zip itself so I could no longer close the tank bag. Having looked at a huge variety of Tank Bags in the morning we couldn’t find anything suitable at a suitable price and so returned to the campsite to start cleaning the bike in preparation for shipping, and more importantly, its cleanliness inspection upon arrival in New Zealand.

The bike was pretty dirty and so we spent a good few hours washing it down before we could get around to applying the polish. The polishing started around 6PM so it wasn’t long before we had to abandon it as the light was fading and we needed some dinner !!

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064441.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

The Big Clean.....

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064443.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

...which revealed just how large the 30l tank really is.

Next morning we finished polishing the bike.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064461.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

Really came up nice.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064467.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064464.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

Sylvia cleaned nearly everything else, such as our tent, bike gear, boots etc whilst I made sure all we had all the information we needed for the next few weeks. I also checked to make sure I could remove rack & Top box for shipment (as the top box/rack made the bike too long for a container) and to clean the parts not easily seen whilst still mounted on the bike. With the exception of the superficial damage that had occurred in Darwin the bike looked excellent.

Later that evening we were kept awake by some noisy partying Germans until around 1am, our alarm went off at 5:15 but we were already awake from the noise of the rain on our tent for the second time in the night. All-in-all not a good start to what we expected to be a long and tiring day.

Poor Sylvia looked exhausted before we even started the day and the fact that it looked like we’d lost our knife, fork & spoons the previous evening did little to add to her spirits ! .. So with typical Mike humour we ate breakfast in the tent using our very large serving spoon but poor Sylvia was still very angry about misplacing the utensils. We thought that with all the packing and of the previous evening we’d probably left them in the (now locked) kitchen.

We packed the bike up under the shelter of the ameneties block sidewalk/bench area and managed to leave for around 7am which was our planned departure time.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064438.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

Just finished packing up the bike before we leave.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064459.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

Despite the volume of rush hour traffic we found the bike container loading point quite quickly and were stripping everything off the bike by just after 8am. Dave Milligen, the owner of GETROUTED, our shipping Agent, arrived at around 08:20 on his now dirty (from the rain) Triumph Boneville and wasn’t pleased about it !

It hadn't rained for a while but just as Sylvia & I had managed to spread out as much stuff as we could, including the lap-top and camera gear (for packing into our new flight bags) it started to rain again !! Arrgghh, so we hurridley put the bike cover over the electrical equipment and got on with the rest of the preparations as fast as we could. About a further 20 mins later and other bikes started arriving which generally had far fewer preparation needs as ours. By around 09:00am we had the bike stripped of panniers, top-box and rack and the battery was disconnected which signified the last preparation for loading onto one of Dave’s specially made loading racks, which are then subsequently loaded into a 40’ container. The panniers & top box also had to be covered in bubble wrap for transport in the container and that was just too fiddly for me to want to do after all that had gone before. Anyway, between Sylvia & I they were all wrapped up in about 20 mins.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064456.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

The only reason I can think I was smiling was because I knew a break was coming !! I was shattered.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064457.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

Panniers, top box & rack covered in Bubblewrap- Oh how I looked forward to this task !

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064454.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

'Skippy' loaded onto the rack, ready for loading.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064452.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

With the luggage rack missing I had to improvise in order to hold the mudguard off the rear wheel...good old Gaffer tape.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064450.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

The loading proceeds...

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064448.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

...under the watchful eye of Dave Milligen.

<IMG SRC="http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2294/10863370/19377282/311064445.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">

The bike rack is secured to the floor before the process is complete.

At this point all the bikes had arrived and around half had already left. I’d heard Dave & Maggie offer a couple of the riders a lift into town earlier and enquired if we could too to the nearest town so that we could get a taxi to the airport. Dave said if we didn’t mind waiting he’d run us there himself. We were delighted and very grateful…furthermore he asked if we’d like to pop in and have a tea with them as our flight wasn’t until 16:30. We accepted gladly…and enjoyed a good few hours chatting ,drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits.

At around 15:00 Maggie took us to the airport. We wolfed down some McDonalds’s as time was short (and I like it anyway - when it’s been prepared properly) and were soon on the plane after paying for the excess luggage of around 8-9kgs. Fortunately we were travelling with Mr Branson’s Virgin Blue who only charged us a $20 excess.

We sat on the plane absolutely exhausted.

We’d ridden 22,000km since the middle of August, 17,000 of them having been ridden in the past 7 weeks in really hot & dusty conditions and we were both really feeling their full effects as we flew to Tasmania, and I for one, was looking forward to a break from our 'routine'.

Mike
 


Back
Top Bottom