Kevin Withnall

Ok, maybe its me but Port Augusta seems like a really silly name.

This morning, I left about 9am, and rode the 20 mins to adelaide to get some fuel (for me and the bike). After leaving adelaide, I didn’t put my feet down until port Augusta. I was starting to get a sore back and probably should have stopped earlier.

Things to note about todays ride. It reached 17 degrees, quite nice really. It rained again (aparently its also been raining at alice springs). 300km without stopping sucks.

The trains are long here (real trins, not road trains) and again I had very strong cross winds. Theres this pipe thing that started following me along the sire of the road at adelaide and is still here. I guess it sends something somewhere but thers no information available on it telling me what or where.

Anyway, not really much to tell other than the ride along mostly express ways, the terrain seems to have changed a little and we have more dirt along the sides of roads. Ok, we had dirt before but its a lighter colour and looks more like dirt. I still have not hit any animals making them dead and I hope it doesn’t happen.

Tomorrow is the biggest scheduled day of the trip and is about 550k (I did 650k the first day and thought it was about 100km too long). Hopefully I handle it ok. I will certainly not do it without stopping.

the sunset and my lovely, lovely bike. It may be unnatural but who can stand between me and my motorcycle.

The tractor museum. This disturbed me more than it should have.

The Big Lobster (ok, Larry)

The blue lake. Ok, it looks blueish here but looks grey in real life. Honest.

What we like to call in the trade “Hot Windfarm Action”

The girls at the flagstaff hill school in their ‘oldish’ school uniforms.

I’m sitting in Mt Barker at the moment. We were up about 6am and I decided to leave earlyish. I was on the road by 7:15 and it was about 7 degrees (but mostly dry).

In about 30 mins of riding, I had seen many foxes, rabbits (both dead and alive), heaps of birds (eating the aforementioned dead bunnies) and no roos. There were sign everywhere telling me to watch out for the roos but I saw none (well, at least none still interested in breathing).

The temp dropped to 3 degrees. That really sucks as I hadn’t started the jacket heater yet. I stopped to get some fuel after about 90 mins riding (and get some instant coffee, raisin toast) and lit the pocket warmer. I had previously discussed said lighting with the owner of the petrol station/diner where I was and explained that there will be some flames while it heated up. When the flames happened, He looked concerned but, probably do to the previous discussion, didn’t try to put it out.

From then on, it warmed up a little, mostly going from about 6 degrees to actually hitting 12 at one point.

I arrived in Mt Barker and as the room wasn’t ready yet, went to the local shopping centre and looked around. Hoping for some decent coffee to wash the taste of instant ferom my delicate mouth, I discovered not much to help. There was however a computer game shop (I could get some NDS charges for the girls) and a phone shop (so i could get a USB charger for my archos). Then a K-Mart for some more time wasting and finally back to the caravan park where telstra service is ok enough to do some writing.

later….

We just got back from Adelaide where we visited the Haigh chocolate factory and went to see Kung Fu Panda. Both were quite fun.

Tomorrow we will head to port Augusta. Hopefully it will be warmer.

There’s one more thing that needs to be said. I believe everyone let me down greatly by not telling me it was going to be cold doing the south a week after the winter solstice.

Also, people have been dying to ask but no-one has yet the courage to bring it up. I know you are all dying to know what a well dressed bike traveller wears so, to save you the embarrassment of asking, here’s the soop.

1. BMW long thermal pants (these go over the underwear which is changed at least once per week)
2. Draggin Cargo pants
3. Long socks (knee length) that go over the thermals, under the cargos.
4. BMW boots, mid calf high.
5. Marino wool thermal long sleeve top (Kathmandu)
6. sometimes a tee shirt over it
7. Wooly neck warmer thingy
8. outdoor research wind proof jacket over the thermals
9. BMW jacket (although last years colour) goes over the lot to prevent ingress of road when I hit it at some speed.
10. BMW gloves
11. Nolan N102 Helmet with Autocom headset

So, you can see theres a bit to getting dressed in the mornings. And yes, I know the jacket (9) is in the girlie section of the BMW apparrel book and modelled by a girl. What are you trying to say?

Well, Friday, the day after flagstaff hill visit is the first day of heading north. Leaving around 9am, I travelled about 10k in the wrong direction waiting for the satnav to tell me when to turn (the sun was in the wrong part of the sky so I know somethng was not right). I then zoomed out and discovered that when I was pre-setting all the way points in the sat nav, i had missed the Kingston SE stop and it was pointing back at Alglesea. 10 mins later, I was back on course, the sun knew its place and all was right again.

Not much to tell really about this part of the trip. It was only about 350k to the next stop. I passed a wind farm (back in 2001 is was the largest in australia) but the photos are pretty crappy.

Then it was on to Mt Gambier and its blue (actually grey) lake. It was nice to sit in a macdonalds, get some rason toast and drink a decent coffee. After getting warm again, I went back to the bike and headed to kingston.

I arrived about 1hr ahead of the others and decided to see some parts of the town and of course the big lobster.

I rode into town (about 90 seconds riding) and saw the big lobster (about 3 mins) then went to the Big Lobster (ok, they want me to call it Larry the Big Lobster) tourist section. It was an empty room with a single touch screen information system which was off and parked against the wall with a sign on it saying it wasn’t working.

So, I was no about 5 mins into the hour I had to wait and needed something to do. I walked up the street to the, aparently, famous garden sun dial. The sun had by now however decided to hide behind clouds so the sundial was not quite working. I couldn’t even see a vague shadow. I then walked to the service station (with another tourist information section. Theres only so long you can look at chocolates, crappy magazines and fishing tackle.

So, 30 mins down and I finally had to go to the last resort. “Kev’s tractor Museum” was the name of it but please don’t get the wrong idea. Its not a museum.

When I was growing up, my grandfather had a factory and lots of stuff spread everywhere. My grandmother had things like pedal sowing machines in the shed etc. Aparently, this ‘museum’ was just people like that, just not throwing things out for a long time.

Where were all sorts of things that I consider junk that shouldn’t be anywhere, espescially a museum. I do however have to give it something, it does have a higher tractor co-efficient than most places i’ve been to.

So, still having 20 mins to kill, I went back to the park (via a long 5 mins drive to make sure nothing was missed) and met the others entering the park.

Today was not really a ‘biking’ day. A total of 3km on the bike (to and from Flagstaff Hill).

The destination, was a seaside period (about 1870’s i think) village with lots of shops, sailmakers etc. It was interesting and worth visiting. Tomorrow, I have to go about 340km to Kingston SE (you need the SE aparently of google gets a little upset). Its lots of coast riding but with the southerly wind, it might suck. We will see.

Anyway, not much to report. Just some photos taken today of me at the caravan park (just taking off on my riding day) and another at the park (after climbing a cannon)

Just for the record (so I don’t forget) the bike started this trip with the odometer reading 3091k. Its still performing brilliantly.

I just plugged in the internet box with the high gain aerial so we have a decent connection at the moment. Libby will be happy because she will be able to upload lots of photos.

Anyway, heres the photos i mentioned.