We left Part 2 having not physically left Part 2. We rose still in Hahndorf on Day 18, breakfasted, clipped the panniers mostly laden with pre-laundry back on the bikes, and hit the road to reach the terminus of the journey, Kangaroo Island, although without the rest of the family flying in as originally planned … More South by South-west Part 3 – The Green Green Grass to Home

We left Part 1 at the close of the Compass Expeditions Reunion in Jindabyne. If you haven’t read Part 1, then nothing in this Part will make any sense whatever. You’ll be asking how on earth we managed to find ourselves on Triumph motorcycles starting in southern NSW and finishing in Hahndorf South Australia, and … More South by South-west Part 2 – In Hahndorf’s Way

“Beware the Rides of March!”. So said the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in 44BC as he rode past on his BMW R minus 40 flat twin, just before he crashed badly on the floor of the Theatre of Pompey trying to pull a big mono. Well described in Shakespeare’s “What Really Happened” Act III draft, … More South by South-west Part 1 – The Ties that Jindabyne

Riding all 50 USA states has long taken up a large volume of the list bucket for Cindy and me. Quick retraction; that statement is a total fabrication and only just occurred to us as something we could achieve having now ridden both non-contiguous bits – Alaska and Hawaii – in 2019. With Washington, Idaho, … More Aloha nineT

We left Part 2 Flogging It To Deadhorse in the mozzie swarmed carpark at Chena Hot Springs at the theoretical end of Day 10, as usual the sun was completely unsupportive and refused to go down. We walked into reception dirty and sweaty, but with the casual swashbuckling air of adventure motorcyclists who have achieved … More Dropping The Anchorage – Part 3

We left Part 1 Photo Bombe Alaska at the close of Day 5 in Talkeetna. Even though we seemed to have done a lot of riding, the northerly progress from Anchorage only added up to about 160km so to get to the top we were going to have to up the pace. Day 6 objective … More Flogging It To Deadhorse – Part 2

When asked by friends why we were going to ride Alaska, it was appropriate to re-work the classic George Mallory 1923 quote about climbing Everest – “because we think it’s almost certainly there”. We had never really considered the endless wilderness of the most northerly US state as a motorcycling destination, particularly due to my … More Photo Bombe Alaska – Part 1

I rode a grassy country, a land of swarming flies. Of reasonable accommodation, and pub steaks with salad and fries. I rode her far horizons, and stopped for morning tea, I even did some dirt roads, the wide green land for me.Dorothea Mackellar would have written it like that if she had been on the … More Ride to the Rock? Not Quite

After two nights in Te Anau, we backed up our tourism frenzy with two nights in Queenstown. As ex-west coasters in Tasmania, the differences between Queenstown and Queenstown could not be more absolute to us; one a famous mining town that rose and slowly fell, the other a famous mining town that rose and now … More Land of the Long White Bait Lunch – New Zealand Part 2