I left Sue’s place at 7:30 and got petrol and then headed off for Uriarra Crossing. I stopped on William Hovell Dr to take a pic of the view and my camera shut off, the batteries were dead. No problem, so I put in my spares, that I discovered I hadn’t charged since I had last taken them out of the camera, doh! So then I decided I would go to a servo to get batteries, because I didn’t want to miss taking pics of my ride to Tumut.
Finding a servo in Canberra, is NOT easy. After riding around for 15min, and considering going back to the one near Sue’s place, cause at least I knew where it was, I finally found one in Hawker. As I rode up the street, I thought I had passed the point where I needed to get into the servo, so I did a u-turn, and over the bike went. There were people in the servo watching me, people that drove around me on the road. Did any of them come to my assistance? NO! So I finally managed to pick the Tenere back up with legs that were shaking like leaves and then I put the bike on the side stand and just left it exactly where it was, I was not moving it until my legs stopped shaking. Cars continued to drive around me :roll: There was a decent patch of oil on the road and I tried to figure out where it had leaked from, but couldn’t seem to find it and it didn’t drop any oil after that. A few days later talking to Wolf, he suggested perhaps the oil was already on the road, and that may have contributed to the bike sliding down, and that made sense and made me feel less stupid because I didn’t just drop the bike doing a u-turn, and also more stupid because the thought didn’t occur to me and also because I didn’t see the oil cause I was too busy looking at the servo! At least I now knew that if I dropped it on a remote road that I could pick it up myself. I finally got batteries, put them in the camera and was finally off again. I was then too pissed to take any pics for about 30min heheh
From Uriarra Crossing, I took Mountain Creek Rd, which was a beautiful road that had a couple of very short gravel sections.
Mountain Creek Rd, then meets up with the nice twisty section just before Wee Jasper. I wound my way along the twisties loving every second of it, and having to stop myself from stopping every 30 seconds to take a photo.
After Wee Jasper came the first part of dirt for the day and it scared the shit out of me. It was a series of 20kph corners, around a mountain with a sheer drop on one side of the road and the road was rocky and corrugated. I practically walked the bike around all 15 terrifying km that continued like that, and it was made worse by the fact I didn’t know when it was going to end. This was taken in a nice section where I felt like I could stop and not get collected by another vehicle should it come around.
After that, the road was still dirt and gravel, but in a little better condition, but more importantly, was in flatter country where I didn’t envisage myself hurtling to my death down the side of a cliff. I suddenly realised how glad I felt that I had borrowed the Spot and that I could have ended up using it sooner than I thought. The rest of the 30km of good gravel I covered quickly, generally sitting on around 70kph, dodging the gargantuan speed humps in the form of dead wombats. When it came to making the choice of taking the 27km unsealed road to Tumut or the 31km sealed road, I chickened out and took the sealed, because I was terrified it might be might the first section, and secondly, because it was getting close to lunch time and I hadn’t even got to Tumut yet and wanted to be in Bombala that night and the last section before Bombala was dirt.
I filled up both the bike and myself at Tumut and then took the Snowy Mountains Highway to the Berridale turnoff.
The scenery along there is just amazing and the road is very very nice. That is one highway were you don’t get bored because you either have the most amazing vistas or you are in sections of 35 kph twisties. Dark clouds loomed and the road was wet, but luckily I seemed to be dodging the massive rain cloud that stood before me. I wasn’t going take any chances so pulled over and put the wets (and jumpers) on. I got sprinkled on briefly before the turnoff to Berridale. Not far after the Berridale turnoff I stopped to take a pic and noticed that the fairing that was cracked from my previous escapades had broken and was loose. I wasn’t far out of Berridale, so I continued to there and got fuel and then I got out my gaffer tape and did some surgery and was ready to go again.
From Berridale it was nice 19km of country rd to Dalgety, where I took the turn off to Bombala via Ando Road. I was excited about taking this road cause a friend had suggested it and said it was really nice dirt rd. The “gravel next 28km” sign loomed, but they are TARRING THE FREAKING ROAD! Another 10km the bastard bitumen went for! Though it was beautiful bitumen, and they are apparently cambering all the corners etc, though it will be dangerous for motorcyclists to keep their license on this road, cause there are some REALLY nice straights and sweeping corners and plenty of places for the cops to hide ;) I was enjoying the dirt road so much (I was going between 80 and 100 the whole time) that I flew past my turn off at Gunningrah Rd (mind you the sign is tiny.) I turned around and got onto Gunningrah Road. This is more of a road that services the farms and there is lots of grids and you are riding through open farm land. The sheep seemed scared of the Tenere and would bolt in the opposite direction. The cows were interested enough to look up, but not do anything about it. I absolutely loved this road, I felt isolated and free and it was rocky and bumpy and I loved every second of it! At the end there was a beautiful 10km of bitumen into Bombala. I found my way to the Imperial Hotel, where Steve the owner let me park my baby under cover in the back section of the hotel, I got an awesome room for $25 a night and I was entertained by the locals and then ended up chatting with Steve and Virginia, the owners until about 11pm. I can 100% say I will be back to stay at the Imperial, the room was great, the food was good, and they were really nice.
More pics from this day
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