Trip to Longreach ~ Day 1
29/09/08 19:58 Filed in: Motorcycle
Madness
Oh my knees, by back, my a**. Just kidding, but I
would happily kill for a beer.
Today I completed the first stage of my trip to Longreach. Arriving in Emerald at 6:10pm. This is a motorcycle trip that will take eight or so days return, and cover about 3000kms. This is my first motorcycle trip longer than a day. Today is the longest day of the trip with 850kms in total to get to Emerald. Each successive day from this point onward won’t exceed 400kms. This should give me enough time to take some photos. Which reminds me, I think I’ve left my CF card reader at home! Doh!
I left home at 7:00am this morning and dawdled my way to Gayndah. I stopped in Gayndah for a coffee and it was at that time that I realised I was running about an hour behind schedule. Unfortunately that type of difference is hard to make up. I also only managed to take about 5 photos.
The main objective of today, aside from getting to Emerald, was to visit Moonford. Moonford is a little locality about 12kms on the North side of Monto. It consists now of a couple of houses and a Parks and Wildlife office. The reason I wanted to visit Moonford is because the Parks and Wildlife office used to be the Moonford school.
Which is where I started my academic career
some twenty-nine years ago, in grade one. My Dad was
working at Cania Gorge at the time and I think my Mum
used to drive the school bus for the area. The school
house is almost unchanged from my memory of it. A few
louvres have been replaced with sliding windows but
that’s about it. The little verandah that housed the
port racks still exists.
The entire run has been smooth. The bike is riding like a cloud thanks to the extra weight on the back wheel. Less is definitely more when doing a bike trip, and I have come to realise that much less is much more. However, I do have the capacity to take a lot more stuff in my panniers than I at first thought. I resisted the urge to fill them.
The only hiccup so far was my visor breaking about 2kms east of Rolleston. This time it wasn’t the visor, but the hookup that it attaches to. That particular little gadget has broken away from the helmet. I’ll see if I can track down some glue tomorrow on the way to Longreach and re-attach it. Thankfully I have some duct-tape and currently the visor is taped open.
Photos to come when I get access to them.
Today I completed the first stage of my trip to Longreach. Arriving in Emerald at 6:10pm. This is a motorcycle trip that will take eight or so days return, and cover about 3000kms. This is my first motorcycle trip longer than a day. Today is the longest day of the trip with 850kms in total to get to Emerald. Each successive day from this point onward won’t exceed 400kms. This should give me enough time to take some photos. Which reminds me, I think I’ve left my CF card reader at home! Doh!
I left home at 7:00am this morning and dawdled my way to Gayndah. I stopped in Gayndah for a coffee and it was at that time that I realised I was running about an hour behind schedule. Unfortunately that type of difference is hard to make up. I also only managed to take about 5 photos.
The main objective of today, aside from getting to Emerald, was to visit Moonford. Moonford is a little locality about 12kms on the North side of Monto. It consists now of a couple of houses and a Parks and Wildlife office. The reason I wanted to visit Moonford is because the Parks and Wildlife office used to be the Moonford school.
The entire run has been smooth. The bike is riding like a cloud thanks to the extra weight on the back wheel. Less is definitely more when doing a bike trip, and I have come to realise that much less is much more. However, I do have the capacity to take a lot more stuff in my panniers than I at first thought. I resisted the urge to fill them.
The only hiccup so far was my visor breaking about 2kms east of Rolleston. This time it wasn’t the visor, but the hookup that it attaches to. That particular little gadget has broken away from the helmet. I’ll see if I can track down some glue tomorrow on the way to Longreach and re-attach it. Thankfully I have some duct-tape and currently the visor is taped open.
Photos to come when I get access to them.
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