The next 4 days were the almost traditional approach of an informal talk and discussion amongst friends that to my eye, is what sums up HU meetings.

A mixture of tips, advice, suggestions, adventures and misadventures that makes every event unmissable and unique....riding in Mongolia and travelling across china and beyond on a scooter stick in my mind.

A road-run up to the nearby dam for a rather impressive photo location to finish off.

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I wake up and you have made four new posts! Excellent, BBB!

After the fun at Mitta Mitta It was time to move on to pastures new which in this case was a slight roundabout route to the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are so named because of the evaporating eucalyptus oil from the forest's that stretch as far as the eye can see.Normally early to mid-day are the best viewing times, which little lookouts or purpose built viewing platforms put in place for this purpose. The effect is like a shimmery grey ( or blue ) mist that rises into the air and of course you get the smell of the forest as well, the area is very impressive in an unspoilt way.

I was feeling lazy at this point, and booked myself into the Katoomba YHA hostel...big place, well equipped and they were happy for you to park the motorbike round the back so they could keep an eye on it.This was my basecamp for the week and enabled me to take an unladen bike out and explore the roads.

Big Mountains...Check.

Twisty roads.....Check.

Fat Bloke..........Check.

Absolute fun and games hurtling around these roads and at one point I ended up in a massive convoy of Harley Davidsons heading towards a town ( agh..name escapes me ) where they have their annual meeting.

Parked up and had a good wander around the place, nice people to chat. . I even found the Australian Trail Rider Magazine stand where I wasted a while talking to them about the trip, They asked me to knock up a ride report for them.....which I never did, totally my fault.

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Jenolan Caves

No this is what I would call a technical road.

Very steep, and quite narrow for two lane traffic and extremely twisty from the top of the mountain road all the way down to the bottom of the gorge where the caves themselves reside.

Best approach was just to cane it all the way down....in hindsight, that was possibly not the best thing to do.

However I got there in one piece and spent the best part of the day walking up cliffs and gorges and climbing down caves and all the touristy things that go with this place.....Not cheap.This is one of these undiscovered areas as such that proved massively popular to the Victorians who really embraced the place.

Here we have some pretty photos.

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Scaring the hell out of random people

As per usual when off exploring away from my bike, I tend to wear and/or carry all my riding gear.....this certainly comes from being British and having your formative years in motorcycling tainted by living in a nation that will steal anything and everything not bolted down. Hence the reason why Brits always carry those sodding great big chains and locks around with them all the time.

Almost finished exploring the caves for the day when I noticed a opening just off the path leading into a deep, dark tunnel....leading where?


Time to explore.


Putting my helmet back on, as I had retrofitted a bespoke illumination system to it ( taped a headtorch to the top ) I lumbered off down the tunnel, which after only a matter of a few feet started to get noticeably smaller in width and height....tight....but still ok. With all my bike gear on ( armour/equipment jacket ) I took up the entire width and height of the tunnel so decided that the only way was forward.

After about 60 foot, the tunnel went into a series of blind corners and turns until ending up against a iron grate with the placard " closed " on it....ah well, that was a quick adventure. Shuffling around to head back I had a great idea of switching my torch to infra-red and using my video camera in night mode to do a creepy record of the return trip.

All was going fine until I reached the first corner in almost pitch blackness where upon something hit me smack bang in my chest and screamed in a high pitched unearthly tone....quickly followed by a whole chorus of screams from an unknown number of things in the tunnel....instinct kicked in and in this case it was for me to bellow as loud as I could and grab whatever was against me and lift it up and push down the corridor......absolute bedlam....amongst the screams I could hear lots of feet running away at least.

Lots of screaming and bellowing continued until a white light appeared and fully lit up the tunnel to reveal 2 Asian girls crying and cowering in terror on the floor ( one of which had the light ) and another Asian girl crying her heart out.....held in a bearhug immobile against my chest and her feet dangling about a foot off the floor.

A group of Tourist's ( maybe from Japan....they were incapable of speaking after this to confirm it ) had noticed me going into the tunnel and assumed it must be another tourist cave so had followed me in a minute later and found themselves in a pitch black narrow tunnel.The first corner they hit was where they met me and they only saw a very large shape with a red glow around it come barreling into them out of the dark.

The boys in the group had screamed and then turned around and ran out, leaving the girls trapped in the tunnel with me.....methinks, they are not going to be forgiven for that one.

Andy,
Brilliant ride report and great writing style. Just reading it is enough to get the wanderlust bubbling up again. If you're still around B'stoke I'll buy you a jug of mead!
Ed

Excellent BBB. Can just picture the chaos and then the entertainment value afterwards

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Jo’burg to Cairo (And a bit further): KLR 650
Southern Africa (And still going strong): XT660Z Yamaha

Thought I'd met you on the road somewhere BB and now it clicks.

That scooter is off to Oodnadatta over easter so it looks like I will be following in your footsteps soon.

Sounds like you had a great ride and we definitely need you back here to keep Amie company long term.

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Garry from Oz - powered by Burgman

Mate just a few things, Your report is the first I have ever read all the way through.

As a Ex bill Odie of 22 years, a lot of what you said of your self resonates through me too, I would love to of seen you route on a map to make it easier to follow for me pers, again a solder thing prob.

On a pers note: Well done, loved the report and the way it was written, & very informertive.

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We are the Pilgrims, Master, we shall go Always a little further: it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, Across that angry or that glimmering sea.

Edmac

Yes matey, I am still around Basingstoke...I ride a rather fetching Aqua and White BMW R100GSPD now.

Selous

I wish I kept my maps as well, I started off on the desert runs with proper ordnance survey spec maps and then bought a very good road Atlas for the rest of the trip.The Atlas showed fuel and camping spots and the general state of the road which was pretty much all I needed.

farqhuar

Good luck on your easter run, I was that impressed with your scooter I am trying to get a cheap one for a little excursion up to NordKapp in Norway this August.

After the cultural misunderstanding beneath Genolan resulting in several Asian tourists going into mental collapse......I decided it was time to move onwards.A rather roundabout and random route was selected that would eventually bring me to Canberra by using the backroads and mountain roads to the west of the city.

The fact that the route would also be completely unguessable or impossible to follow by the Police...never even crossed my mind.

The trip took maybe 4 times longer than originally planned.....simply because the roads were amazing! I must have repeated a dozen sections due to the steep,twisty nirvanna through the mountains....even on a low powered bike like the DR, it was a giggle to travel them.

Eventually popped out from the mountain tracks to the west of the city, covered from head to toe in dust and sand and headed towards Canberra.

Great ride report, during my time in the Australian Navy (24yrs) i try to ride to my new posting locations and explore Australia a bit at the same time, Darwin, Cairns, Melbourne, great rides and lots to see and do on the way. I noticed a few familiar faces in your pics of the Mitta Mitta gathering and then i noticed my bike in the background of your tent picture, i remember seeing you all set up down the bottem of the slope there. Sounds like you had a great time, well done.

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What ever, lets go...

Hey mate, just wanted to say awesome ride report! I like your writing style as well, very entertaining

I spent two years in Australia (2008-09) traveling and working around the country, and god I just loved it! I'm looking forward to finding a job in the future and hopefully move permanently (I'm from Canada, the weather sucks here!).

Have you been to Perth by any chance? My favorite part of Australia was the southwestern part of Western Australia, around Margaret River, and a bit further east around Esperance, just before the Nullarbor Desert, but Perth is a great city too and the Indian ocean is gorgeous there. When I initially left Perth with my girlfriend, we were planning to perhaps find some work in the southwest and what not. We ended up driving around and not finding anything, so we decided to drive all the way to Melbourne. We weren't even aware that there was a desert (the Nullarbor) in between the two cities haha. We were lucky because our car didn't break down in the middle of the 1300km long desert

If I get the chance in the future, I'd love to drive from Perth to Darwin. Just on a side note, did you meet a lot of weird people in the really small towns in the bush? I'm kinda curious! You didn't talk too much about the general populations you met in the middle of nowhere (except for your few unappealing experiences with the aborigines), would be interesting to hear more about that!

Anyway keep it up, looking forward to read the rest of your trip report

I thourougly enjjoyed this trip report. Thank you so much, BBB