Before I begin this travel blog I would like to thank you, my friends and relatives for reading this blog and leaving regular comments, I feel that you are all with me when I am going through the deferent countryside.
And to my biker friends, don't disregard Australia; biking here is well accepted and strong and the old tradition of waving to your fellow biker on the other side exists even here reminding each other how lucky we are to enjoy riding freely.
I left the Gold Coast today around 7:30am and headed towards Tamworth as my target for the day. In Australia it rains sporadically even though you can see the sky and the clouds are scattered you get a minute of rain from passing clouds. This happens in Kuwait also but is rare, here it happened almost every day since I arrived and today was no exception.
It is sometimes a blessing to miss a turn that the GPS tells you to, which led me to a nice small country road on the way to my intended destination, after a few hours I started to get hungry so I stopped in a small town called Lismore and had breakfast at Mecca Café.
After that it was strait to Armidale for lunch and onto Tamworth where they have the Gold Guitar and a motorcycle museum. Unfortunately when I arrived at 5:30 pm the museum was closed so I will have to go there tomorrow morning and take pictures.
Well Selena, the lady who rented the bike out to me, was right. The scenery inland was much better that the coastal freeway and the roads twisted more frequently especially on route 44.
So tomorrow I will be headed to Sydney to deliver the bike and get ready for the flight home.
Finally after two days of not riding due to the forum I was attending I get to go out and see the area.
So I rode alongside the beach as much as I could until I reach Surfers Paradise out here on the Gold Coast and the beach, shops, and restaurants in that area were great.
Tomorrow morning I will be traveling towards Sydney with no plans where I will stop I think I will keep going as long as it is day time, and I am not tired.
At 10:20 am I was ready to leave the bike rental shop
http://www.bikescape.com.au/ where I mentioned last that I rented the BMW 1200GS they were also kind enough to let me keep my suitcase there until I returned, I put everything on the bike and headed to the Gold Coast as the destination of the hotel on the GPS guided me through traffic.
It took me about an hour and a half to get out of Sydney and suburbs on to a freeway, and after that it was easy going. It took me 12 hours to cover the 860 km to the hotel mostly due to the fact that the freeway entered many towns where the speed limit, which is strictly enforced, at times was as low as 50 km. This is why Google Maps estimated the trip at 11 hours.
However all this speed limit enforcement and safety signs did make me feel safe on the road, especially one that read "Be Aware of Motorcycles" which leads me to believe that there is a big Motorcycle culture here in Australia especially since I witnessed so many motorcycles traveling along the same freeway.
At the rental shop I was told that the route I intended to take was not as scenic as other alternate routes, I explained that I needed to attend a conference and that I had to make the trip in one day. However when the trip was on its way I found the route to be very scenic and fun, and then realized that they live here and to them this is normal. Compared to where we usually ride, on a strait road with nothing but the desert on both sides, it was paradise with trees all around and roads that twist in all directions but at slow speeds.
It started to get dark at 6:30 pm and that is when I saw my first Kangaroo warning sign and said to myself I couldn't have chosen a worse time to cross this area since it would be difficult to see if a Kangaroo was actually in the middle of the road or not and then all the bugs came out to play with the bike's windshield creating lovely patterns of the windflow.
I arrived finally at the hotel exhausted from the riding and the flight travel the day before and looking forward to a day of resting.
Welcome to my Journals......
Ever since I have been traveling on two wheels I haven't written any thing down regarding where I went, who I saw, or how I did it.
Most of my travels are with friend who I thank for letting me tag along, learn, and grow.
This journal will have two aspects the first a record of my future travels, and maybe some back dated ones. And the other will be my thoughts about traveling on a motorcycle, what gear I have tried, and what methods I feel are the best for traveling.
Please feel free to drop me a note regarding motorcycle travel, I will be happy to reply.
