End of my working day, so let's get the ball rolling. First up are my two Australian trips.
In 2013 I reconnected with an old university friend who had been living in Sydney for over 25 years. He invited me to jump the ditch and join him for a ride to an annual BMW cancer fund run. I needed to be in Sydney about the time of the trip so I organised my travel around the ride. For work I was visiting two motorcycle distributors who manage their NZ distribution and dealer network from Sydney. I mentioned to them I would meet with them before or after the weekend as I wanted to do the bike ride with a friend and I would hire a bike to do that. No they said, let us lend you a demonstrator. First up was the Ducati Multistrider Touring and I chose that in 2013.
A year later I went back again, this time with MrsKiwi and we did a longer ride. The plan was to use the HD tourer, but when we arrived, much to the disgust of the HD Managing Director, one of his staff had lent the bike to someone else without checking the booking system
. We ended up with the Road King, but it did not have a lot of luggage capacity, a real worry for MrsKiwi. Traveling light is not her thing
.
In 2013, it was a three day ride, and 2014 we did a 5 day ride. Hell of a lot of fun on both occasions. That multistrider sure can boogie when you open the throttle
Some pics form the 2013 trip
Tidy bike, tidily packed.
My mate always rides with his wife and his BMW Adventure bike comes with modified suspension and other things to carry the load.
Stopping off to look at this along the way (can't quite recall its name), but it is in Parkes.
Our plan was to head to Tottenham near the geographic centre of New South Wales. We stopped along the way to grab a burger and beer. Given about 80 odd other riders were riding in the that direction and we were late the lonely hotel in the middle of now where had run out of beer and burgers.
Our set up for the night, I'm in the small yellow tent.
We were not alone
The sunset was nice
A fun night of food, beer, laughter, raffles, more beer and lots of snoring sleepers in the wee hours of the following morning ensued. The next day we rode to the centre of the State.
We rescued one of these from the middle of the road, not sure what it is called, it is a lizard of some type, a shingleback I think.
Then it was a long ride back to my mates place through the Blue Mountains and lots of speed cameras. There was a reasonable amount of collateral damage done to the insect population.
The short route for this trip was Sydney to Goulburn then up to Cowra and Parkes to view the dish, then onto Condobolin and Tottenham. The way back through Dubbo, Orange, Bathurst (rode our bikes arund the race track), the Blue Mountains and Sydney.
.
. I intended to import the bike home straight away as I wanted to have a bike like this at home. But my dutch friend mentioned he had a spare spot in his garage and I could leave it with him. He volunteered to look after it, ride it from time to time and ensure the bike was ready for me to ride whenever I could get back to the Netherlands. My wife was like 
.
)
