Sydney to somewhere not Sydney...

Well we're off and running, or riding rather. After a night spent in the welcoming confines of Sydney we travelled out to the bike depot, 10 mins or three separate conversations with the taxi driver away, to collect the three R1200GS bikes we'd been assigned for the trip from Sydney to Melbourne.

They're a hell of a lot bigger up close and in person than they are in a 640x480 image on a website, that's for certain. Two vibrant yellow machines for the chaps from Bike Round Oz, and a black job for me. It's as if Gosling One has been down the gym and on a course of illicit steroids.

Camping at Batemans Bay, miserable weather included free of charge

Being the first time I'd been on a bike since leaving the Yamaha XT600E (Gosling One) in Australia a couple of years back, to say the learning curve was steep would be like comparing Everest to a small pile of icing sugar. Still, I like to think I started to get the hang of it again reasonably quickly, even managing to recover from the requisite stall before even setting off, without anyone noticing (or at least mentioning it).

We exited Sydney as fast as we could, which turned out not to be that fast at all thanks for the quantity of Monday morning traffic and some extremely vindictive traffic lights. Each stop at which, was another opportunity for me to try and drop said huge lump of German metal and plastic. Sydney traffic can't last forever mind you, and we eventually popped free of the suburban chaos and into the relatively tranquil national parks to the south west.

Thundering (it felt like thundering, quiet at the back) along the tree fringed two lane road towards the coast was a welcome contrast to the stop start, in and out hair raising navigation required to leave Sydney. As far as I had been concerned up til then, the 1200GS only had two gears, turns out it really has six. Live and learn.

Curving ocean side roads near the Seacliff Bridge

Stopping in the coastal town of Thirroul for a coffee and some cake, gave mother nature an opportunity to muster her forces, leap over the tree blanketed mountains inland of the town and assault us when we ventured back to the bikes. Mercifully she didn't send a great deal of rain, only an expeditionary force of wind in all strengths and directions seemingly at once. The solid Germanic bulk of the 1200GS wasn't too bothered about all this, but my neck certainly has a few extra kinks in it now, thanks to a few overly enthusiastic gusts as we travelled south along the Princes Highway.

That asphalt snake thing, that's the Seacliff Bridge that is.

Apparently the normal advice from Bike Round Oz is for clients to find an alternative to the Princes Highway as it's not rated to be terribly interesting, but we had to get to Batemans Bay before sundown and were already running a bit behind. As far as I'm concerned it might not be up there with the 'worlds greatest roads', but it certainly wasn't as dull as I'd been expecting. Some nice little towns clustered around sheltered bays, a few twists, a few rises and only a little traffic; although it might have all been stuck behind my dawdling bike I suppose.

When your motorcycle takes up more room than your tent, you know it's time to readdress your priorities.

We're now camped just inland from the still apparently very annoyed ocean, in a caravan park / campsite chosen by yours truly because I was running out of petrol. Nothing like necessity to make decision making a more rapid process.

The preliminary plan for the morning of Tuesday is to head inland in a 'wiggly' sort of fashion, towards the mountain town of Jindabyne, located in the 'BloodySoddingFreezing' mountain range...sorry, the Snowy Mountains. Reports had the temperatures up there a day or two ago at a most balmy -2 degrees C in the daytime. I know it's December, but we're in Australia for crying out loud.

Camping is still on the agenda (I think this was my idea, but I don't normally have an agenda), but if it really is minus 2 there could well be a mutiny, followed by a swift exodus to a log cabin. Still, I think there's a button on this Beemer for some heated hand grips, would be a shame not to try them at least once.