2016-02-14 To Finniss and Return

An attempt to get into bed at midnight as opposed to my usual 2am so I can get enough sleep before the early 6:30 am rise failed. True, I made into bed at midnight but one of the dogs had other ideas and I was op again at 2am and back in bed and still awake at 3am and then Heather woke me up as the alarm on the phone went off. The few items we need to take with us were ready to be loaded into the bike so it was almost a get up, get dressed and go ride morning.

The night before I had charged up all the cam and intercom batteries but I still hadn't got around to setting up Heather's cam on her helmet so the cams were left for another time. I took a photo of the bike's clock and odometer for my log book app's trip section so I wouldn't forget it; 7:37am and 183,732 and we were on the road at 7:45. About an hour later we were having breakfast at Burra.

The council office

 

Breakfast consisting of a pie for Heather and pasty for me was bought from one of the local garages. What we noticed as being rather amusing was a female who bought a drink from where we did then on our way out of town I noticed her filling her car with fuel at another garage which was more expensive.

 

 

Our way out of town along the main street.

Across the Burra Creek bridge the road passes some old mining cottages which are now used for holiday accommodation http://burrapaxtoncottages.com/wp/

 

Nothing really exciting between Burra and our next stop at Woodside other than riding along roads in the hills at the massive speed of 80 k/h because it's deemed unsafe to travel faster than the 110 k/h limits that used to be in place.

 

Heather wanted to get something at the supermarket but it took about 10 minutes for her to cross the road. Quite a few bikes going in either direction not to forget trikes (Spyders) and cars. Even saw another blue 1100. I would hazard a guess and say most Adelaide riders don't ride anywhere but the hills roads with all there twisty bits. These three were taken with my Galaxy S4 phone.

Main Street of Woodside from the way we come.

Main Street of Woodside for the way we need to go.

The Finniss General store taken after lunch http://www.finnissgeneralstore.com.au/

The group shot for the Ozstoc ride http://www.ozstoc.com.au/

and Steve with his ST1300

After we left Finniss we stopped for fuel at Strathalbyn and headed back to the old SAR railway station to satisfy Mother Nature. While there I took some pics or the now non used rail yards though the station might still be used for the tourist trains. http://www.steamrangerheritagerailway.org/index.php

Our fuel stop can be seen in the third pic.

 

 

 

The area in front of the station has been turned into a park.

Station Building

Some seating

A playground for the kids

 

 

And this was parked there. I'm guessing it's a Harley of an early vintage.

with a side car

After leaving here we headed over to Murray Bridge to visit one of Heather's friends and stayed for tea. We left there just before 8:00 pm for the final 302 (GPS figure) km trip home. A stop off at Truro where I took some night shots as a test for my new Nikon D3300 DSLR cam.

Into town from this end,

The roadhouse

The hotel that I parked in front of

and our way out of town

Before leaving Truro I mounted the GoPro to the bike and let the cam run until our usual rest stop at Burra. Mainly just to test the cam's night filming abilities in a built up area and for any changes that would occur between low, high and the added HID driving light beams when out on the highway.

We arrived home just before witching hour (11:56 on the GPS clock) travelled an indicated 666 km (The number of the beast) averaged 16.57 k/l on the way there and 18.03 k/l on the way back.

Ride Map http://goo.gl/maps/D6X3UU3GhMU2

17th January 2015 Ashbourne

We had an OzStoc meet at Ashbourne for the local South Australian owners which we only decided to attend at almost the last the minute.


http://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zkXIyCrs72-Y.kbElMPFtSH0o This was our route  and apart from the loop at the bottom we returned the way we had come. With recent fires in the hills near Adelaide and with some roads still closed another route other than through the city had to be selected.

For us it meant staying overnight at Strathalbyn caravan park for $17 for an unpowered site rather than getting up early and riding 4 hours in the morning and back again later in the day. This was also a trial run for the new Esky which was placed on a partly finished shelf on the trailer drawbar. Not to forget the GoPro cam being its first major outing as well.

To get the day started we finished packing the trailer and were under way at 11am on Friday the 16th with a planned rest break/lunch 80 km later at Burra. The main road through Burra was no doubt built before Noah built the ark and I thought itmvery strange that I should be feeling excessive movement through my foot rests. After stopping in the car park I noticed this; a missing bolt on the RH side.

 

What happened? I don't know but I'm guessing I either didn't tighten the old one enough after the last tyre change or the bolt snapped (remote) but I did find something to fit at the local hardware store for the massive sum of $1.80 and luckily two of the tools from the bike's tool kit were 14 mm so I could tighten it. The finished adhoc repair meant we could continue on our way after a bite to eat.

 

 

Heather at Burra with her new Bikers-Gear riding pants http://bikersgearaustralia.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&path=64_70_84&product_id=165

 

 

Our next stop was beside the Warren reservoir about 5km out of Williamstown

 



Our messy campsite at the caravan park.

 

After we left the caravan park we had a coffee in one of the local cafes and used Heather's phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) to take this one of the bike and trailer parked in one of the streets.

The Greenman Inn at Ashbourne where we had lunch on Saturday......someone left their bikes out front to spoil they view......awfully inconsiderate these Honda ST owners.

 

So I took a close up

 

I parked ours around the back in the shade.

 

 

Hotel lawns

 

 

Nice view of the surrounding hills

 

This is all of us who attended and from left to right in the photo we have Stroppy (Terry) all the way from Canberra, 1300Panmagic (Don), Chris, Richo, Heather (WildfireAngel), Kathy, Alan (Alans1100), Pete (StinkyPete) and Les (LesPearce). Photo courtesy of Pete.

 

 

We all parted to go our own separate ways at about 2 pm with us arriving home about 7:30 pm. There was a couple of rest stops on the way home plus one stop off at the supermarket in Gawler. Manoora is about half the distance from home to the city so we stopped there before the final homeward leg.

 

Video of the beginning of our trip home

 

Before leaving Strathalbyn in the morning I refuelled at the local United servo at $1.087 a litre. The bike took just under 21 litres for 313 km or just under 15 K/L which is close to average when towing. Apart from the mishap with the bolt, all went well even though I neglected to adjust the shock absorber rebound for the added weight otherwise the bike was ok with this towing set up.