The mountains and the sea in South East Australia. – part – 1 The Mountains

The south east corner of Australia is the cold place

The snow place

The icy Southern Ocean place

It’s been my place for many years.

There is an arc of mountains that follows the curve of the land almost parallel with the coast.

Th.e Australian Alps

The sandy yellow coastline

The deep Southern Ocean

All in a sweeping curve of nature.

At the top of the Australian Alps is the Kosciuszko National Park

The Park is one of my favourite places

To ride

To walk

To bath in the icy streams

Or thermal pools

My favourite camp spots are out on the Long Plain

Ghost Gully is my favourite camp site as it’s surrounded by the beautiful Ghost Gums.

The Aboriginal people say if you listen closely, when there is a breeze you can her the whispers of the ancestors.

It’s a place where I have rarely failed to meet an interesting character.

Louis is 79 and Ace his Palamino a big 15 hands tall.

Louis finds the big 16 and 17 hand horses a bit of a stretch now. So Ace is his companion.

Louis is a horse whisperer and been breaking and training horses since he was 15.

He attracted this mob of wild horses over to the camp.

He was getting the wild horses comfortable with him with the aim of capturing the foal, a young colt, to break and find a home for.

The horses are feral in the Alps and are displacing many native animals. It’s a contentious issue between horse lovers and those wanting to preserve Australia’s unique fauna.

Although it was autumn the wild flowers provided colour.

Toward the end of the Long Plain is Blue Water Holes, a series of high gorges and mountain streams.

At over 1200 metres altitude let me assure you the waterholes offer a bracing dip.

A far more comfortable swim can be found on the other side of the Snowy Mountain Highway at the Yarrangobilly thermal pool.

A beautiful 24c natural thermal pool and spa in the middle of the bush.

Down from the high altitudes in the low swampy plains the bush is thicker and kangaroos and other native animals abound.

From Kosciuszko National Park the Alps run West. Mt Donna Buang in the Yarra Ranges on the eastern edge of Melbourne is the last peak in the Alps.

It doesn’t get much snow these days. Unlike most of the other mountains it has not been burnt by bushfire and has beautiful tiers of rainforest topped by snow gums.

The pinkish trunks of the snow gums are both unique and beautiful.

And in the valley below are waterfalls and swimming holes in the mountain rivers.

Some of my most memorable times in nature have been in these mountains.

The Pacific Ocean Beaches of Northern NSW

The ocean beaches of Northern NSW are the most beautiful I have seen.

The broad sweep of sand

The rolling blue ocean

Town beaches like Byron Bay (above) and Yamba (below)

The beautiful lighthouses on the capes

Sentinels for the sailors as sea.

But its the quiet,

The wild

The largely deserted

The hard to get to beaches on the coast that I love

Beaches like…

Ah you have to search for your own tranquillity!!!!

Where the surf pounds in

And the you can stand alone on the sandy beaches.

With a sea eagle circling overhead as a companion.

Set up the little tent

And at night be bedazzled by the Milky Way.

But the Pacific isn’t always peaceful

It doesn’t always contain its power

The a big swell expoding against the south wall at Coff Harbour a testament to the power of the sea.

It was beautiful spending the last of a mild Autumn on the NSW North Coast.

But the southern hemisphere winter is here and the temperatures are falling.

I’m sitting with my friend in South East Queensland

Tomorrow its time to head back north to the tropics.

Towards the start of the Savannah Way and the ride across the tropical North of Australia.

May 26 2021 -Southern Hemisphere Luna Eclipse – the start of a new adventure.

The total eclipse is the big daddy of Luna shows

The stadium superconcert

All the wow factor

At Cape Byron, the Eastern most point of Australia

Sunset played the support act

Warming up the crowd

Luna finally emerged staying a little coy

Using the Cape Byron Lighthouse to tease the audience

Peaking cheekily around the stone edifice

Soon, though, the show warmed up Luna out on full show casting beams of gold and silver across the sea.

Dancing with her band the clouds

Then in the second set the magic started

The amazing disappearing act

The giant white orb shrinking away to a tiny orange sliver

To the eye no bigger than a star

Only to re emerge in a new red costume

With an edge of silver bling

What a show

The wind was cold on the Cape so I missed the final act of return to silver.

I sailed the coasts before the days of GPS

The light of the moon and the coded flashes of lighthouse welcome companions

Like a brother and sister guiding the night sailor.

But now I’m not on a yacht but on the Steinbock again, my BMW adventure bike

I’m on the Eastern most point of Australia, heading north then West and later this year will be at the continents Western Point

Traversing the Savannah Way right across topical Australia

Thanks Luna for your blessings and for a great show to start the new adventure.

Time to test and set up the new bike – 2

A mob of sheep being hearded along the road side to confirm you are in rural Austratralia

That you are in the mid west of NSW

I waited till it was clear to skirt around the outside of the mob and the sheep dogs and farmer skilfully hearded the sheep into the selected paddock

You also know you are in mid west NSW when you set up tent in the back of the Premer Hotel and enjoy the hospitality and a few Schooners of Old.

But the purpose of the trip north was not to enjoy the mustering of sheep or the taste of a Tooheys old but to test the Steinbock’s comfort for long touring and to test its ability on some of my favourite riding roads. Also to test it on trails I had been reluctant on which to ride the mighty breva.

The Steinbock handled the beautiful roads of the Coffs Coast area of NSW with aplomb taking the beautiful Waterfall Way and its surrounding roads in its stride. AA full tick of approval indeed

But the real test was the Armidale to Kempsey back road that included 127 km of varying road surfaces through national parks and beautiful farming land. (see map above)

What a ride! I also became very aware of how tiring riding on trails iy is compares to road riding.

In the highlands south west of Kempsey are the beautiful Ellenborough Falls. The longest single drop falls in NSW

From to falls east there is there is the Flying Fox Refuge in Wingham on the Manning River

Not far from the coast and its beautiful beaches

The Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac is emblematic of the biker culture in this part Australia

And a travelling piecemeal adventurer can find like souls – lovers of bikes and boats

The test was complete and the ride back to Melbourne was direct and purposeful

As I write Melbourne and Victoria are in a circuit breaking lockdown.

Hopefully, these actions curtail the current outbreak of Covid 19 and I will soon be on my adventure to Central Australia via the Oodnadatta Track.

Stay tuned for updates!

Time to test and set up the new bike

I’ve christened the new bike The Steinbock

The name of a Bavarian Ibex

Im sure you can see the resemblance!

So the best place to test the Steinbock is in the trails of the mountains

Close to home on the trails of Otway ranges of Victoria

Where just of the Mount Sabine Trail is the beautiful Lake Elisabeth

But the real test for the Steinbock was on the high planes of the Mount Kosciusko National Park

Amongst the kangaroos and the wild horses

I was so glad to see that my favourite high country camp ground had been spared the 2019 bushfires

The Ghost Gully campsite is named by the stands of beautiful Ghost Gums that ring the campground

A couple of families with their horses were also sharing the campsite and we soon got to talking and sharing a cup of tea around the camp fire

Bushfires are such fickle things

While the Ghost Gully campground and the rest of the Long Plane were untouched by the fires

Just across the Snowy Mountains Highway the Yarrangobilly Caves reserve was badly burnt

But it was heartening to see the forest regeneration down at the thermal pool

And the caves totally spectacular

I was starting to feel the power and agility of the Steinbock both on the tarmac and on the loose and gravelly roads.

It’s a bike that asks to be ridden so I couldn’t stop here.

but that is for the next post!