This is the video from when I took a ride from John’s house in Tamborine to O’Reillys Rainforest Retreat in the mountains over Canungra.
Coordinates to the viewpoint: http://goo.gl/maps/zi7Kt
Coordinates to the retreat: http://goo.gl/maps/hwHk2
Going to Tamborine
It has yet again been adventure time as Felix, David and I were asked to go and visit Matthews father to help him with some work in exchange for food and shelter for a couple of days.
The journey wasn’t much more than an hour from Redcliffe and John lives just next to Mount Tamborine, which in itself made the journey worthwhile for me on the bike as the road up is the bendiest I have ever seen and the views from up there were amazing as well!
After spending a few hours helping John take down a tree with a chainsaw, pulling a dead blacksnake out of a hole, moving a pile of bricks full of spiders and other fun activities, we spent the rest of the days playing pool, guitar and otherwise chillaxing.
The day before going back to Redcliffe I was recommended to go to O’Reillys Rainforest Retreat as there are several fantastic views and beautiful tracks in the rainforest environment. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go hiking as I didn’t have anywhere to put my bike-gear, but just the road in itself made it worthwhile. A video will be uploaded shortly!
That’ll be all for now!
Spotify Song of the Day: Tom Petty – It’s Good To Be King
VLOG – Middle of nowhere
Good day again!
Just thought I’d share this VLOG made during the journey from Orange to Port Macquire and give you an update on our new status.
This morning, we left Manly and went a bit north to Redcliffe, which is (I think) also a suburb of Brisbane. Our ambition is to rent a unit in a house near by the beach. We found the ad for the place on gumtree just as we arrived in Manly and once there for an inspection, we did what we Swedes do best – We helped build stuff, and was offered a free dinner and to spend the night in the caravan joust outside the main building.
The next day, there were some more work to be done and we offered to help. In return, we are to get free accommodation in the caravan (though for an unspecified ammount of time.) Hopefully this will put us on top of the list of possible tenants!
Renting a unit, or an apartment or a house for that matter in Australia is quite different from the systems we use in Sweden. In Australia, almost all places for rent are owned by ordinary people, contrary to Sweden where bigger organisations usually have the ownership of the apartment buildings. This, I suppose can be both good and bad as the rent is not in any way regulated down here. This place for instance is 275 AUD per week (6900 SEK). It is however 70 meters from the beach and all bills are included.
That’ll be all for now!
Spotify Song of the Day: The Clash – Bankrobber
Brisbane
Good day!
We have now successfully arrived in Manly, just east of Brisbane after a couple of hours on the not so entertaining pacific highway. At least it isn’t if you’re on a motorbike.
Brisbane is famous for being the capital of Queensland, which in turn is a state famous for not applying daylight savings. This is quite weird. From what I hear it gets even worse when you travel to the Northern Territory, because in the rural areas, they haven’t really decided on what time zone is valid, so you just pick one and stick with it. I’m guessing meetings and schedules are not a big thing up there.
After spending some time on various beaches by the fantasticly hot water, we have decided that Brisbane is the place to stay, so we’re currently looking for a house or an apartment to rent and thereby possibly gaining a home away from home.
Some road information for bikers; The road from Nimbin and pretty much all the way down to the Pacific Highway is truly amazing, with thousands of curves and bends that will make you smile. It goes on for miles and miles!
Spotify Song of the Day: The Box Tops – The Letter
To the coast again
Well, this has been an interesting couple of days I must say, as a lot has happened and we have travelled far. Let’s start at the beginning;
Felix and David had decided that they wanted to leave Orange and we hadn’t been talking alot so the plan was for them to go by themselves. After a quick chat however, we decided to keep sticking together for a bit longer and that’s what we have done.
On tuesday morning therefor, we packed our bags and got going inland. For me, alone on the bike this was quite an adventure, especially since I soon realised that my carrier gave me zero reception when travelling inland.
(I am today using Lebara, which I obviously cannot recommend anyone to ever use if you are planning on going away a bit from the coast and major cities. It’s cheap and works in major cities, but that’s about it. I’m going to change to Boost prepaid, as they are using the Telstra network, with which you are supposed to have reception everywhere.)
The first day, we went from Orange, through rural Australia and many minor cities that seemed to just recently have introduced color TV, heading towards Port Macquire where we were to spend the night. The rural roads were fantastic for a motorbike with many curves and a marvellous scenery wherever you went. The landscape went from a desertlike country to green forrests, to big hills and finally to wet tropical landscape as we neared the coast.
Some time around 10PM we arrived at the vineyard and were told that we could spend the night, which was much appreciated.
We went to sleep and continued the journey the next day after a quick visit to the beach, heading up to Nimbin and Byron Bay.
Day 2 of the journey was both better and worse for two reasons. Better because I could keep my bags in the car, lightening the load on the bike, and we didn’t have to go as far. Worse because the rain was pouring down at times, making it hard to see through the visir of my helmet. This also made me fall in love with the heated grips on my handlebars. Without them, the journey would have been far more uncomfortable. The warnings I’ve gotten regarding the roads down here mostly concern that they get extremely slippery when wet. That turned out not to be a problem however, but I suppose it may depend a bit on your speed. Mine was quite slow on the wet bits, and when stopping completely I could feel the ABS kicking in a bit.
Once clear of the rain, I was expensively introduced to the laws of the road in Australia. Short story – it costs 167 AUD to overtake a vehicle on the left side and if you hold an Australian drivers license, it takes “two points of your license”, whatever that means.
Last night, we arrived at the hippiest hostel I have ever seen up in Nimbin and we’re planning to stay here for a couple of days before moving closer to the coast again.
If you’re curious about the road we travelled, you can see it here
Spotify Song of the day: Dire Straits – Telegraph Road
VLOG – Flynn Beach
Ride up Mount Canobolas
Good morning!
Finally my best ride video so far has been uploaded and is ready for your enjoyment. The ride goes from Orange Backpacker, where we are staying right now and up to the top of Mount Canobolas which is approxamately 14k’s away. Most of the road is amazingly curvy and it is hard to go over the speedlimit in the curviest bits.
If you want to do this very same ride, you can find the start and goal here. Just beware that parts of the road are gravel!
Spotify Song of the Day: Dire Straits – Sultans Of Swing
Evening Ride
Good evening!
Today has been a good day! Firstly, the rain is gone and it has been a hot and enjoyable day. We spent some woofing hours taking rubbish and scrap metal to the tip and then spent another couple of hours hunting rabbits. We will not need to go shopping for meat this weekend they way things are now, and hopefully there will be another hunting session tomorrow morning (around 5 AM)
This video is completely unedited and features an evening ride from Nashdale and inwards on the country road (unsure of the name at the moment, but leave a comment if you’re curious).
There is probably alot of wind noise, so just lower the volume and put on some groovy music and enjoy the ride.
That’ll be all for today! Good night!
Adventure Ride
Hi there guys!
Finally I have managed to upload my motorcycle videos. This one is from our stay in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, where I was suggested to take a trip to a town called Oberon. The interesting thing though is that somewhere on the way my fuel light came on and there was pretty much nothing much like civilization nearby.
Might be entertaining! Another video will be live on the site any minute!
Premiärtur
Sådär!
Då har jag äntligen tagit tillfället i akt och gett mig ut på en premiärtur med det nya körkortet. 13 grader och halvklart väder kan inte kallas annat än optimala förhållanden såhär mot slutet av oktober.
Den stora resan närmar sig nu med stormsteg och det är mindre än en månad kvar tills planet lyfter från Arlanda. Innan dess är det fortfarande några förberedelser som behöver göras, men nu när alla de tunga lyften är avklarade i och med MC-kort, försäljning av bil och det påskrivna avtalet för lägenhetsuthyrningen är klara så är det nästan lite svårt att fokusera på vad som bör göras i vilken ordning av det som är kvar.
Kvar på listan är bl.a;
- Reseförsäkring (troligen via Folksam, eftersom de täcker allt och är lagom dyra (4200kr per år))
- Internationellt körkort (250kr + foto via motormännen)
- Adressändring, så hyresgästen slipper drunkna i mina beundrarbrev
- Skriva fullmakt
- Sälja datorn
- Köpa resväskor (någon form av vattentät bag för hojen, samt mindre ryggsäck)
- Införskaffa svenska flaggor
Risken som jag känner med att ha gjort allt det “tuffa” först är att det som är kvar får så låg prioritet att det kanske inte ens blir gjort och att det därför blir väldigt stressigt ju mer jag närmar mig avresedatumet. En månad blir ganska snabbt några veckor.. Anyways, that’s it for now!
Dagens låttips på Spotify: P!nk – True Love