Down down, deeper and down

If anybody out there is still reading this, apologies. We will still keep writing for our own benefit anyway.

Apologies? The lady at the Route 66 Motel suggested we stop at 1770. We thought we had misheard. This is the Australians being subtle for once. One would have expected it to be called Cooklandedhere or something like that. Just like CheapestSpares Auto as the name of a shop, or Shipmybike the guys that are helping get the bike to LA on the next leg. Everything is just as it says it is. It would not shock us to find a website called Wewaterdownyourboozeandripyouoff.com.

                              

               

Anyway we arrived at Seventeenseventy late lunchtime and Paul pulled up in front of the first cafe he saw. In fact it was the only cafe. It had a stupendous view over the bay and lunch was excellent. So good that after we had found some accommodation for the evening we returned for a sunset drink at the bar, and then dinner. We even returned for breakfast in the morning. It was a pretty fabulous place. So apologies to all those not watching pelicans, looking over sandbanks in a turquoise blue sea with a warm sun and cloudless sky. Sorry.

                           

We then went to see one of the chums we had ridden with through China, in Rainbow Beach. 1770 was brilliant; Rainbow Beach was even better. Such beaches, perfectly clean and hardly anybody in sight. And although one felt the chill from the wind when the sun went down, it was otherwise super.

             

In the morning we were treated to a ride through the  Cooloola National Park, on an off-road track. It led to the beach that we sped up and down on. Over the legal speed limit too. And in a 1970's blingy gold beach buggy which had had the benefit of modern technology engine wise. Thank you Ron. Fabulous.

            

Brisbane next stop; it was also great fun. If only Bangkok could sort its waterfront out like they have here. After drinking looking over the river, we ate looking out over the river.

                           

 

In the morning Mr Harley managed to fit a new horn on the bike which no longer sounds like a bumble bee in a jam jar - the result of the pressure wash in Singapore. The day before the body had fallen off the horn too. We needed to keep heading down South and the biker guys suggested we head for Byron Bay the most Easterly point of Australia. So we did and watched whales out at sea, whilst eating a light lunch at the Lighthouse Cafe. There they suggested we spent the evening in Nambucca Heads.

                                              

So we did; who were we to argue? The weather was still super and we found a brilliant bed and breakfast type motel with views over the coast where the river met the sea. For the first time in Australia, breakfast was also included in the room price.
             

                               

And now the last leg to Sydney. We will be shortly be changing one Pacific Highway for another. On this one we have been heading South and on the next one we will be heading North. It has become very chilly now. We were wearing layers on the bike. It then started raining. The lady in our lunchtime cafe offered us some rubber gloves to put under our rather wet leather ones. The triumphal entry into Sydney wasn't what we planned. We were very cold with the last 300km ridden in the rain, which not only slows us down but makes us colder. So just like British summer-time really. The left lens also fell out of Paul's Aviators. His goggles had already fallen apart further up Australia, down to two pairs of eyewear now.

It's18.38 when we pull up outside Xavier's in Bondi Beach. It's nighttime and we are cold and wet. He doesn't recognise us on the street at first with us dressed in our bright yellow waterproof jackets, thinking us to be either road workers or dustbin men.

And according to Xavier we were also very smelly...

                           

Paul & Francoise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Back on the road again - Coast to Coast

So at 14.00 on the 28th, we left Darwin in a hurry to see how far we could drive that afternoon.

                           

Put it this way, the roads in the Northern Territory are not that interesting so we were not stopping for photo opportunities that often. Good quality tarmac, clear and straight roads meant we managed to cover 430km that afternoon, turning up at a caravan and cabin site in Mataranka. Night falls quickly here. We had planned to stop before dusk as that is also when the, as yet still alive, roadkill come out. A wallaby rushed across the road just as we were driving past, but no harm done. it was very pleasant in Mataranka, stunning starry sky, wallabies bounding around and a peacock sat in the tree outside our cabin.

 

Australia is huge and maps seem distorted. Petrol stations are not always that frequent - biggest spacing stretching to 240km. We had to ride in function. The main highways are single carriageway. In the Northern Territory no exaggeration in stating the roads are often featureless and dead straight. Road Trains, some 50m long, are a good distraction to the eye.The road is all there is, no pipes or cables or posts. The locals dress termite mounds to add interest. Rather intriguing. We look forward to a sign to read every now and then, even the most banal. But nonetheless the hugeness is impressive. It is also caravanning country, more so than camper vans. The caravans here are roughty toughty offroad ones clipping neatly onto the oversize 4x4 flatbeds. But they don't sell beer in pints...

                       

After the 430km of the first afternoon we maintained the pace and covered 760km the following day to Barkly Homestead (middle of nowhere), then 780km to Kynuna (just shows you how big the middle is), 790km to Emerald ( still hanging in in that middle) and finally a further 510km to reach very picturesque '1770'  on the Gold Coast. Paul was exhausted. Francoise by now had resorted to her iPod to keep awake; photo shooting was getting pretty slim. The Harley is now in its element, crossed fingers etc. no more offroad jaunts like Southern China, Northern Laos and Cambodia.

                      

After the wallabies and peacocks at Mataranka, we came across a wonderful 'mature' man in a pith helmet driving his Model T across the Outback at Barkly. He photographed us, we him. Kynuna was where the idea for Waltzing Matilda came from; something to do with a sheep shearer committing suicide. Our room was nothing more than a corrugated tin shack. The 'Route 66' Motel in Emerald looked somewhat out of place. This was after the mini Monument Valley. And finally '1770' is, we are told, the spot where Captain Cook landed; not the current, if he still is, cricket one.

                      

                      

So we have reached the Eastern Coast, having ridden 3270km in exactly four days. In other countries all life seems to happen on the road. Here they only put out their wallaby and kangaroo doormats to dry. It was of interest to see the first one, Australia specific roadkill, but then on some stretches we came across dead animals every 100m. It was real carnage and we didn't feel so 'interested'. Too much even for the birds to eat.

   

Our Coast to Coast ride meant regular stops throughout the day. The Australian diet is however pretty scary and worrying for the future waistline and health of Oz. Interesting to note that a beef schnitzel was 6$, put it in a bun and the price rose to 9$, but have salad with it and the price rose to 18$. Vegetables are expensive and not just out in the outback where everything has to be trucked in.

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Crossing the outback has certainly been an endurance test for us but one that we have strangely enjoyed and felt almost privileged to have been able to do. The rush has paid off too since we are now back on track. Hopefully the hard kilometres are also behind us. Sydney's calling...

Paul and Francoise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensitive Information

Not for everybody but lest we forget…

Our vessel was due to arrive in Darwin on the 20th August.

We, ourselves arrived very early on the 21st. We had tried to track the arrival date on the shipping company website but as they were literally in the middle of being taken over then, they did not update it.  We found the website of the new company; they had an ambiguous date of the 25th August. Ambiguous as it was not clear whether this was the date the vessel arrived in Darwin from Singapore or left Darwin for Dili in Timor.

On the 20th August, whilst in Singapore, we checked the progress of the vessel using vesselfinder.com. But the last ‘sighting’ was offshore Singapore on the14th. Had it even left?

The process at the end of the voyage is that the shipping company ships the goods to the port and that's the end of it for them. The container is then taken from the port to an unpacking site where it is unpacked. The unpackers are a separate company. And all this is done under the watchful eyes of the equivalent of Her Majesty's Customs.

Whilst we were in Bali, Xavier had been in contact with both the local branch of the shipping company and also the unpackers. He had heard, unofficially, that the vessel was due in at 22.00 on Thursday the 21st. This then slipped to 0600 on Friday the 22nd.

So on the Thursday when we arrived we did not do anything as we believed that  the vessel hadn’t arrived. All we did was pick up all the contact numbers from Xavier.

However on Friday we started. Nobody seemed to be telling us that our precious goods had arrived. By Friday afternoon we had been passed from the shipping company to the unpackers and we learned that the vessel had actually arrived, that it would be unloaded that day but nobody worked the weekend. It was suggested we ring up the Quarantine people at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries and make an appointment for them to come and inspect the bike on Tuesday afternoon. Already our timing was slipping and this was when we decided to take a weekend break to Kakadu.

Nonetheless we did as advised and rang the friendly Quarantine people. Not so friendly...This wasn't the way to do it, we couldn't make an appointment without a Quarantine Number.  We could only get one of these if we had paid the fee and the Quarantine people had all our paperwork, but we couldn't give them our paperwork directly as that had to go through Customs.

So we went to see Customs. But before going in we rang back the unpackers who said they could no longer advise us. Any queries should be directed back to the shipping company and they didn't tell us ...but their might well be some 'issues' with the Containers.

Customs were fine and they would pass our documentation on to Customs, but as it was four in the afternoon on a Friday it would be best to leave it to mid morning on Monday before giving them a ring.

Weekend jaunt looking at crocodiles.

 Monday morning we rang and booked an inspection appointment for Tuesday morning. Spirits raised. Ten minutes later they cancelled it due to problems with the Containers. Spirits dashed.

We rang the shipping company in Darwin. They told us to ring their office in Melbourne. Melbourne not interested and very anxious to know who had given us their number. Paul not very impressed on the phone. Back to Darwin people and Paul continued in his not very impressed mode.

It would seem that there had been a small glitch with the paperwork regarding the containers and because of this, Customs would not release them from the port to the unpackers. It didn't sound a big thing and should be sorted quickly.

We decided that we should be in Darwin even though it was a three and a half hour drive from Kakadu. We drove straight to the shipping office who assured us they were working on it. But it wasn't a big office, three people, and it was very, very quiet!

We ascertained that the Bills of Lading, not a spelling mistake, think of the word 'laden', said that the vessel was carrying three empty containers aboard amongst all the others with some loose goods on deck. Unfortunately this was cobblers; there was no loose or break bulk goods onboard - the goods that were said to be break bulk were actually in the three empty containers. Customs had said that the BoL didn't correspond to what had arrived at port, so where were the break bulk goods? The shipping company replied that they were in the three containers deemed empty. Stalemate.

The motor bike was part of this mess.

Paul suggested that they just opened the containers to see what was in them. He was also a bit anxious about whether the bike was actually in Australia. For some reason this was not possible and it would be far easier if the paperwork was just corrected. But that was what they had said had lunchtime... Starting to feel time drifting away.

The shipping company said that it would be sorted out very quickly. Their Melbourne office would be correcting the paperwork and although they had already gone home for the day, they would be there half and hour earlier in the morning due to the time difference.

Just what sort of place has thirty minutes time difference, honestly you either don't bother or go for the full hour, but not Darwin!

Anyway they agreed that they would give us an update at nine in the morning. At nine in the morning nothing new had happened but the shipping company had passed it upstairs to put pressure on Melbourne. We agreed for an eleven o'clock update. We actually went to their office and told them we would be staying there till the issues were sorted. At eleven there was nothing new to report. Paul was getting irritated. They offered us a placatory lunch which we refused. "What I want is my bike."

Paul then suggested he would ring Melbourne. He was told it was a Singapore issue now, so he rang Singapore only to find they were doing nothing about it. Paul now started getting upset with the Darwin people. They rang Singapore and agreed it would be sorted in twenty minutes. After three hours Paul was more uptight and rang Singapore who said they had passed it to Kuala Lumpur as...well we never really found out as Paul got very upset indeed and didn't really need the telephone connection.

By close of play Tuesday Paul was running the office, Singapore had simultaneously submitted revised draft paperwork to Kuala Lumpur so they could formalise it and also to Melbourne so they could deal with the Customs using their extra matinal half hour.

Return rendez-vous fixed for nine, Wednesday morning. By ten on Wednesday all was well. The unpackers had sent a lorry to move the Containers and we had an appointment with Quarantine and Customs for 13.00. Then we didn't. But it only slipped to 15.00.

 

We moved to the unpackers yard at the duly allotted time and witnessed the opening of one of the empty containers to see the bike there! In Australia!

                           

Customs were not that interested in the bike and stamped the carnet straight away. But then the Environmental Protection Officer from Quarantine started. She checked the velcro straps for non-velcro bodies. She meticulously checked all the bits and pieces we had left on the bike. She looked inside the empty top-box to find four grass seeds, the type you play Tennis on at Wimbledon, not the other stuff. We had to remove them with some Sellotape. Then she looked at the fusebox behind the side-panel; it was a bit dusty because the cleaner hadn't cleaned it. And then there was a wire underneath the engine which had a ribbed protective sleeve over it and there was some dirt in the ribs.

                            

We were quite happy that this was it. But she wasn't. She rejected the bike. We thought that there would be a "but once you have cleaned these bits you can go addendum", but there wasn't! Second appointment booked for Thursday at 0830. Paul further cleans bike with a toothbrush (honestly!) late Wednesday afternoon in unpacking shed.

Thursday morning a different EPO turns up for inspection and starts all over again. She too finds some dust on underside of engine but says OK. Relief.

However although she signs it off we still can't leave because there is still a problem with Customs paperwork on the Container, which means that no goods in the container can be released. However this was only a thirty minute problem and by 1030 Thursday morning, over a week after we had arrived, we were allowed to ride the bike.

Onwards to the Motor Vehicle Registration department, where we had to queue up for ninety minutes under the (very hot) sun to have a mini-MOT. And the horn didn't work because it had suffered under the pressure wash in Singapore and sounded like a bumble bee in a jam jar. However the official limited his comments to it being better if we get it fixed, which meant that we could move onto the last step of buying Australian 3rd Party Insurance.

By 13.00 we were finished and could load the bike and take the hire car back. At14.00 we were at last truly on the Australian road and our tribulations were history. Sense of achievement.

                             

Apologies for the not yet cathartic dirge.

Paul and Francoise

 

 

 

 

 

Reunited?

 

 

Our last full day of riding was Monday the 4th August when we rode down in a rush from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru, to start the entry shenanigans for Singapore.

In between time we have actually ridden 50km in Singapore, taken a week off in Bali, returned to Singapore and then flown to Darwin, where the bike was due to arrive on the 20th August so we could resume our trip.

Plans...
                        

During our return stopover in Singapore we enjoyed an expensive Martini on a ship perched on some hotel towers. What's all this about global warming and rising sea level? We flew overnight on what must be one of the worst ever cheap flights amongst a colourful crowd (many different colours of ink over large parts of the body shown off by the wearing of baggy singlets: that went for the men too) arriving at just after 0600 on the 21st, having been delayed on take-off due to a faulty air conditioning system. Darwin is thoughtful. Never before had we seen neat little boxes on the walls of toilets for used syringes.

We headed to the beach straight away. Isn't that what you do in the tropics! OK it was a bit early in the morning, but we had nothing else to do and needed to waste a fair bit of time before our room was available at 1400. Not many people on the beach at that time of the morning and even fewer in the water, yet it was lovely. On leaving we saw the notice about 'no swimming' due to the deadly box jelly fish. "Take vinegar with you and rush to hospital"

As you know we found Singapore expensive and not just the ship shape Martinis. Australia, or Darwin is a further notch up the scale. We have tried to stay in our budget and ended up in backpackers hostels. Umhh. Breakfast and wi-fi extra and key deposits and you don't get clean towels every day but instead we get free loud, repetitive music from the roof top above. And this for significantly more than in central Bangkok where we had everything.

Malaysia to Singapore was difficult, but writing about it helped. It's going to take a few weeks before we can write about getting going in Darwin. All that we can say is that the vessel, don't call them boats or ships, hadn't arrived when we got there. There were some difficulties with the paperwork too.  It took until the 27th for the shipping company to be sure that the bike was actually in Australia, but this didn't mean being allowed to ride it. It's just not like sending a parcel via the Post Office, even though there is plenty of space on the bike to stick a big stamp on.

In mathematics you have the double negative making a positive. In this particular aspect of' life the negatives did not cancel themselves out and it all just got worse. So we have started to formulate our own equation that one day might be up there with Einstein's:

Anality + Incompetence + jobsworth + burocracy + time zone difference + internal company politics + lack of leadership and a clear responsibility chain + cultural differences + lack of awareness + inability to judge consequences of actions = one very big mess waiting to happen.

Company takeovers don't seem to have helped either.

 

It became pretty clear that we would not have the bike for the weekend and the prospects of spending it in Darwin at our 'abode' were not joyous. It is quite possible that Darwin is smaller population wise than Darwen. So we took the weekend off after saying Hello to the Customs people, the Quarantine people, the unpacking agents and the vehicle conformity and registration people. All these wonderful people unable to help us until customs clearance had been given to move the container 1.5km from the wharf to the unpacking and inspection area.

                                     

                                     

                                     



So we drove our hired car to Kakadu National Park and saw some gigantic termites mounds, amazing looking birds, crocodiles by the dozen and Aboriginal rock art amongst other things; a well needed escape.

                                                 

                                  

We then returned to the fray and spent three and a half days extracting the bike. We spent a lot of time in Darwin, but in the end didn't see that much of the little there is to see. The Harley was beckoning.

  

            

                      

To try and keep on schedule we have an awful lot of riding to do in a very short time and we will see little of Australia apart from Darwin, Sydney and the 'road'. A road race once again...

 

 

We prepared this on Wednesday night, the day before Francoise's birthday. We were actually reunited proper, i.e. we could turn the ignition key on Thursday lunchtime. We are now in the outback where it seems that wireless, wired, telex or post has not yet penetrated and the pigeons have been eaten by the hawks.

More later...

 

 

Paul and Françoise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bikeless in Bali

  

Or, to be more exact, "Honey, I shrunk the Harley...

             

We escaped to everybody's dream destination, Bali, to spend the time whilst the bike would be in transit from Singapore to Darwin. Originally we had plans to move about through Indonesia, but it's a pretty big place and we decided we had done quite a bit of moving around already. So we settled on Bali, not on the coast but slightly inland in Ubud which was a nice, relaxing place. Some of the underwhelming Julia Roberts film, 'Eat, Pray, Love" was shot there. So underwhelming we can't remember what it was about.

                             

Bali airport was pretty ghastly. Two hours of queues to buy $35 (each) visas and then get them stamped. And then traffic from the airport which meant that you couldn't move at more than 20km/h on the roads. It seemed that an awful lot of people had had the same idea, and this was a Tuesday?

The fairly randomly chosen hotel turned out to be a Balinese villa with views over rice fields. We decided almost immediately to extend our stay, even if it meant changing rooms as we had had a last minute villa vacancy on the cheap.

                           

We walked around Ubud the best we could on our first day. This relaxing, therapeutic, artistic heartland of the dream that we believed Bali to be... Well they need to sort out their traffic and pavements; building a pedestrian area might not be a bad idea. Luckily our resort was just outside of Ubud itself and we felt very relaxed there.

And so we hired the Harley replacement with ill-fitting helmets and no gloves. Paul's was a Bob the Builder helmet, ages 3 to 5 years, painted black. The bike might have been a 125cc, it might just have been driven by rubber bands. Or Absolut vodka? It had no problems turning right and you could never be in the wrong gear. It was also small enough to do pavements and not get stuck in too many traffic jams.

 

We thought Bali was a small island. It's actually about 100 miles by 60 miles scaling off the map the hotel gave us. We explored at least half of this. Cramps and sore bumitis.

We thought Bali was a beach destination. There are hardly any beaches at all as the surf comes pounding in or they (or at least some of them) are strewn with litter. They are also all black sand which psychologically seemed to be difficult, especially with white towels.

                

We thought Bali was hot and sunny. Well it hasn't been cold but all days have had more dark cloud than sun and Francoise has managed to catch a cold here.

So what were all those people at the airport coming to do? Well we reckon about 90% sit around at the sea watching less than 5% of them surf. The other 5% are either young couples about to pop the question, (Sorry sir, we don't have any champagne at the hotel but you could try our local Balinese white wine? p.s. if you want to go local, the local coffee is better than the wine), honeymooners, yoga addicts, couples possible acting out boss and secretary fantasies or people like us, bemused.

We have visited, or got lost, in quite out of the way parts of Bali. We have seen loads of rice fields, most of them very picturesque. We have seen  a recently active volcano and driven round its crater rim. We have visited Echo Beach, cue for a song. We have visited temples in the sea. We failed to get to the tourist hot spots of Seminyak, Kuta and Legion because of the traffic and didn't even attempt to get to the ones on the peninsular south of the airport. So we missed seeing the youth of Oz crashing their scooters after a few Bintangs.

                                  

               

We also noted the similarity between the flags of Singapore and Indonesia. It seemed that whereas Singapore celebrated its 49th birthday whilst we were there, Indonesia held off a week until we arrived to celebrate is 69th anniversary, though it's hard to see any vestiges whatsoever of its Dutch colonial past.

Paul has always wanted a tattoo. Nothing too audacious and there have been a few scribblings left around about the design. Not any more! It's Tattoo town here and not like Edinburgh, well actually it might well be like some parts of Edinburgh.

                                        

It has been a very pleasant stay and we have caught up on the relaxing. In hindsight staying inland just outside Ubud was the perfect choice for us. Beautiful resort and very friendly staff. Tomorrow we fly back to Singapore en-route for Darwin. Anybody seen a 2009 black Harley-Davison Electraglide?

                   

                   

Paul & Francoise