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The Adventure
On a ride late year John asked a question which didn’t require too much thought… “Want to ride down to Bright, Victoria to watch the Adventure Short Film Festival 15-17th Feb”….. nanoseconds later it was “YES”…. The planning begun…so where is Bright?…… An adventure ride to watch adventure films… you couldn’t get a better scenario.The Route
Thursday Night – Trailer the bikes out to Canberra after work
Friday – Leave 8:00am and head to Cotter Dam and straight into Uriarra State Forest, Brindabella’s, Kosciuszko National Park over the Great Dividing Range, Kiandra, Cabramurra, Corryong for lunch, Dartmouth, Mitta Mitta (Fuel), Mount Beauty to Bright.
Saturday – Enjoyed the Festival
Sunday – Enjoy the Festival till 11:30am then Mount Beauty, Falls Creek, Alpine National Park to Benambra, back over the Great Dividing Range via Limestone Rd, The Barry Way into Jindabyne.
Monday – Left Jindabyne at 8:00am for Cooma, Wathonga, Namadgi National Park and back into Canberra by 12:00. Trailered the bikes home to SydneyWilling Participants
John – instigator, paper map reader and sweeper
SMick400 (Mick) – navigator and photographer
Martin – John meet Martin at last year’s Festival. Martin is an experienced international adventure rider who travelled through Russia on his trusty KLR.
KatGirl – always willing to go anywhere any time with good mates.Friday’s experience – Canberra to Bright
Leaving the McDonalds at 8:00am
Entering at Cotter Dam… perfect roads…. Perfect view
First river crossing – Martin hit this with a bit of speed!!!. He was wet from head to toe…. Made me belly laugh….
John’s go…
Dodging some stones….
SMick400 GPS had us going up this ‘dodgy’ track that was consisted of red slippery clay…. Was a great opportunity to lift the heart rate… this photo doesn’t show the complex section but you get the picture of the surface. Can’t remember the track name but I’m sure SMick400 will fill you in.
Time to cross another water hole…. This one nailed Martin nicely…. and thanks to SMick400 it was captured beautifully on camera..
Then it was some nice open flowing tracks.. Martin then John.
Nice to see this sign to confirm we were on the right track…
John having a break at the Long Plane sign.
KatGirl loving the open flowing tracks …… thank god there wasn’t any speed limits!!
You could tell very quickly we were in the Alpine region with the trees
We stopped in at Corryong at 1.30pm for a late lunch
After a quick 30min break we were back on the trail and loved seeing the red dirt that reminded me of past trips
John was sweeping and trying not to eat the dust
The afternoon was a navigational challenge…. Paper maps came out but the guy’s worked well together to determine the route.
We got to civilisation Dartmouth by 5pm to try and find fuel as Martin was on reserve. After discussions with the locals they kindly rang Mitta Mitta petrol station (15km up the road) and asked them to expect 4 bikes needing fuel. The lady stayed open and waited for us to arrive…. How good are the country folk
By this stage it was 5.30pm and we still had 80km to Bright via what we thought on the GPS was tar….. that changed quickly about 15kms up the road
Ummm… lets consult the GPS and paper maps….
The ride out had some steep down hills that was covered in lots of stones that made for a slippery experience. I was lucky on one corner when I went off road, over a large mound…. Down the overside without going arse over tit and gracefully (not) getting back on track.
The last section of 30km was a tar ride into Bright.
The XR400 was sitting on the arse of the KTM625 as we went into each corner and made for an enjoyable end to the day’s ride.
We made it into Bright at 7.45pm (after 12hrs on the bike). I was happy girl and ready for a few drinks to wash down the day’s experience
The drinks kept flowing till dark whilst we relived the day’s adventures.
Martin’s mate Jeff joined us for drinks and enjoyed hearing about our riding experience.
We left the pub at 8:30 and headed to our accommodation. Poor John and Martin went to put up their tents….. SMick400 and I had the luxury of a nice self-contained unit not far from town where a hot shower and comfortable bed was waiting.
I decided to hit the sack early as I was sleep deprived from a chaotic working week but the boys went to a film that was hosted at the pub and somehow stayed up till 11pm.
Saturday’s experience –BrightSaturday was spent watching films:
1. Colin Hood’s cycling the Karakorum Highway in very hot conditions.
2. Simon and List Thomas – 2RideTheWorld who have ridden 425 000km around the world for 10 years.
3. Tim Cope a Victorian who shared his story of riding horses from Mongolia to Hungary over a period of 3 years experiencing the cultures of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Hungary
4. Austin Vince’s Roadside USA who filmed their experience of hitching hiking around USA
5. The most amazing film was – Twice Upon a Caravan which was a terrific solo motorcycle adventure by New Yorker and architecture student Robert Fulton Jnr in 1932. He had just finished a year’s post-grad study in London. He scrounged a Douglas motorcycle and set off overland, destination Japan, where he finally did get the boat back to Uncle Sam’s shores. All captured in black and white film this journey is legitimately impressive considering the dirt roads he traversed.
At the headquarters of the festival with Martin, Jeff, KatGirl, John and SMick400 (left to right)
Simon and Lisa’s 2RidetheWorld BMW – 10years on the road
Caught up with Brendan from Triumph Melbourne who I met on the APC Rally …. He was trying to convince this chic that the bike is perfect for her…
It was on this day we got to meet some amazing people who were also drawn to this experience. Jeff McLean happened to joined us and shared his experience of riding a tandem recumbent with a mate for 7 weeks through Africa. We hope to see his experience in film at next year’s festival. Also got to meet this mad chic Michele and boyfriend Callum who use to race Rally cars in the bush (and did her own car mechanics) then sold her car for a plane (as you do)…. She introduced herself when she saw my XR400…. Well…. We are now hooked up and hope to ride together in Tassie sometime soon.
That night with Brendan, Michele, Callum, Jeff, Martin and John we hit the pub and up dancing till 1am…Sunday’s experience –Bright to Jindabyne
Allot hung over so after a big breakfast we attended Austin Vince 90min workshop on how to make an adventure film. We found this very useful and can’t wait to put some of the learning’s into action.
At 11:30 John, SMick400 and I set of towards Jindabyne.
It was time to get on our bikes and head off
We road to Falls Creek
We stopped next to the Snowy River to consult the map
We found some dirt roads on our way to Benambra where we fuelled up.
On Limestone Road…… a must for anyone who likes going slow to enjoy the view
John was enjoying the view so much we went slightly off course and nearly hit the wall.
We had stopped at a lookout and came across two Canadian’s who were travelling around Australia for 3 months. The guy could hear us coming from far away and being a XR650 man could hear another XR calling him so they waited to meet us….
We continued along The Barry Way
Then arrived into Jindabyne at 5.30pm
After refuelling John decided to push onto Canberra via the tar so he would get away early the next day so he could spend some time with his family. SMick400 and I decided to stay at the pub overnight and enjoyed a few rums and dinnerMonday’s experience –Jindabyne to Canberra….then home
Slow start his morning leaving Jindabyne
Straight to Cooma then out to Shannons Flat
Found some amazing granite boulders
Then into Namadgi National Park
Stopped in to Brayshaw’s hut
You can see how they tried to stay warm in the winter by insulting the walls and window frames
Even had the killer fireplace
And at some stage they must have had electricity out here
Then it was a nice ride out of the park
We got back to the car at 12:00 and after packing up the car/trailer we headed back to Sydney …and back into reality.
This trip wasn’t about the ride we had……….. It wasn’t so much about the films we saw…… it was about the people we were blessed to meet and the experience and lessons about life that we learnt.
One of the sayings I heard on the weekend….. “if you have to rush…… rush slowly”…
We will be there again next year with new and old friends.
Great report Kat, looks like a top ride I have been meaning to do a summer ride down that way ….. the scenery looks amazing. I think I am going to make a point of not reading anymore of your adventure ride reports or else I can already see myself wanting an adventure bike to go in the stable :whistle:
Side note: I have been thinking about trading the BMW for a more “adventure style” bike ….Could you have done that ride on your BMW? …… would love to have a chat with you about it and get some advice ….. maybe next ride we catch up on
Epic Kat epic anything else said would ruin it.
Congrats to you and Mick wow!!!
TB
Rach wrote:Side note: I have been thinking about trading the BMW for a more “adventure style” bike ….Could you have done that ride on your BMW? …… would love to have a chat with you about it and get some advice ….. maybe next ride we catch up onHi Rach… we plotted this track on the GPS not knowing what the road conditions were like. After riding it you could do it on a BMW providing its set up for off road. There was only one section that I would not like to be on a heavy bike when we went up a slippery clay hill that seem to go for ever. The KLR went down and took some help to get it back up and going again.
Hope this answers your question… it’s all up to what type of adv riding vrs tar riding you want out of your bike.
Hope this helps.
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