Shake Down

 

Porongurup Range.

Mother & Joey @ Porongurup.

Our 7th journey across Australia is nearly upon us, but first we needed to give the bikes a run, to check out our newly, fully serviced buddies and road test our Michelin Anakee Adventure tyres, which we hadn’t run with before.

Quite simply the ride from Fremantle to Collie (180km) wasn't far enough to settle in for a two hour brunch at Top Top Cafe. The longer second half of the ride, to Porongurup, wearied us, not helped by the belly full of Pad Thai and mango smoothies, and we were pleased to arrive at our cabin at 3:30pm.

Adventure sidecars were well represented.

The magic of Porongurup soothed our souls for a day, and then we were on the road again, taking our chances with the March long weekend traffic, on our way to the annual Maranup Ford Motorcycle Rally. This should have been a magic ride, through the curves and tall trees along the South Coast Highway but not on the Friday of a long weekend. I followed a 4WD, towing a boat, and he dipped his trailer wheels into the dirt about 25 times before I eventually got past him.

Maranup Ford Homestead.

Always a camp fire tune or two
 with Lefty's homemade
aluminium guitar.

Good company and a cold 6 pack recharged our batteries as we settled in at Maranup Ford for three nights in the tent. We took a look at The Nannup Music Festival on the Saturday, and on Sunday we managed to spend hours in the collection of antique shops in the friendly town of Balingup. I found an old copy of the sheet music for McCartney's song, “Yesterday”. Even this song, which was written solely by Paul himself, still has Lennon and McCartney on the writing credit. I don’t perform many cover songs and “Yesterday” is one of my favourites.

Nannup Music Festival
Bluegrass Jam @ the Bowling Club

Not everyday you have to give way to sheep.

We saved the best until last, and the ride from Maranup Ford back home through Boyup Brook, Darken, Boddington was riding magic. The sheep encounter nearly turned me vegetarian, I just wanted to take them all safely to a place where the fields were green and they wouldn't be frightened anymore. Even the last stint towards home, along the Albany Highway, was quiet for the last day of a long weekend.

New Moto Guzzi V85TT
and
an older BMW R75/6.

The bikes ran like clockwork for the 1,350km ride. Our new Michelin Anakee Adventure tyres were quiet and confident on the sealed roads and had good grip on the unsealed. Nothing broke, and a few things made it on to the "continuous improvement" list.

Until next time....

Homeward bound lunch stop at 
Riverside Roadhouse, Bannister.