JUMPIN THE RAILS...
WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS AGAIN?
Singing Along To...Drift Away... Dobie Gray
Singing Along To...Drift Away... Dobie Gray
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| ...Bike's gone...gear's gone...money's gone...brain's fried... ...neighbours are nervous! |
It's mid April , I've got a ticket to Montreal on August 5th and another home from Santiago in early December...threeish months to join the dots and organise a
four month 30,000k road trip...and maybe learn some Spanish...
...hmm just having some dots would be good...
four month 30,000k road trip...and maybe learn some Spanish...
...hmm just having some dots would be good...
I've always left things late. At 57 there's still no learning curve happening here. There must be a 'late gene' in my DNA. No matter when I start, life conspires to make me late. So I might as well start late. Hmm three months...that'd be a bit over two thousand hours, sounds heaps. Around eight hundred hours at work and the rest is mine. There's eight hundred hours of sleep I can tap into as well instead of wasting it lying around. No worries if all goes well...might learn Spanish at the same time, oh and work, and family stuff, hmm...sorted...
...dream on!
The Door
I've been full of bravado
believin my own bullshit
ticking my boxes for everyone to see
but my shoulder's gainst a door
of ironclad anxieties
ready...waiting
to nobble whoever I may be
(Ocd sufferers just nod and go Aha)
Dean
How I bought the right bike that was the wrong bike and may still be the right bike!
So I need a bike. The fact that I have a perfectly good DR650 that I used on my last trip that I know and love would be too easy. Oh no let's not let commonsense or logic get involved here. Hmm yep might get something else...something cheap and cheerful, something easy....
Ta Da...Its a KLR650 Kawasaki!
It's cheap, allegedly cheerful, reliable, seen all over the world and cheap...did I mention cheap. As usual when life conspires to bite me on the ass one instantly appears for sale nearby too good to miss. Low K's, belongs to a customer who's a nice guy, good price, let's go. Yep I'll have it, yeh nah don't need to check it out I trust ya cheers. Hmm Deano...you're never gonna learn...maybe next time have a bit of a look first before handing over the money... you know, ask a couple of questions...walk around it...er maybe start it.
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| Trying the newly arrived dented panniers. Cheers Ozzie post, won't have to dent them myself now! |
So what's up Deano
Weeell after owning sixty or seventy bikes in my time, I've not had one that came with and attracted so many confounding problems. Stripped bolts, dodgy wiring, pinched carb diaphragm blah blah blah. Anything bought for it either didn't fit or arrived dented. So, like some kind of mechanical goldfish the rebuild grew to fit the available time, and more.
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| Journey to the centre of new and confounding problems. |
So anything good?
Well yes actually.
Well yes actually.
Every time I got the !@#$rel going it was good to ride. I liked it. Much better over distance than the DR as planned. The rebuilt suspension (thanks Rob) works a treat, the fairing keeps me warm and a serious paint and polish regime means it looks like new. Er which was probably a waste of time but if you have OCD then you might as well put it to good use!
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| Twas the night before shipping and all through the shed
The KLRs owner was over it and losing his head
The motor and suspension had been fettled with care
In the hope St Reliability would soon be there!
Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore |
How I got to be early...
...how unusual!
Around the time I hoped to start the trip in Alaska I decided to fly the bike instead of shipping it. Although initially more expensive the time and money saved from avoiding all the shipping and port palaver narrows the gap considerably. It also means I have more choices where I can start my trip saving more money. Around mid May my shipper, Ivan from Bikes Abroad, emailed and asked if the bike could be delivered mid June to Melbourne for crating before flying.
Hmm seems pretty early but I'm a bloke
and don't ask too many questions...
Wow a month to get this thing ship shape. I dig into the available time vault, spend a month after hours in the shed and beat the recalcitrant KLR into submission...or maybe the recalcitrant KLR beat me into submission...hmm
Is it finished?
Weeell it runs and it has a place for me to sit...we'll see.
And then
A week after delivery to Melbourne Ivan sends me an email with an invoice for the big bill and proudly lets me know the bike will be delivered to the airport in a couple of days. Erm hang on...that would make it July fifth...I'm going on August fifth
Aaaargh ! W@#$T%^$%F!@# (Flaming Heck)
Yep a combination of Ivan not reading my emails properly and me manning up and not asking questions almost sees the KLR in Canada a month early...woah close one.
Being optimistically optimistic
Well, now it's gone it's out of my face and as I've yet to bond with it that feels good. More time to sort socks and jocks and a zillion other things like sleep, so erm, all good yeh. |
| Bed time the night before shipping to Melbourne. Check out the Bunnings safety tape and ebay kangaroo stickers. It runs, has a place to sit and stickers, let's go! |
Sadly on that last stressful weekend before the bike left a much loved family
member of thirteen years, Bonny, our yard boss/head of security/excavation
consultant/bath dodger/shed foreman Tenterfield Terrier passed
away in her sleep. Fittingly she cleaned up the pizza crusts after dinner
before taking her final snooze.
Fair innings and well played Bon.
R.I.P.
Bonnie
Her kennel door is empty
Her basket empty and cold
She wont be waiting when I get home
wagging absolution to a stressed out soul
The giant character, in the tiny mutt suit
has cashed in her bones, 'n left lifes fold
Dean
Hablas Espanol? No, me neither!
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| It's 9.30pm and Spanish teacher Ana explains "bicho raro" means weirdo or strange person in Spanish... |
Hablas Espanol...Do you speak Spanish.
The clock hand dips below 9.30 and starts the uphill drag to 9.45. My body is asleep but my brain is screaming 'enough' in English. I'm sitting in a class of cleverer people, doctors, managers, professionals, uni kids, and I'm crazily scribbling down every word our lovely Spanish teacher Ana throws at us. Unfortunately I've found my brain lacks any kind of foreign language absorption so my only resort is to adopt a crazy form of left handed shorthand...which I can't decipher later. Hmm, there's a pattern here. Ten weeks "Spanish for Fun and Travel" at the WEA, 7.45 till 9.45 every Monday. Bus home 20k from work, throw down dinner, drive 20k back, concentrate like crazy for two hours, drive home, then completely forget everything for a week.
Shit it's Monday again!
Cram on the bus and during lunch, aaargh homework, and yarda yarda for ten weeks...and I loved it. I've retained very little but the ability to listen like crazy for key words to try and eek out what the hell the speaker might be saying...oh and an exercise book of crazy notes. I've almost convinced myself that because the course fell on the same period I was freaking out over getting the bike ready I just wasn't giving it my best. Or maybe I'm not clever. No matter. Fire up the W.E.A. website for next year...hmm cop this
"Cooking For Beginners"
One session only. Four hours, no homework, and my greatest weakness conquered!
See you there next year.
Salud!
The dreamer rides off
with the heart his side kick
Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est...Knowledge Itself is Power
Sir Francis Bacon (Thanks Wiki)
Late at night, every time the plan derails, in quiet moments when truth and common sense butt in, the sheer vulnerability of being alone on a motorbike so far from home has me questioning myself. I keep it to myself. I tell myself this is my natural survival mode kicking in. Aaah but bloody pessimism keeps grinding deep depressing scars into my shield of optimism. I have to put these scars to use. They are shards of knowledge, be they negative, that may protect me down the track buuut... my brain inspects and disassembles each one, late at night, on the bus, in the shower, over and over and over...blah blah blah.
Hmmm...
...the joy of this type of travel is the lack of knowledge of what's around the corner...
....old Sir Francis Bacon would not be impressed
The passage below is from the second blog from my first trip.
It's where I am.
The Step
Imagine if you built your own bungee jump.
You always wanted to.
You even mix up the rubber for the rubber band from instructions on the web.
You found the tallest stupidist cliff
from pictures on google maps.
from pictures on google maps.
You set a date...
it suddenly comes around...
you hook up your ankles...
and step over...
it takes three months of fun free falling before bottoming out...
...and then you really find out how good
that rubber band mix is
"GULP"
Dean
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