Three times Kyogle and we're going bananas

After a few days, we set off for a 3 day ride into northern New South Wales, but things turned out a bit differently to what we had planned.

We headed off south west and rode via Beenleigh to Beaudesert which is 70 km from home. At 9.00 a.m. Gert was in need of his daily early morning coffee fix. There is an excellent coffee shop/ bakery as you come into Beaudesert, opposite the war memorial - a meat pie and a coffee would be welcome for me as well.

After a short break we continued to the tiny town of Rathdowney 32 km away. The Rathdowney district has about 400 inhabitants, the town itself about 75 souls. You guessed it - the second coffee stop. Never mind, from here on there wouldn’t be too many opportunities to have another one. From Rathdowney the road runs south and changes into "The Lyons Road" or “Motorcycle Paradise Highway”. The Lyons road used to be a dirt road but is now a bitumen affair and is maintained by the Lyons Club. The scenery is stunning, especially when you cross the many creeks and then ride up to the higher level of the escarpment which is engulfed in dense rainforest.

We stopped at a spot where Gert wanted to take some pictures. But …"Where is my camera? I think I have lost my camera!” I heard over the intercom. We turned around and rode the 20 km slowly back to Rathdowney, Gert looking on the left and I on the right hand side of the road. We ended up back at the coffee shop.

On entering the shop the lady behind the counter looked at us and said "I think you are looking for your camera." The camera had dropped onto the road just outside the shop, someone had found it and had handed it to the shop owner. Great! With a big grin on Gert’s face, we left the curb and started our journey again returning to the same road and made a first stop at an interesting site - the aforementioned escarpment.

Near the top of the escarpment we parked at a lookout with a view over “The Loop”.

Because of the difference in height, the railway engineers who planned the nearby train track made the line to form a loop on itself instead of having to slope the track through many tunnels. This means if you are there at the right time you can see a long train doing a full 360 degree turn or more over itself like a snake. No such luck when we arrived, unfortunately.

While heading for the town of Kyogle it started to rain. Suddenly I heard Gert say: “I have lost all power!” I turned around and went over to him standing on the side of the road next to his motorcycle. We checked over the bike and found that the engine turned over on the starter motor but did not fire up. There was plenty of fuel so I quickly diagnosed this as failure of the electronic Hall Sensor providing a spark to the plugs. I figured it must be the same fault/problem I had in Austria last year.

We were 7 km from Kyogle, a town of about 3000 people. It was still raining but, at 25 degrees, not a big issue if you wear waterproof clothing. Gert stayed behind and I carried on to Kyogle and found that the local Holden dealer was also the NMRA (RACQ, ANWB, AAA etc.) depot - not that I am a member. However, I knew they would have a truck. All was arranged fairly quickly and, although the truck was already booked, they made some changes knowing that we would be waiting along the side of the road. Before returning to Gert I stopped at a local bakery to buy some lunch and made a phone call to Paula to ask her to cancel our three accommodation bookings and arrange for a tray top hire truck so we could collect the bike the next day. After waiting for about an hour the truck arrived from Kyogle and took us to the depot.

The ride home was ok (with Gert on the back). We even had time to stop in the hippie town of Nimbin on the way, where I made a call to the BM Workshop in Brisbane to enquire about the part we needed.

The following day we picked up the hire truck and drove back to Kyogle to collect the bike and take it home. It took us a whole day to do this.

The next day I got down on the floor and stripped the front part of the bike and engine to remove the offending part. Not a big deal as these days there are always YouTube videos to show what to do. I had made another phone call to the BM Workshop and, as luck would have it, they had a new "after market" unit in stock for $300 which is a hell of a lot of money for the small part we needed. However, a genuine BMW item costs nearly $200 more. The problem with these things is not the electronic parts themselves, but, as the bike is 20 years old, the wiring starts to fall apart and causes a short. You can’t blame BMW for that as they buy these items in from elsewhere and, how do you do an age test on something which takes twenty years to develop a fault?

A week later we started again and were in Kyogle for the third time. Fortunately, all went well this time.

The road leads south to the city of Casino, a town of about 10,000 inhabitants. The name Casino has nothing to doing with a place where you can lose money - it was named after the Italian city of Cassino with which it has a "sister city" agreement. Casino is the beef center of NSW and even claims that it is the beef center of Australia. Well maybe so, but so does Rockhampton in Queensland.

The city of Grafton further south is reached via an undulating road cutting through the forests and farmlands along the way. Late in the afternoon we descended down the mountain and were suddenly surrounded by thousands upon thousands of banana trees. We had entered the district of Coffs Harbour. This is the only large banana growing area in New South Wales.

We had booked a cabin in the Dutch owned "Clog Barn" where the owner John Hartsuiker knows me as I have been there a few times before. It is a nice place for an overnight stay and some good food. They have a Dutch shop which sells typical Dutch souvenirs and a coffee shop where pancakes and other Dutch delicacies are served.

The Hartsuiker family has done a great job preserving some of the Dutch heritage. John, who manages the operation, is always friendly and enthusiastic which must be a hard thing to do if you are there 7 days a week.

Behind the shop they have built a miniature Dutch village. Here Australians and foreign tourists can get a glimpse of what Holland looks like in certain places.

On day two we first enjoyed the landscape along the beachfront and the small fishing harbor and then rode 25 km south and made a right hand turn towards the towns of Bellingen and Dorrigo along the “Waterfall Way”. The road takes you past all sorts of fascinating nut plantations where the trees are planted in military style rows. Macadamia nuts are the main type of nuts grown here. Many roadside stalls sell them direct to travelers passing by. We passed the small village of Thora - from here the fun starts. The road rises sharply, first making long sweeping curves but soon that changes into the odd hairpin bend and hundreds of tight corners. You really need to remind yourself that you should stop and check out the waterfalls. Many of them are right by the roadside!

In Dorrigo we stopped at a coffee shop which is often mentioned in magazines and travel reports. It is not just a coffee shop but also lists itself as “The world’s smallest motorcycle museum”. I had visited this place several times before but was now in for a bit of a shock. The shop had changed hands and the new owner had partly “Redecorated” What I saw was a prime example how someone can ruin a successful business by changing its ambiance (see pics)

It was not even 10 o’clock yet and the temperature had already passed the 33 degree mark. A quick stop at the still closed (or never opened) largest railway museum in Aus. where you can see a display of over 67 mainly steam locomotives and 280 carriages (according to their outdated website). The only view is from the road. (In google earth you can see how large this place is.)

We then entered the ever twisting road to Grafton which passes through green pastures normally filled with grazing cattle. Most cows were now standing in little groups under trees to get what little shade was available to them. Meanwhile the temperature kept climbing to over 36 degrees. We stopped at a clearing in the bush and walked over to a creek to get away from the heat. I soaked my jeans and shirt in the water to cool off while we observed, a few meters away, a black snake swimming across the creek. By the time we entered Grafton the air temperature read 40 degrees. For some time we had been riding with our helmets closed and the adjustable windscreen in the highest position to avoid the hot air blast which was not unlike putting a hairdryer right in front of your face.

Mc Donalds came to our rescue. Air conditioned comfort and large cold drinks brought some relief for a while. We pushed on along towards the coast and ended up in Lennox Head, 50 meters from the beach and 50 meters from a freshwater lake. Great!

Day three arrived and we were on our way home again with the first stop at the most easterly point of Australia - Byron Bay. First a great breakfast in town and then a short ride to the lighthouse. These days you have to pay for parking but the man at the gate ushered us through and said: “There is a spot in the corner where I will let you park for free”. Nice one! From the lighthouse a path leads to the tip of the point. Gert went all the way so I could take some pictures of him in the distance.

Another 200 km through the sharp rising inland roads saw us home again at 6 pm.

Another great ride of over 1200 km. Riding was great, just remember that for motorcycle riders it is the journey more so than the destination - always.