So we are finally off… The beginning of our journey is marked with an 11-day delay. That doesn’t give me too optimistic views on my planned schedule that is alreadz quite tight.

Delay
Most of the delay was caused by a wait for my additional fuel tanks, water tank and three panniers. To start with I have managed to sell my car quite late so I didn’t have enough money to actually go ahead and assign the project to the engineering company so they didn’t have much notice from me. Then I finally went to Brisbane to pick up my bike with the panniers finished and fitted and waited there for additional 4 days before the guys were actually able to finish the job. I waited there impatiently and all the time I was in the clothes I have came in since I didn’t bring any change of clothes. I can thank my dear friends Steve & Lindy to let me stay in their house all that time. Thanks guys!

I really couldn’t imagine that we would have to leave on Monday the following week if the panniers weren’t ready at least by the end of the week (I originally came to pick them up on Tuesday). Well, the young fellow in the engineering shop worked hard till late for several nights so finally on Friday after 10 PM I was actually able to jump on my Kawasaki KLR 650 and leave with my tanks and panniers finished except little things like hook eyes on their surface and little bit disappointing locks on them. Anyway, I HAD TO leave as soon as possible so this was a trade-off for me.

Another setback was a cyclone that just hit Brisbane and both coasts on either side of it. Riding 160km back home at night in driving rain, wind gusts of up to 130km/h and with a dark helmet visor (see, I wasn’t really expecting that the job would be finished at night) was a definite no-no. So I spent one more night at Steve & Lindy’s house and set off for home at 5 AM the following day (Saturday).

Rushing home I first found out that my chain was too tight carrying all the extra weight of steal pannier frame and aluminium tanks and panniers, so I had to adjust the tension before I could continue. Then, being almost home, there was a stretch of about 300m of the road flooded. I managed to get through it but just a few hundred meters further the whole bridge was under about 1.5 meters of water. I was pushed to turn back and make a big detour to get home through the only road that doesn’t have any major creeks that would be capable of flooding it. I finally got home at about 1 PM.

What followed was what was only supposed to be last improvements on the bike, like adding a cigarette lighter socket to power my GPS and adjusting the rear shock absorber to a heavier load. Reality proved it wasn’t that easy… First of all one of the locks locking the top pannier to the frame broke on my way home from the engineering shop. I was not surprised since the locks were my source of concern with the panniers from the time I first saw them. They weren’t what I wanted. Second of all the shock absorber is too soft even on the highest load setting… Well and to talk about the other things that went wrong would probably get boring. Anyway, with the indispensable help of George, the father of my girlfriend Tanja, we managed to put the bike in order. It was very late in the evening already when I started filling the panniers with all the gear I have put together for this journey in the past few months. This job proved, not surprisingly to most people who have done something like this before, a very difficult one as well. I couldn’t fit it all and I also had to think about weight distribution. It was after seven o’clock in the morning when I felt I was mostly finished. I took off all the clothes I was forced to spend the last five days in, had a shower and went to bed. I was so pumped up that I even suggested to Tanja that we could leave right away… J This offer was refused categorically so I was looking forward to our departure later that day after I had few hours of sleep and after we did some house cleaning.

To cut the story short we didn’t leave until the following day. My longing for the departure proved to obscure my sense of time estimation for the tasks we still had to do.

Departure
So the departure date finally came and I was again hoping for a soon start. Yes, we started soon but more problems occurred – like the one with my bike falling over its stand carrying so much additional weight. I found the bike lying on its side after our late breakfast. Great! L I struggled with it for a few minutes since nobody else was around and I didn’t want to leave it dispensing of its internal fluids any longer than I had to. Subsequently George again very kindly offered to at least make the foot of the stand larger so that it doesn’t dig into the soft ground that easily. That was the last big job and we were on our way to depart shortly at about 11 AM. We did and so today we are on our first day of the big journey.

First we had to ride to Kingaroy to pick up leather saddlebags for Tanja’s bike. She has them borrowed from family friends who live there. On our way there we saw our first wild Emu’s.

We stopped to refuel at a roadside shop and encountered our first extraordinary hospitable country people. Apart from the fuel we bought a 1.5 dollar water melon. As we didn’t want to dirty the table that was outside the shop with the juices we cut it and started eating it from the ground. The older lady who owned the shop came with a plate, big knife and words that we don’t have to worry about the table. Later she even brought us 4 big plums!

Just a few minutes later another lady stopped at the shop with her van and after buying what she needed she talked to me (Tanja was not there at that moment) for a while about our travels. She ended up asking me if we had anywhere to camp and if not then we could camp at their place if we wanted to. Unbelievable! I would love to stay and get to know these people better, but since we already had a substantial delay I thanked her and said that we will probably push a little further today before we stop for the night.

Since we left so late we ended up searching for a camp spot in the dark after riding mere 297km. We found a roadside rest place that was tucked away from the main road a little bit and decided to stay the night. After dinner we laid on the table using my new mozzie net to shield us from the annoying buggers. However, they were so efficient in finding the only spot that touched the net that it become unbearable after a while. I had put up our tent and we finally managed to get some sleep.