So I kind of left that last post hanging, I guess. I made it up to Singleton at around 10pm, shivering violently with cold... nobody told me winter was coming! Fortunately my hotel room had a spa bath and a nice long soak in there sorted me out. I've since switched to full leathers, it is too cold riding around for the kevlar jeans anymore.

I've since ridden up to Port Stephens and back, but haven't been on any longer rides than that yet. I'm thinking I'd like to do a ride around Australia, but I have a few obstacles to overcome before I can consider that:

1. I need a bigger bike. I'm riding a 125 currently, which is great around town, but when it comes to the highways it's a bit dangerous. It'll do 110kmh on a flat road, but on an incline it'll drop to a maximum of 100... then add a headwind and it'll drop to 90... at which points trucks are overtaking me and cars are swerving around me if they don't have plenty of lanes to pick from. I also cannot speed up quickly to overtake someone that is going slowly, when the opportunity presents itself... it's a slow process, and needs planning ahead and a long opportunity, and if they speed up while being overtaken (as seems to be common behaviour), that draws it out even more. I need a bigger bike for serious highway travel.

2. I need a more comfortable bike. I'm on a Honda CBR125R, which has a street bike riding position, perched on top and leaning forward. After 90 minutes I start to get stiff arms, a sore back, sore wrists. I think a cruiser would be more comfortable.

3. I need the time off. It takes something like 6 weeks to travel around Australia, and that's being fairly frugal with time off to smell the roses. 6+ weeks off from work in one go will be tricky to negotiate, and won't be happening just now. There's too much on and not enough time to do it in.

4. I need experience. Never having ridden longer than 3 hours in one go, or 6 hours in one day, I need more experience for what happens on long distance rides, and how to handle them. Some warmup runs would be a good idea methinks.

5. I can't get a bigger bike until we have a bigger place to keep it. Right now, the single garage will just fit the bike and car together, and they can be pulled out independently. Anything bigger will require a lot more shifting around of vehicles, and I'd prefer to have a larger spot for doing that, to save them both. So, it waits until we move.

I have a plan though. We'll move into a place with more room, I'll get a bigger bike, and do a smaller tour... my current thought is:

Down from Sydney to Melbourne along the coast
Around to Adelaide
Up to Uluru
Back to Sydney across the middle

No idea how feasible this is just yet, but I'll research the possibilities. I'm thinking a Honda VT750 Shadow Aero, I really like the look of the bike and it has received positive reviews.

Besides a few trips to inner NSW, I've never really seen the interior of Australia, and while we're here I'd like to do so. This is one way of doing that, I think.