Getting started

I have had the idea of touring around Australia in the back of my mind for over 20 years. The original idea was to use a four wheel drive but with the passing of time fuel has become more expensive and as I get older I seem to have less and less time to get away.

Donna at Sandgate for fish & chips

A month or so ago a friend of ours stated he was going to go around Australia on a motorcycle. He, Jeff, has no license and no experience on a motorcycle. I thought, hey thats a great idea with the price of fuel and the entry price for purchasing a bike being pretty low. So a few weeks ago my wife Donna and I purchased a bike for ourselves for a whopping $3100 and have now got to 'set it up' with panniers and a tank bag for travelling.
Our friend Jeff is yet to get his license or a bike but he assures us he will be getting both. The planned departure date for our first true adventure is March/April 2013. We will be travelling to Birdsville from Brisbane via Quilpie. From there we plan to ride the length of the Birdsville Track  through the Sturt Stoney Desert to Coober Pedy and up to Uluru and Alice Springs. From there Donna and I will return home after approximately a month on the road and Jeff will continue on the rest of his adventure.

So far, apart from purchasing a Kawasaki KLR650 2005, we have been buying some good safe jackets and pants as we had both sold our gear after selling both our previous bikes about 5 odd years ago. We now have padded leather pants, padded jackets and riding boots. The bike has a Gearsac top-bag and will shortly receive soft panniers as we believe soft is better than hard as when we drop the bike the soft panniers will be able to be re-mounted on the bike if ripped from their mounts. We believe hard panniers, once ripped from their mounts after an accident could be much more difficult if not down right impossible to re-mount on the bike in the middle of nowhere.

We chose the KLR650 for a number of reasons

• affordable 
• good long range fuel tank standard
• same engine used from 87-07 --lots of spares available at reasonable prices
• all reviews were positive
• Good aftermarket parts available

Near Kilcoy

We went for our first 'test ride' of over a 150km today. The bike runs beautifully but needs to be 'ridden'  at over 90km as the bike does tend to move around quite a bit due to any breeze. The seat is nice and comfortable and the suspension felt very good and in control. I did think the rear suspension was sitting too low with our combined weight of 125kg without any extra travelling gear aboard. This thought was confirmed when we rode past a shop and could see our reflexion. The bike must have been only a few inches from bottoming out but hadn't misbehaving during our ride surprisingly. After returning home I re-set the preload on the rear suspension and we both got back on the bike for a look. It made a big difference with the rear sitting a good 6 inches higher with us both aboard. On our next ride I will get to see/feel if the bike still behaves well.

Mt Mee near Dayboro