Why is this man smiling?

No pictures today, just a quick post.  For those who don't fully appreciate the element of danger involved in riding (solo or not) around Australia -- this includes me -- here's how my day went, fast forwarded to the important part:

Woke up at 6am, as I've started to do in the outback to avoid riding through the hottest part of the day.  As has become my Aussie standard, it was either raining or threatening to do so most of the ride.  I rode through a town called Julia Creek towards Cloncurry.  I was heading around a bend just broad enough that I could see ahead to safely ride at speed through it, but not enough that I could catch every detail in the shorter distances, and out of nowhere a kangaroo hops towards my bike diagonally, as if to race me or close the distance by taking the angle.  Within no more than half a second, he hopped once or twice towards me...I just have enough time to comprehend that it's a kangaroo on the road...and THUD!  The 'roo hits my bike somewhere on the right side near the front.

All I could muster was a, "no...shiiiiit" before I lost control of the bike.  Similar to when a football player's legs are taken out, my bike leans over and impacts the ground on its right side, rider in tow, going 100-110kph (60-70mph).  Right after the impact, I separate from the bike, sliding behind it on the wet, jagged road, for about 30m (100ft) until both bike and I are sitting lamely in the middle of the highway.  Most of the slide was on my right side, and as I began to assess the aftermath, I noticed my protective pants are torn to shreds.  My helmet is scratched up, but no serious issues there.  And there's a veritable yard sale along the highway.  My bike was furthest up, followed by my red gas can, my 50L tarp bag, me, and then some plastic bits (front indicator, etc) behind me.  I just lay there in the road, in disbelief of what just happened, looking at myself, at the bike, and hoping to see a 'roo carcass behind me as a token souvenir...no luck though.  About a minute later, the first car rolls up, stops, and makes sure I'm all right.  He calls an ambulance and makes sure to halt all traffic until things are cleared up.  After a few minutes of catching my breath and coming to terms with the fact that I've just had a pretty serious accident, I slid to the side of the road so some of the traffic could get past.  About 20 minutes later, the ambulance rolls up and I'm in in short order, on my way to Cloncurry hospital.  Luckily, there didn't seem to be any serious damage, just scrapes and bruises.

It's now 9:30pm, and after a battery of x-rays and tests, I'm happy to say that it is just scrapes and bruises.  I can't put my weight on my right leg, as there are some muscles that are pulled or tweaked or whatnot, but there are, thank God, no ligament damage or broken bones to report.  Knowing that people have died falling off motorcycles going MUCH slower, it is truly a miracle that I'm not in a body cast or a pine box in the belly of the next Qantas flight to LA after my fall at 60-70mph.

Most of the quantifiable bit (aside from luck and a hand from above), is due to the protective gear I refuse to get on a motorcycle without.  My helmet needs replacing and prevented any serious head injuries; my trousers are shredded up on the right side, where most of the sliding occurred, and thanks to the hip and knee padding, I still have two knees and a hip, though my knee got the worst of it; my gloves are banged up, but thanks to the hard plastic knuckles, my hands are in pretty good shape; my jacket is torn up quite a bit, but the shoulder and elbow pads did their job as well and prevented broken bones; and my boots, also worse for wear, prevented sprained or broken ankles, feet, and toes.  Also noteworthy is the fact that I stayed on the road the entire time.  Yes, the jagged, shoddy paving job tore up everything in (or on) its path.  But it's a lot better than fence posts, signposts, boulders, and other miscellaneous objects that litter the side of the road, which would have made for a much more angular and less comfortable outcome.

All in all, I feel incredibly lucky to have walked away (figuratively speaking) from a major accident with only scrapes.  Though I can't really walk now, it'll come in a couple of days.  My bike will be towed to Mt. Isa tomorrow, where the insurance company will make sure it gets fixed.  My gear will also get replaced, thanks to the same insurance policy.  All of the things that are dented, bent, busted up, or not in serviceable shape will be fixed or replaced.  What could not have been replaced in all of this was me.  You talk about an eye-opening experience...this was it.  The few seconds that took place between, "oh, a kangaroo," "no....shiiiiit," and the bike and me careening down a thankfully empty highway could have changed everything.  In fact, those moments probably did change everything, but to be able to walk away from it and tell the story is a feeling for which "sobering" and "thankful," quite frankly, are inadequate descriptors.

That having been said, life must go on.  The adventure must go on.  Once the bike and I are in good enough shape, it's down to Alice Springs and Uluru, and around the rest of the country.  I'll make sure to eat some kangaroo on the way.

So that's why they call it the "wet season"...

26/12/2010 to 28/12/2010

I thought I knew why it was called the “wet season” already, considering the huge amount of rainwater I absorbed along the first month and a half’s worth of riding.  Nope.  Not even close.  The next three days of riding blew everything I’d ever seen out of the water.  Now, of course it was raining when I put my butt back on that bike seat on Boxing Day.  Instead of writing about when it rains during a travel day, I’ll assume you bunch are smart enough to take that as a given; and I’ll start telling you when it isn’t raining.

The 6 hour ride back to Yamba was wet.  Let’s get that past us right now.  Everyone at the hostel was in typical post-Christmas comatose mode.  There was apparently a huge party for the backpackers there, and most of the people there were in their second day of hangover.  So it was thankfully a quiet night, which was needed after my Christmas and the ride to Yamba.  While I was checking in, one of the hostel owners mentioned to me that there was some serious flooding going on in Queensland which, to be honest, I hadn’t heard a word about.  No doubt I’d be able to get to Noosa the next day, but I spent the next several hours scouring the net for road closures.  Of course, my next port of call after Noosa was Rockhampton (at the time of writing still underwater); it looked like all of the roads to the south were already cut off, and I’d be lucky to get to the Whitsundays for Valentine’s Day, let alone New Year’s Eve.  There wasn’t much I could do at this stage but be prepared for some creative re-routing after I hit Noosa.

The next day I swear, between my jacket, gloves, and person, I sucked up a good 8 inches of rainwater.  Now I understood why the hostel owner was doubtful I’d make it to the Whitsundays for NYE, and I also understood why it was called the wet season.  Not that it was coming down any harder than I’ve seen in the past, but it was consistent.  Not like the summer thunderstorms of Houston or south Florida, where it comes and goes and all you’re left with an hour later is a steam bath.  This was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, thank-you-come-again precipitation.  On top of this, the traffic on either side of Brisbane was atrocious, and I had to filter through lanes in order to save a good hour of drive time.  I didn’t make any friends in the process, but I just couldn’t take sitting on my bike, going nowhere, sucking up water like a brand new sponge.

Like in Yamba, the first thing I did in Noosa was check the road conditions.  Luckily, it looked like the main road leading into Rockhampton from the south was tentatively open, so the sun was shining (figuratively only) on my New Years plans.

Of course, the sun didn’t shine a lick the next day.  In fact, December 28th was just about the most miserable travel day I’ve had so far.  I’m up already at 6am and debate getting out of bed and riding on; but the reception at the hostel (who is in possession of my $20 key deposit) doesn’t open until 8am, so I turn over and get a few more winks.  In hindsight, getting out of bed then and there probably would have made the day less bad…not better, just less bad.  The rain was coming down worse than I’d ever seen it.  I took a picture of myself in the mirror, and I hope it captures the “wet cat” feeling coursing through my veins at the time.  On the bike finally, it’s like I’m going through the car wash at 80mph, again, and again, and again.  I just can’t take it much longer and stop off  in a town called Gympie for McDonalds.  The news is just about entirely dedicated to the flooding in Queensland, and I get a feeling this isn’t going to be a great day after all.  After my breakfast and coffee, it was back outside into the shower.

I’m a firm believer that any transportation minister / official should drive his or her own roads.  If the person responsible for roads in Queensland would bother to drive on the Bruce Highway north of the Sunshine Coast (coincidentally where most of the funding for the state stops), he or she would have no other choice but to commit hara-kiri.  The Bruce Highway, for those ladies and gentlemen who do not know (or who haven’t Wikipedia’d it already) is a 1,000+ mile long highway that connects Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland in the southeast, with Cairns in the far north.  It is the biggest traffic carrier in Queensland and arguably the economic spine of the state.  Without it, farmers have no means to sell their crops, miners have no place to send their ore, and road trains largely cease to exist (which wouldn’t be such a bad thing for a motorcyclist).  It also happens to have the largest number of potholes per mile, according to my own thorough study.  The Bruce Highway is more of a very long, informal slalom course than it is a public road.  These potholes often swallow men whole.  They take up entire lanes.  They ruin car and motorcycle rims alike, and they are not fun.  They are made worse in the rain, when you can’t tell the difference between tarmac and a slightly different-colored surface whose size, depth, and volume rivals the Caspian Sea.  You only tell the difference after you’ve come out of it with substantially fewer teeth.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Bruce Highway.  The biggest traffic carrier in Queensland.

About another hour up the road I hit a town called Maryborough.  I know something is wrong when I filter past the two mile long column of standing vehicles and ride past a “road closed” flashing sign.  Once at the front, I’m turned away, the man saying the service station is already full, and I’d have to find a place to wait back in town.  He was obviously working off a script, because he had no clue how much water was over what road, and that there’s no way a service station the size of three football fields can be “full”.  It just takes a bit of creativity in finding (or rather making) a parking spot.  Hanging out, not necessarily drying out, at the service station, I overhear some people saying it might take 12-24 hours for the road to re-open.  Great.  No New Years Eve in non-wet places.  I walk back across the road, this time to a different person in an orange jumpsuit – this time to the one who seems to be letting traffic through like he’s a green light.  Oh, and I walk past a news crew who asks if I’m going to walk the entire way across the blocked road.  I find out that the road is actually closed a few kilometers up, and I can ride through if I’m careful.  Careful I’m not at this stage – more like desperate to get as far away from this place, as quickly as possible – so I proceed on my merry way as each individual car, for more than a few miles back now, is given the same instructions to turn back.

Up to the actual road block was OK.  There were two creeks that were no more than six inches over the road, but nothing I’d call serious.  Finally I hit the actual roadblock and wait…and wait…and wait…I made friends with the roadblock-er, a road technician (the guy who fills in all the potholes – and let me tell you he makes a KILLING) named Wayne.  He invites me into the big truck where I can dry off, which was a really nice gesture.  Looking back, he would have been an ass not to have offered me a seat in the van, because we were waiting there for five hours until the road finally opened up.  In that time, I made new friends, learned new words (not nice ones), and had fascinating conversations about road construction.  I even met a truck driver for the first time, and all those myths about truck drivers being insane people on acid or speed are totally and entirely founded.  Who’d a thunk it?  Seriously though, this guy was about 6’2”, weighed at least 300lbs and probably hadn’t slept in three days but was as hyper as a 5 year-old not taking his Ritalin.  As we left, he charged to the front in his massive 18-wheeler, passing cars and caravans with reckless abandon.  Oh, and the two creeks no more than six inches over the road that I passed?  Try two feet now.  I was seriously lucky to be getting past, as the roads people only opened up that particular roadblock (not the first one I rode past), and only in the northbound direction.  If I hadn’t gotten past then, I would probably still be stuck there now, and that isn’t an exaggeration of how bad the situation is.

I rode on to Rockhampton, miraculously, despite all predictions that it would be underwater.  News still is that it should be inundated within the next day or two, so I decide to ride on (this is at 10pm already) and find a place to stay overnight somewhere away from the city.  Well, I can tell any prospective road-trippers that there is absolutely no accommodation between Rockhampton and Mackay (a 255km drive).  None.  Bupkis.  Just dark, rainy, truck-infested roads.  And more potholes.  In the dark.  So this has turned out to be one of those Virginia-to-Texas, 18 hour drive days.  I woke up around 7am, and for those interested, finally got to sleep around 2am in a town called Mackay.  I actually felt bad for waking up the motel manager, but they were really nice and told the housecleaning crew to do my room last so I could get a decent night’s sleep.

This was my day.  How was yours?

On a serious note, for those who are living under a massive rock, the flooding in Queensland is a very dire situation.  More than 200,000 people are affected in an area larger than Germany and France put together.  Entire towns have been evacuated, and some are expected to be cut off or isolated for at least another several weeks.  Serious and unrelenting rain is forecast for the entire Queensland region until March or April, in is already the worst La Niña season since 1973.  The government has come out and estimated total damage in the region of $5bn, including personal and property damage, livestock, ruined crops, and mining losses; but officials still cannot fully assess infrastructure damage, as roads and railroads lie underwater, likely washed away.  People who live and depend on this region will not be able to expect “normalcy” for several months, and some farmers will be years without decent harvests.  This is not a cry for donations, just an attempt to inform those following my blog of how serious the situation is. 

I am thankful to have squeezed past it when I did.  I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, since it really wasn’t one of those days, but oddly enough, it was one of the most memorable days of my adventure so far.  Whether it was the miles and miles on end in the soaking rain, the five long hours in a truck on the side of the road, or the extra few unintended hours on the road, the memories I have of this day are clearer than any picture I could have taken.

Backtrack & Christmas in the Mountains

22/12/2010 to 25/12/2010

If there’s one thing that’s sure in this world, it’s rain on a travel day.  To be honest, I’m so used to it being wet that I don’t even remember the specifics.  In any event, the ride back down to Yamba was devoid of highlights.  Not much was afoot in Yamba, with everyone preparing for the Christmas festivities.  While I was enjoying a few beers on the second floor outdoor terrace on the first night, two guys were downing a bottle of Bundaberg rum in record time.  They had a bottle of Bundaberg and a 1.5L bottle of Coca Cola, and the rum was the first to go, if that gives you any idea.  Bundaberg, by the way, is argued as both the best and the worst rum under the sun.  Given from whom I’ve heard the arguments, I’ve got my money firmly on the latter…the snob that I am, I only drink Havana Club Añejo 7 Year anyhow.  Which gets me thinking, my favorite drink, a Cuba Libre – a double (or triple) shot of that, some Coke and a quarter of a squeezed lime – would really go well right now…as long as we’re talking about cocktails, if you’ve never tried a mojito with a dash of triple sec or Cointreau, you’re missing out.  Back on topic, the whole of the second day was spent wandering the boutique tschotschke shops in search of Christmas presents for Georgia and Beau.

The next morning, I was up at 5am and on the road not a half hour later.  Much rain ensued, as if you’d expect any different.  Most of the ride was fine, until I got to the last bit.  The road from Comboyne to Elands is half paved and half dirt/gravel/rock.  After all the rain, the dirt/gravel/rock turned into mud, muddy gravel, ill-placed rocks, and potholes.  A wet dirt road wasn’t new to me (first ride from Coffs Harbour to Yamba), but this time I was in either pouring rain, zero-visibility fog, or a combination of the two.  So basically, the last 10kms or so was done at no faster than 50km/h, and this I had to do riding up on the pegs of the bike, with my visor open so I could see in front of the “windshield”.  

I got in to Georgia’s parents’ house around 11am, and of course about an hour later the rain stopped, further convincing me that it’s the bike that brings on the crappy weather.  Georgia, Beau, Fiona and Eddy showed up in the Troopy (an orange Toyota Landcruiser troop carrier with a less than cushy suspension) not long after, and we had breakfast.  A little while later, we all (about 8 or 9 of us) piled back in the Troopy and made the bumpy, curvy, and often driven-too-quickly-for-those-who’ve-just-had-breakfast drove down to Taree, and later Forster, to find good seafood at the local fishermen’s co-ops.  This ended up taking up the better part of the day, probably from 12-5pm, and Eddy was a great sport chauffeuring us around.

Upon our arrival, Mom’s care package was waiting in Kevin’s (Georgia’s father) car for me.  He had gone to the post office, and the woman there asked him if “Peter Vanderbrouk” was one of his aliases.  Nope.  Well, there’s a package for Peter Vanderbrouk with your address on it.  He didn’t want it.  She didn’t want to keep it either.  Apparently a good couple of minutes of back-and-forth ensued, until Kevin realized that Peter Vanderbrouk was Peaches’ real name.  You see, nobody here knows me as Peter.  It’s either Charles, or PCB, or Peaches.  Why Peaches?  My brother and sister-in-law also wanted to know…honestly I didn’t even remember (though they must’ve suspected it was a dirty story of some sort).  In the end, the package made it home; and I’d say everyone at the Watt’s household was thankful of that.  The homemade brownies and English toffee were huge, HUGE hits with the hosts.  So much so, that Sophie (who is a pretty incredible singer-songwriter) wanted to write her a song.  I was just excited about the astronaut ice cream and anti-bedbug sheet I got for Christmas.  Hopefully it’ll come in handy along the way, or better yet, hopefully it won’t be necessary!

Christmas was great, just like being with the family.  There was lots of really good food, probably too much wine and beer, and LOTS of presents (it took two hours to open them all, but we were a pretty big group).  It was unfortunately too short to fully enjoy, and not two days after I got there, I was back on the bike, in the rain, heading up north for my New Year’s date in the Whitsunday Islands.

Let it Snow, Let it Rain, Please Make it Stop Raining

14/12/2010 to 21/12/2010

So…where do I start?  It’s been a while since I wrote the last entry, mainly because of my hectic riding schedule between the 22nd and 29th of December.  I’ll do my best to patch together the highlights of the past few weeks in the following posts.

Of course, the ride from Byron Bay was a wet one again – truly not what I expected the Australian summer to be, but with the La Niña weather pattern battering Australia (it’s the worst since 1973) I shouldn’t really be surprised.  It was a long ride from Byron to Noosa, on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane.  3 ½ hours according to Google Maps, but riding through Brisbane instead of taking the toll loop road around added about 45 minutes – which reminds me, riding in summer is miserable if you’re stuck in traffic.  You can wear all black (as I do) in the middle of scorching heat, and as long as you’re moving, you’re relatively OK; but once you get stuck in rush hour traffic, you’re sweating like a pig no matter what you’re wearing.  Needless to say, thanks to the heat (85°F +) and the rain/humidity, I was definitely the latter.  I eventually passed Brisbane, which I don’t really rate as an Australian city.  Mainly because it has no beach to itself, it’s in Queensland, and it’s where the headquarters of Virgin Blue (one of my arch-nemesis customers while at Gate Gourmet) is located.  Never have I had a good experience in this city, though admittedly this is largely due to the 6am flights from Sydney leading to protracted, utterly pointless business meetings.  Such is corporate life I guess. 

As I said, I eventually got past Brisbane and rode past the Australia Zoo (of Steve Irwin / Crocodile Hunter fame).  Early in the afternoon (thanks to gaining an hour since Queensland doesn’t practice DST) I got to the hostel, called Flashpackers Noosa.  I know I’ve said that I’ve stayed in nice hostels so far, but this once took the cake – free Internet, A/C in all rooms, free breakfast, a pool, and nice leather couches in a big common room with a huge big screen TV.  I settled in my room, blasted the A/C on arctic chill setting and then wandered into town to see what’s what.  While shopping for food for the upcoming week – and it being Christmas time – the most ill-fitting tune plays along the aisles: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.  I actually chuckled while it played, with the temperature outside a festive 85-90°F.  You’d think the Aussies, in their infinite creativity, would come up with some appropriate Christmas songs instead of your typical northern hemisphere white Christmas ones.  Something like, “Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain”…Or maybe it’s the Aussie sense of humor and sarcasm that keeps the classics going year after year.

The first night, I run into some Irish guys staying at the same hostel.  We strike up a conversation, talk about my ride around Australia etc.  They’ve got some family friends (or friends of friends) in the area, and they invite me out for dinner and drinks.  Apparently the family friends know the owner of some restaurant / bar, and we get good beers and some of the nicest pizzas I’ve had in a long time.  I can’t totally remember what they were, but one was a Peking duck pizza, reminding me of my childhood in Virginia Waters, eating at the big family table and the lazy Susan at Lux II.

One day during the week (all the days really blended into one another), I wandered a bit further than the set of shops discovered on the first day.  Another 20 minutes walk down the road was the main beach of Noosa, creatively called “Main Beach”.  Packed with summer vacationers, I wandered a bit further, knowing there was supposed to be a nice walk around the national park that takes up the peninsula east of Noosa.  Already an hour into my walk, I happen upon the national park; I figure since I’m already there, I might as well just hike around.  Of course, I’m totally unprepared for the three-hour hike, having had no water during the day, no sunscreen, and in flip flops.  The flip flop part wasn’t that bad for the most part, except the last mile was on sand the temperature of the surface of the sun.  Quite clearly I made my way back safely, and amazingly without sunburn; and though it was a nice walk (and probably camera-worthy), I decided I wouldn’t repeat the effort just for sake of some pictures.

Later in the evening (or maybe the next day, I can’t really remember), the entire Sunshine Coast area got hammered by some pretty violent thunderstorms.  We had some great lightening, rain mixed with hailstones, and near hurricane-force gusts.  Around 6pm (can’t really tell, but it was darker than the inside of a cow), the entire hostel loses power.  No TV, no internet, nothing.  Lucky for me, I know that some German girls (of course) that I had met earlier are staying in a hostel in town and had invited me to stop by to hang out.  Not being too late at night and there being a short respite in the downpour, I head into town and meet up with the girls.  Not much was going on that night – I get the feeling the last night was a long one for all of them – we just hung out, chatted, and had some late-night McDonalds.

Over the course of the next couple of days, there was more rain; so most of my time was spent watching movies and working on pictures and the blog (believe it or not).  I’m beginning to think I’m bringing the bad weather with me.  Since the start, there’s been plenty of rain – I’d say about 2/3 of the time.  Anyhow, that’s just about all I remember from Noosa…now on to the Christmas post.