- Left – 8.00am
- 23rd May 2015
- Miles rode – 97 (155km)
I didn’t have far to travel to get to my first destination as I was heading for Bena Village in Ngada district. The village dates back 1,200 years and the tribal people haven’t changed there lifestyle much over the centuries, it has a ‘stone age’ feel. I then headed for Moni, a small village near Mt Kelimutu where I would hopefully find a guesthouse where I could stay and visit Mt Kelimutu early the following morning.
The road as everywhere in Flores was amazing but about half way to my destination whilst riding the electrics stopped working for a second. I continued but didn’t feel good about what just occurred. It happened a further two times and whilst I was still covering the miles I didn’t need a degree in engineering to know something was wrong with the bike. There had been a landslide and the road was blocked so I used the time to tighten the battery terminals, not that they were loose but I felt I had tried to do something about the problem. The problem didn’t occur again but when I arrived in the first town of the day I stopped and it wouldn’t start again. More than that no lights came on when I switched the ignition on. A year ago this would have caused me some stress; I was in Indonesia on a very remote island where I hadn’t seen one large motorbike and my bike wasn’t working.
Maybe I’m lucky but every time I break down I’m near a mechanic, this time a few boys pushed me the 25 metres to the bike mechanic. Denny, the owner spoke pretty good English and we discussed the problem, I explained I had a new battery a week ago from BMW Bali and I suggested he called my contact there. Denny said this was the first BMW he had ever seen! That didn’t inspire me but still I didn’t feel any stress.
Denny put the battery on charge as it was flat and I checked into a hotel, upon my return the battery hadn’t taken the charge it should have. Denny kept in contact with Tjok from BMW Bali and tests resume tomorrow.
