Day 483 Walcha – Sydney (Australia) / motorbike GS Dakar RTW overland adventure traveller

• Left – 8am
• 31st July 2015
• Miles rode – 313 (501km)

A slightly longer ride than usual today, a very special day today, I had wondered whether it might be foolish to envisage such a day.

I was riding into Sydney.

It was cold outside so I wrapped up warm, 2 pairs of socks, thermal long-johns, 2 thermal T-shirts, T-shirt, fleece, riding trousers & jacket, neck scarf, inner gloves, ridding gloves, music & a full tank of petrol – bring on the road.

As I left the small town of Walcha the streets were empty, the sky blue, and there was a chill in the air, I felt so good as I started to climb into the mountains. Walcha is 1,000 metres and over the next hour I climbed to over 1,300 metres, it was cold but the ride was amazing along an empty road that twisted and turned through the forest. Mark & Geoff had detailed which roads would be the best roads to ride down to Sydney, yesterday they didn’t disappoint me and if the start of the ride today was anything to go by I was in for a treat.

After 150km I pulled into a small town for a mid morning coffee and as usual people saw my GB number plate and come over, I was telling them how this is probably my last road trip in Australia and it feels odd. For the past 16 months I’ve been heading east and shortly I’ll be heading west, very strange.

I saw my first koala today, I would like to tell you how the cute, furry, marsupial (apparently not a bear) was doing nothing but sitting in a tree but like the Kangaroos which I rarely saw jumping around this koala was squashed, dead, flat, it was no longer. I’ve seen more dead animals than live ones in Australia Any a factor of about 1,000.

Early afternoon I arrived at the northerly end of the famous ‘Putty Road’ 107 miles (172km) of biker heaven. Over the next couple of hours I pushed hard as I knew Sydney was at the southerly end. After a while the road hugs a river as it twists south, the river on one side the sheer mountain rock on the other, this means 50% of the bends are blind but as I passed only a handful of cars I pushed on and dropped myself into every corner. Further on the road sweeps through hills and forest where you can twist the throttle hard.

What a great way to end my riding.

20 minutes later I pulled up at Dave Ross’s house. Dave who raced superbikes in the 1980’s is a friend of Mark’s and Geoff’s who put me up a few days ago. These guys love their bikes, they are amazing mechanics and have a wonderful friendship.

I only bloody made it to Sydney! London to Sydney overland, I didn’t put my motorbike on one plane and only used boats for the shortest essential sea crossings. When I left England it was unimaginable that I would be able to achieve this with serious conflicts in Pakistan, Myanmar (Burma) not allowing overland passage from India  to Thailand and the many hundreds or maybe thousands of obstacles along the way. Well, bloody amazing, I can’t quite believe it. I feel so great having accomplished something I had fantasised about for so long.

Anything is possible, anything can be achieved, nothing can get in the way of determination, planning and desire. Hold the front page, I’m coming home.

Well, that was the plan…