One of the things I love doing most on a motorcycle is getting out on the road by myself for an extended trip. No-one else to please, no real schedule to keep to, catch up with friends here and there, play it pretty much by ear.
I do this every December, for about two weeks, but this year’s trip was a little different. I decided to let the bride in on it. She’d never been to South Australia so that became the destination. I rode there and back, she flew, we spent six days riding together in the middle of the trip, and everyone was happy.
I took a fairly direct but lazy route on the way over, stopping at a friend’s place in Wagga Wagga for lunch on the first day and staying the night at Jerilderie, for the simple reason that I’d never stayed there. The second day I had coffee and a pie at the Moulamein bakery, lunch at Boundary Bend and spent the night at the 7th Street Motel in Mildura.
On day 3, rather than taking the highway to Adelaide, I turned off before Renmark and travelled a beaut road south-east through Loxton (coffee and pie at the bakery) to Tailem Bend on the Murray River, where I had lunch, did a loop ride via the Jervois and Wellington car ferries and checked into the Riverbend Motel. My room, room 11, had twin rocking chairs to watch telly in. I had dinner at the Riverside Hotel, atop a cliff overlooking the Murray – a 400g porterhouse, the smallest steak they had.
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| On the road between Loxton and Tailem Bend. |
Day 4 was cool and showery as I rode into Adelaide via the South-East Freeway, stopping on the way for a coffee at Mt Lofty Summit (warning: no pies). I continued into Adelaide and got a shock to see petrol for $1.22 a litre when it was still $1.50 in Canberra (it was down to $1.18 a week later). Stayed at the O’Connell Inn in North Adelaide. Sally arrived that night.
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| A great find in Adelaide. |
We spent the next night at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley, the following three at an Airbnb at Aldgate, in the Adelaide Hills between Hahndorf and Stirling, and the next (Sally’s last) at an Airbnb in downtown Adelaide. The Barossa is remarkable for the total dominance of grapevines, which seem to stretch from horizon to horizon. The hills are a joyous infestation of great motorbike roads and even if you get totally lost you won’t be disappointed. However, a lot of them are narrow and infested with cyclists so you have to stay very alert.
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| Lunch at Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop in the Barossa. |
There are plenty of fantastic roads in the region, but best we did included:
• The Gorge Road, which follows the River Torrens gorge from suburban Athelstone to Birdwood (warning: don’t stop at the first bakery, it has crappy pies and poor coffee).
• Birdwood to Tanunda via Williamstown.
• Tanunda to Angaston via the Mengler Hill Road, which has a great lookout and sculpture park.
• Angaston to Hahndorf via Mt Pleasant and Woodside.
• Aldinga to Cape Jervis, then across to Victor Harbor and Goolwa, and back to Aldgate via Meadows.
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| Roughing it at Nuriootpa. |
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| Sally doing the Kangarilla dance. |
We spent a day exploring Adelaide on foot and by free bus, then Sally headed for the airport and I rode out to Tailem Bend, where I had good old room 11 again.
Next day I headed south on the Princes Highway along the Coorong, turning off at Kingston SE to follow the Southern Port Highway to Robe, a beautiful little crayfishing port, and continuing on to Mt Gambier for the night. I stayed at the Mid City Motel, which is owned by a Ulysses member. The speed limit for most of the day’s ride was a very pleasant 110 km/h.
The weather on day 12 was a bit dodgy but I explored Blue Lake and other sinkholes (Umpherston Sinkhole with its sunken garden is amazing!) before riding south to Port Macdonnell for fish & chips. A few dirt roads took me to Ewens Ponds and Piccaninnie Ponds, innocent looking wetlands that conceal deep sinkholes. The coast road from there through Nelson to Portland is a real joy, with lovely sweeping bends and the odd logging truck.
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| Santa and elf at Port Macdonnell. |
I stayed the night at the Atwood Motor Inn in Warrnambool and if I recommend only one motel on the entire trip, this is it. It was great value, the hosts, Brendan and Helen Rix, couldn’t do enough to look after me, and it was only a few minutes walk into town for dinner. Like every other motel I stayed in, it had free WiFi.
Day 13 demonstrated why I like to do a road trip just before Christmas, when everyone else is shopping. From Warrnambool along the Great Ocean Road to Lavers Hill and north on another wonderful road through the Otway forests to Colac I only had to overtake three cars, and two of those were polite enough to pull over in slow vehicle bays to let me past. It was a real joy!
I spent a couple of nights with friends at Colac, an interesting town if only because Victoria’s largest natural freshwater lake (Lake Colac) and its largest salt lake (Lake Corangamite) are only a stone’s throw apart.
On day 15 I rode around the shore of Lake Corangamite and headed north to Ballarat. From there I took some beautiful roads through Daylesford, Woodend and Kilmore (passing Hanging Rock on the way) and joined the Hume Freeway at Broadford. I was prepared to stop somewhere for the night but kept going and arrived home at 7pm after an 872 km day, my longest on a bike. I covered 4092 km on the trip, averaging 6.0 L/100km.
Ian Paterson
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| An excellent pie at Lake Breeze Winery, Langhorne Creek. |
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| At Lake Breeze Winery, Langhorne Creek. |
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| Hordes of bus tourists at Twelve Apostles. |
