catch up time again

Freo - Wed 29th June
Well, on Wednesday I basically ate and drank my way around Freo CBD - something that's pretty easy to do.  Good brekky (Gino's again), great coffee (Blink), pizza and beer for lunch (Little Creatures Brewery), arvo ales and dinner (Monk's).  Ended the night with a Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale (7.2%), thankfully only half a pint as it pretty much put me away for the evening - so strong you could carve it I reckon.  It turns out my camera wasn't water proof - or even water resistant, so I had to buy a new one today,.  It's "Adventure Proof".. we'll see about that.

Freo to Busselton - Thu 30th June
Thursday I was greeted with a drizzle as I packed the bike.  Great, my one day off the bike was the dry day, and it starts to rain when I'm due to ride again.  I headed up to South Perth for two new tyres.  On the way down south, it started to rain... then it started to RAIN.  Great, nothing better than running down a highway on a dirt bike, in the rain on brand new knobbies - and I'm doing this for fun?  3 hours later I turned into Busselton and called it a day -  a very short day.  Tried to dry everything off in my motel room and then wandered through town - not much to see really.

Busselton to Mt. Barker - Fri 1st July
Checked out the Busselton jetty - it's something like 2km long, but I wasn't going to walk it with motocross boots on, so took a few pics and headed off.  Passed through Pemberton which is home to the giant Karri gum trees - pretty cool to see.  Didn't take any photo's as I couldn't fit them in frame properly!  Some great roads that would be terrific on a road bike.  I did muck around on some forest roads for a while, but there were a tonne of trees down, so ended up having to turn back around.  Some showers throughout the day and bloody freezing. I wanted to get to Albany, but it was too cold, so pulled the pin in a motel again.

Mt. Barker to Lake Grace - Sat 2nd July
"You're going to have a better day today - it won't rain".  So sayeth the idiot at the motel as I was leaving for Albany.  So, for something different it rained and was cold.  Yeah.  Originally I wanted to get to Albany to have a look around, but because of the rain, I just wanted to pick up a new GPS.  During the Gunbarrel Hwy, my old GPS was starting to go on the blink - more than likely due to the vibrations from the corrugations, or from hitting all those rocks..  The last few days it pretty much bit the dust and wouldn't turn on when I was standing still.  So I put up with the rain, bought a new GPS and got out of Dodge.  It stopped raining, but it was still cold.  I was passing through the Stirling Ranges which would've been good to explore, but I gave it a miss due to the weather.

Lake Grace to somewhere on the Holland Track - Sun 3rd July
Headed off to Hyden to check out Wave Rock and to start the Holland Track.  The rock is OK - looked like pretty much every picture I've seen of it.  About 45 kms later, I got back on dirt roads and was immediately happier.  Soon after it became a real dirt and sand track and I was ecstatic.  The track was reclaimed in 1992 after it had pretty much been overgrown.  As a result, it's a mix of sand, rock, dirt, gravel - tight and twisy in some places, and open in others.

....
I'm sitting in Macca's in Esperance right now - guess what?  It's raining.. I'll finish this update with some pics when I get a chance later.  About to get the oil changed in the bike.