Early to bed, early to rise may make a man healthy, wealthy and wise, but all it does for Sleeping Beauty is make her grumpy. Unless, of course, the wake-up call comes from one of Dan’s wild-yet-somewhat-domesticated neighbors, the Laughing Kookaburra.

The call of these birds sounds a bit like laughter, and a bit like those cheesy jungle soundtracks that used to be in Tarzan movies. Fiona said she’d wake up happy every day if only she could wake up to a Kookaburra call. Not sure what that says about me… but anyway…

Dan has a family of six Laughing Kookoobirds that perch on his sill every morning and beg for food.

Ancient Aboriginal legend states that a visit from a Laughing Kookaburra at the start of a trip is a good omen for that trip to be successful and fruitful. Actually, there is no legend like that at all, I just made it up. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

Dan explained the route before we left, but most of the town names ended up sounding to me like YabbaDabbaDooLingGong and GabbaGabbaBingBong. I finally told Dan to forget it. I’d just trust him. I brought a map of Australia, and asked him to mark the route before we left. He just laughed.

I learned right then that Australia is a big place. Really big. The circle Dan made on my map was roughly the size of a dime. It was as if I’d bought a map of the entire US to ride from the Kingdom of Rhode Island to New York City and back.

Funny stuff. Time to go!

Sleeping Beauty, Frenchy and Maxine the Ninja Gearing Up.

First stop? Across the Sydney Harbor bridge to the Opera House for a highly illegal group photo.

No Stopping? That’s Not Stopping Us!

After that, we started to follow Dan’s well laid out plan. For a change, I was a follower on this trip, behind Dan’s BMW GS 1100 and Maxine’s BMW F650. I learned that Dark Meat Snack has it made back there, just cruising along, without a care in the world.

Of course, riding in the OH (Other Hemisphere) does include a few distractions. Kilometers, for one. Kilometers don’t mean anything to me. Kilometers per hour don’t either. I don’t get it. Distance may as well be measured in furlongs, and speed in furlongs per fortnight, it’d be just as meaningless.

Then, there’s the whole ‘wrong’ side of the road thing. It’s tough to adjust, but that’s probably just because I’m stubborn. Roundabouts, or Circles of Death, proved to be exceptionally tricky, as I never seemed to be looking in the same direction that traffic actually came from. But my desire to live overcame my stubbornness, and I was able to pilot the Yama-busa more or less correctly.

By far, the worst distraction of all was Dan’s route. Our entire first day followed the beautiful coastline of New South Wales.

Don’t get me wrong, Dan is a master route planner. The roads and scenery were top rate. The problem with riding by beautiful beach after beautiful beach?

All the beaches are topless.

‘Nuff said.

I hadn’t ridden with Dan in over two years, so it’s no surprise I’d forgotten all about those ‘Zen Riding Moments’ that only seem to occur when I ride with him.

Fortunately, I was reminded of those Zen moments halfway through the day. Our three bike train danced its way through a seemingly endless succession of beautiful, sweeping curves.

An electric smile grew ever wider on my face, goosebumps rose all over, and a small tear formed in the corner of my eye. I was so in the moment and so happy to be finally riding a motorcycle in Australia with Fiona right behind me that I was shivering. All at once, Sleeping Beauty thumped on my leg and gave me a giant thumbs up, while up front, both Dan and Maxine pumped their fists in the air in unison.

It was absolutely perfect.

Later I mentioned to Dan how I only seem to have those Zen moments when I ride with him. Wisely, he replied, “That’s why you shouldn’t ride with others.”

The town of Narooma became the end point of Day One, stopping at a beautiful hotel overlooking the ocean.

Upon getting this room in Narooma, I started really appreciating Australia’s Milton-Bradley based economy.

It’s a good thing they use Monopoly money in the Land Down Under, because everything in the Land is so bloody expensive! The room cost Fiona and I $189 for the night.

Gasoline, or petrol, cost on average $1.29 a liter. A liter is a unit of measurement much like the furlong. Meaningless to a Seppo like me. All I know is there are a LOT of liters in a gallon, which means a gallon of go-juice cost me about as much as putting a house on Park Place would.

I’m not even going to talk about the price of a good bottle of whisky. Fortunately I brought my own, so that was never an issue.

We toasted the Best Day Ever from our balcony, then toasted everything else we could think of, from curves to California to kangaroos until darkness fell on the great land of Aussie.

Oi! Oi! Oi!

Click here to read how the education continues in the Sapphire Coast.

Author: frenchy