202 On Tour

On the road by 8.30 or so we only made it 11 kms before…..

No, nothing went wrong!

As we turned right at the Croc Tent there was a car pulling out and half a dozen tour motorbikes lined up. The fella in the car rolled his window down and it was Trevor and Chris of Jamestown fame that we’d met at Archer River on the way up, and had been corresponding with

So we uied and had a quick catch up with them, and photos with the tour motorcycles.

On into Bamaga, with the road not being the challenge we were remembering from the trip out. Helps being fresh, with a fixed bike and now with the experience of 6 water crossings…

We saw a couple 2 up on a GS and I said to Liz that if I was standing on flat ground when I saw them i would have bowed in admiration😁. Thats skill and trust right there.

At the Bp in Bamaga we bumped into Harry, the fella we had fixed comms for in Archer River. He was enjoying his ride,  but his phone had given up with the vibrations.

Saw him again at the ferry where we took some pics and chatted with a couple of blokes on 1250 GSs.

And so on to Fruit Bat Falls, but not before the handle bar clamp came loose a couple of times.

For some unknown reason I thought it was a 5.5 mm allen key, and had been using that all trip, but was wary of stripping the head since it didn’t feel solid.

The second time it happened we were close to a pullout where a couple of caravans were having a break. One of the fellas said words to the effect of “Don”t you have a 6mm?”, and so now I will remember for life that its a 6mm alken key…

Needless to say, the second time stayed tight much better, even if the handlebar was a bit high.

Thoroughly enjoyed the hour we had at Fruit Bat Falls.

I had spotted this boat trailer mudguard on the way up

And then at 530pm one of the four handlebar clamp bolts snapped! The vibration load from the way the windscreen is mounted finally took its toll.

So we again slowed down the pace, missed Bramwell Roadhouse for fuel (too late) , and then moseyef into Bramwell Tourist Park to catch the last 10 mins of Kens history lesson for the 3rd time…

Some repartee with the staff over keys (Liz had taken ours with her to Bamaga and had to find a ride for it back to Bramwell), and the break out the tools