Day 21 7th June Kalbarri to Jurien Bay
Sheer Bliss. A sleep in for a change, So the body clock wakes me up about 0500. It’s raining, no it’s bucketing down and has been for a few hours. I can’t help smiling, thinking about Luke slaying the locals at Karaoke in the pub last night. I got talking to ‘Ian’ a real bush boy sitting at the bar with his ate. He travels around mustering and often lives off the land while out in the scrub. He loves riding trail bikes and one of my big mouth mates told him about my travels so he sort me out. He has dreams of travel so I give him a card to contact me when he’s ready.
The gloom of a grey day starts with trying to pack the bike in the rain. Luckily there’s a small covered walkway we push the bike under so we don’t get drenched . I fuelled up the night before predicting rain. The reason is if you’ve ever taken your riding gloves on and off in the rain you soon find out wet hands stuff up the liner. The less time you have to do this the better in my opinion.
Huddo and John Laird head off to fuel up. I meet Luke at the local bakery for a coffee and breakfast. John arrives but no Huddo. Damn. He’s fuelled up and just kept riding the wrong way out of town! Oh well he’s a big boy and will soon work it out. We wait, and wait. Bugger – we head off south out of Kalbarri in a light drizzle. Riding through the National park even in the wet is very pleasant with nice long sweepers and hills to make it interesting as you ride right next to the rugged coast of the Indian ocean. I keep thinking about the shipwrecked Dutch sailors who were marooned along this coastline. Before long we join the main North South highway at North Hampton and are in early morning traffic heading South into Geraldton. We find Huddo in a service station just North of Geraldton. I contact Spike and Georg and work out which motorcycle shop they have made it to. Luke decides to ride on. Huddo John and me find Spike and Georg at Sin city motorcyles eating scones with jam and cream!
The staff there have made them feel right at home and have changed both front and back tyres on the K1600. Spike, who was product testing the Mitas tyres for them has been in touch with them, they are very embarrassed and pay for the new tyres, the tow and freight costs for him. Let’s hope they learn something from what happened to Spikes tyres and improve their product. I’m sure they will.
We don’ have far to go today so trundle off down the highway in lines of light traffic going south before we turn off onto Indian Ocean drive and go past small townships. The wind is picking up and there’s not much to shelter from. No trees but the sight of the ocean swell to our right and the rolling hills and long sweepers make it a nice ride.
We roll into Jurien Bay and book into the local hotel/motel. I ask the locals how to find Ian Boyd’s house and Spike, Georg and I ride up there. We pass on old bloke in a 4WD. He turns around and takes us back to his house.
Ian Boyd. What a character. A retired cray fisherman, he started collecting motorcycles, but not just any motorcycles – the iconic British Vincent HRD and any derivative of is his passion. There’s an old Jaguar car in the driveway with a for sale sign on it and a double garage door. He opens that up to an Aladdin’s cave of expensive old motorcycles and even an E type Jaguar car. Ian tells me that he had so many bikes he decided to build a new house – around his shed to keep his bikes. He has 69 bikes – mostly Vincent HRD’s or their engines in various guises such as one used as an experimental drone in the 1950’s. He tells me he has five other Vincent’s out being fettled by some mechanic or painter elsewhere in Australia. It’s his passion and he has every model produced except one – a white lightening model – they only made 14 and one sold recently at auction for a very high six figure sum. Anyone reading this will know how expensive one Vincent is, so just imagine how much this private collection is worth. Let’s hope someone keeps all this together.
Not only does Ian have this great collection, he can tell you the history of each and every one of them! He doesn’t ask for money but has a visitors book and a donation box. It’s his private world he generously opens up to visitors by prior arrangement. Spike and I put money in his donation box. One of Spikes relatives used to ride a Vincent speedway racing sidecar….. It’s here. All I can say is WOW. For someone really into motorcycles, Ian Boyd is a living treasure and his collection is not to be missed if ever you’re in WA.
We stay at the hotel and have a nice meal and local red wine to finish off a near perfect day. Tomorrow it’s into Perth.
Day 22 8th June Jurien Bay to Perth 250km
No need for an early start today. Everyone fuels up and it’s down to the local café to mull over the night before…. Where Spike got more food tipped over his jumper. He had Chinese tipped over him by a waitress in Canberra, and now a bucket of chips here in Jurien Bay! Then to apologise, the manager gave us a bottle of WA red. But Spike doesn’t drink red. Thanks Spike.
At Breakfast, the waitress didn’t get that Spike asked her not to tip food on him! Poor girl. Anyway we trundle off South down the Indian Ocean Drive. Really nice apart rom the caravans and 4WD’s towing boats. With endless double lines we take our time, have an opportunity to pass and bugger me, there’s a speed camera positioned at one of the only places it’s safe to pass! In WA, towing cars have to travel at 100 where the speed limit is 110, so you have to crawl past when overtaking…. That’s dangerous.
It’s a very easy run on the main highway into Perth from the North and then onto the highway South to our apartment in Freemantle. I get the double bed with EnSite for a change.
We have a very easy day and have the bikes all parked up just as big storms, howling wind and rain hit.
A day chilling out is just what we need.