A few weeks ago I went back to Oz and hired a bike in Adelaide to ride across to Phillip Island for the MotoGP. Unfortunately, unless I wanted a cruiser, Adelaide literally had a choice of one half-decent bike so I loaded up the Kriegas and headed off on the Yamaha FZ600 with Mark on his Aprilia.
We took the quick route across; heading straight down the Western Highway stopping off in Ararat for the night. It had been a while since I’d been that way. Man they build some long straight roads in Australia! I had also come down with some kind of man-flu so was feeling pretty rough and not in the best condition for a long distance ride. A lamington at Kaniva helped.
Next day, instead of going through Melbourne we dropped down to Geelong and caught the ferry over to the Mornington Peninsula. While waiting for the ferry we chatted to a guy who had ridden his Blackbird from Western Australia!
It was still another good couple of hours to the Island so it was getting late in the day when we arrived. The sky was also looking very threatening and we struggled with some epic winds but no rain so far!
This was the first time I’d been to Phillip Island and I have to say what a fantastic track! Such a beautiful location by the sea and it looks like it would be awesome to ride. It’s definitely one of the great circuits of the world. We had seats at Lukey Heights and so could see most of the track and also had a lovely backdrop of Bass Straight.
Unfortunately the weather was a bit rubbish. Bloody cold with the occasional shower most days but race day was alright. Stoner absolutely dominated the race and there was an Aussie on the podium for all three races so the home crowd was happy.
On the way back we took the Great Ocean Road. All I can say is wow! This really was epic! I wished I had my Daytona. Without doubt it’s one of the great biking roads of the world. It starts off snaking around the mountains by the sea. Really twisty with dramatic views and you can’t think it can get any better. But then at Apollo Bay it heads off into the Great Otway National Park with fast sweeping bends shooting through the forest. My God it was amazing. GoPro footage to come!
We stayed the night at Port Campbell which is near the 12 Apostles.
The next day it was back onto boring South Australian roads and the long straight slog back home. We made sure to stop at the Big Lobster though.
More pictures from the race here.
