Good people

When I got home in September from backpacking around Europe, I was strapped for cash, didn’t have any work and was wondering how I was going to fund the next adventure.
I wasn’t keen to jump straight back into fabricating or welding but didn’t know what else to do.
Luck had it, with some help from my brother in law. I managed to line up a day of work, dogging a crane for HABITAT Tree Works.
Now works hardly work! With an awesome boss and top crew of blokes to work with, it definitely makes getting up in the morning much easier.
I had only been with HABITAT for about two months before making the call to make this dream a reality. Telling your boss your not coming back after Christmas isn’t an easy thing to do. John was all for it and showed nothing but support from the word go.
Getting behind me to document the whole experience and put myself out there to be known by the public.
HABITAT Tree Works have been kind enough to sponsor me with my GPS SPOT device.

The SPOT is a small pod, as big as the palm of your hand. It has four options of contact, to inform up to ten email addresses of your precise GPS location. The four options being, OK, HELP, SOS and personal message.
This device could be a lifesaver if things get messy off the beaten track!

I have to say a massive thank you to the HABITAT crew, and a extra special thank you to John and Manuela for getting behind me on this adventure. With people like you it helps things along just that little bit easier!

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a safe New Year! Ride and drive carefully.
Billy.

Happy Days!

Another week down and a few nights in the shed had me making good progress. I knocked up some pannier racks out of 6mm stainless round bar. Mounted them to the top rack and where the pillion pegs would normally bolt on, they are plenty sturdy enough to hold my panniers. While still having a small amount of flex that if I drop the bike they will bend before they break. Touch wood!

Having knocked that over, I was pumped to get away for a night and test out some of my other gear!
Saturday night was free, so with my sister wanting to get some off-road experience on her KLR660. I marked out a route to ride from the central coast to Allyn River, in the Chichester state forest via a few of the forests roads.
We scored awesome weather and all the tracks were in pretty mint condition. Susie went well on the KLR, having minimal experience on the dirt she was only a few seconds behinds me. Just trying to stay out of the dust I reckon!
We stocked up with supplies and quality hunter valley vino at Gresford and found a top spot by the river by about 4pm.
We washed off all the dust in a chilly little swimming hole before lighting up a fire and cooking dinner under the moon.
The 360 degrees furno stove performed well, turning ice cold water into quality coffee in only a few minutes!

I went for the wanderer tent and bed roll, being fairly cheap I was a bit sceptic but the tent rolls up to as big as a small sleeping bag and has plenty enough room for one person and all my gear if the weather turns sour. I’m up for a new sleeping bag before I hit the road, the current one has seen much better days.

After a good nights rest we woke up and hit the road fairly early. Heading home a similar way to the ride up, meeting up with our parents for the last leg from Wollombi to home.
It’s a blessing having a family that ride bikes, we can all hang out doing what we love!

With an epic weekend behind me and realizing a few small creases I need to iron out in the bike, like get a screen, bigger foot pegs and a few other little mods. I’m keen for the next few weeks to come.

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram @twowheels_onecountry for more photos and videos!
Keep Riding.
Billy

Rack n Roll

Today marks about a month and half until I plan to hit the road and make this dream a reality!
With time slowly getting away from me, I thought I better start acting on mounting my luggage. I could have gone the easy option of buying a rear rack and pannier frames. But being a Boilermaker by trade.And having the gear to do it, I figured I would fabricate my own. Lucky enough I had a piece of 6mm aluminum in the shed. A friend who has access to a CNC machine needed some welding done. So We had a deal and we both got what we wanted! It turned out perfect, He machined me a plate 480mm x 360mm with 30mm x 100mm slots spaced through it evenly for more then enough loops to tie my gear onto. Thanks Johnny!!.

With an awesome top plate to work with. I couldn’t ruin it by mounting with mild or stainless steel. I purchased some more aluminum plate and drew up a shape to mount from the original rear rack holes to the top plate. After a few blunt jigsaw blades I managed to cut out some pretty tidy plates. A couple of holes to mount the indicators, a hand full of rivets with some aluminum angle and some help off my 18 month old nephew, it all came together pretty neat!

With all Saturday spent tinkering in the shed, today I made sure I got out for roll on the DR. Caught with some old work mates and went for a slide from Gosford up into the mountains towards Cessnock. After a couple hours of bitumen road and catching up with each other’s story’s, I decided to take the long way home through the Watagans state forest. I take for granted how lucky I am to live within 10 minutes ride of some of the most awesome bush and trails that Australia has to offer. You could spend forever in this piece of bushland and still not see everything it has the offer. We definitely live in a lucky country!

Check out the photo gallery page for more images.
Keep riding!
Billy