Melbourne to Brisbane - A new adventure starts.

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Our group this time is minus Ian but plus David, so Keith, Bryan, David and myself.

Day 1.

Not the smoothest of days for some of us. I arrived in Melbourne to find that Air New Zealand or probably Melbourne airport baggage handlers had misplaced a load of boxes off our flight. Along with a few other passengers I had to wait over 2 hours while they searched for all the fragile boxed luggage. I had some important bike bits in my box so fortunate that they eventually turned up, albeit 2 hours late.

The plan was to prepare my bike at the storage workshop & meet the others at the hotel in Laverton, mid afternoon, where we had stayed twice before. As it transpired because of the delays I didn't finish fitting new handlebars & bark busters until later so arrived at the hotel around 5pm. Keith was smart - he had arrived in Melbourne the day before so was well organised. Bryan had arrived earlier in the day, picked his bike up from storage went to a Yamaha shop for a new rear tyre & a roadworthy certificate. He had discovered after our Tasmanian ride that the bike shop he purchased from in Queensland had only registered it for 6 months so the rego was now expired. This is a very complicated issue in Aus especially when registered in one state & trying to re-register in another.Unlike NZ where you get a wof, pay $ & then reregister. Here you firstly have to get a roadworthy certificate at an approved shop (like a WOF), then go to a Government Department, in this case Vic Roads where they inspect again & you have to prove you have an address in Victoria (in this case Keith's warehouse where Bryan stores his bike).

While all this was happening David was riding from Cranbourne on the Mornington peninsula where he had been staying with friends and managed to run out of petrol on the freeway, having to push his bike 750m to a gas station. Then he though he had lost his phone so backtracked to find his phone only to discover it was in a different jacket pocket.



After sorting all our gear we had a meal in Club Laverton in preparation for our first day's riding tomorrow.


Day 2.

Bryan had discovered, to complete the registration process for his bike he has to go to a Vic Roads office & make an appointment to have the bike inspected. Leaving our digs we stopped at the nearest office and after waiting in the queue for 20 minutes Bryan found the earliest appointment he could get in Melbourne is 4th August. Not very helpful as we were leaving that morning to head north.

Once out of the main built up suburbs of North West Melbourne, our route took us on country sealed roads through lush farmland. We then turned off onto a gravel road "McClaren's Highway". This was a serious misnomer as it was a rutted, rocky gravel 20km track up over a small hill before we re-joined a sealed country road. We are pretty sure McClaren won't be being offered a highway builders position with Fulton Hogan anytime soon!

This new sealed country road, which was on our route took us into the town of Ballarat. We found the Vic Roads office where they said they have an appointment slot and can do the inspection immediately but at a different office. We proceeded across town to find that office, but before anything could be done they needed proof of domicile of the bike at Keith's warehouse in Melbourne. They also required the Vic Roads number for his company vehicles which Keith obtained from his office. After much discussion among hi-viz clad staff (all sitting behind desks doing very little) they then inspected the bike again. This was huge facility with desks, a waiting area and extensive & expensive fit-out. We lounged about in their waiting area while waiting for the inspection & paperwork to be completed. They had rules for everything including where I had parked my bike which was in the wrong area so had to be shifted. (although there were no other vehicles coming in) While we waited we ascertained the main function of this huge office was to tell any clients that came in to change ownership or register a vehicle that they needed to make an appointment, and sent away. This was while the only customer they had was Bryan and a couple of others. Aren't we lucky that in NZ all this has been taken away from government departments and contracted out to the likes of VTNZ & Vinz private companies that get it done in a few minutes, no appointments necessary.
Eventually Bryan got his bike re-registered complete with wads of paperwork and $1471 lighter. (Not a misprint!!!) We were back on the road !
We stopped after a couple of hours for a late lunch in the small town of Beaufort. Over lunch we decided to cut out the last section of today's route by main-roading to save 110 kms. It was now getting very cold. The temperature which hadn't got much above 12 degrees all day, was now 9. BRRRRR

We rode into the town of Halls Gap in the Grampian mountain range at 3.30pm to find 4 of us in one bedroom with only 3 beds. After some time we managed to arrange another room, so problem solved. This old rundown pub The Grand...by name only, was comfortable with a good restaurant & bar which became very busy after 6.30. Good food and well run by an ex Kiwi from West Auckland.

270kms today...originally planned 380kms but Vic Roads & also a large road closure put us well behind time.

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Comments

[Bill]

Usual escapades
Great reporting again Mike So funny what happened with David- wrong pocket-it’s called old man’s syndrome🙈 when reading it to Frances she said that she thought you were in Russia!! Will follow with great delight Ask the best and be safe