What a long shitty week.  Well let me rephrase that.  It was a long and frustrating week that as always turned out alright in the end.  I don’t know why I get so worked up when I know it always finds a way to be ok.  SO....here is the story.  I took the bike to Savage Motorcycles in Perth to get my Pre-Rally inspection completed and a few issues looked at.  I could not figure out what the issue was so why not just take it to the pro’s?  They had to change my fork seals, replace a rear axel slider and a couple other minor tasks.  But my big worry was an indescribable clatter from the bottom end that I could not figure out.  I rode the noisy pig out to the shop on Wednesday morning first thing.  They tinkered and looked at it and ended up spending most of the day on it.  at about 1:30 I called my good friend Penny to see if she could give me a lift.  I would come back over to her place and have dinner with her and her partner.  we could chat and Thursday afternoon to deal with the bike and pick it up…. easy right?  I went back Thursday afternoon and the shop had wheeled my bike off the ramp and put it aside because they had other things to do.  Now I get that they are a business and that they had not scheduled my bike issues but was getting frustrated as I was scheduled to be in the Horizons Unlimited Meet down in Calgoolie starting on Thursday evening.  Plus I was a paying customer.  They told me that I should have bought a bike from them and that they didn’t know what was wrong with the bike.  I asked them to pull the side covers off and try and track down the issue.  I had given them the extensive list of work don’t to the bike both before I owned it and after.  They were stumped and at this point wanted me to just go away.  I sent a message to Tamara from Overlander adventure who was the organizer of the Horizons meet that I had been talking to.  I let her know that I would likely not make the meet and that I was sorry.  She said she was already at the meet but her Husband Xander was still at their shop and I should go have a chat with him.

It turned out that their store was only 600m away from Savage Motorcycles shop.  I headed over.  Xander was surprisingly busy for a little shop on a Thursday afternoon.  We got chatting, Xander could see my distress and sat me down with a coffee and we talked bikes and adventure.  he tried finding any reason to convince me into still attending the rally.  He tried to get me a loaner bike or even drive my friend Penny’s LandCruiser camper down.  I still wanted to fix my bike, because if it didn’t work, I would not make the KTM rally and would have to change my entire purpose of being in Australia.  I was Frantic!  Xander gave me a number of a bike mechanic who was willing to help but unfortunately didn’t have time until Monday.  It was getting late and Xander told me I looked like shit!  I needed a beer and should come crash at his place.  He had a couple more things to do at the shop but I would go swap cars at Penny’s place  and meet him there.  I arrived at the address he provided and walked up to the door knocking loudly and thoroughly looking forward to a cold beer.  No answer……So I checked the dress and it was correct so decided he must have stopped off along his way home and would be there shortly.  Almost an hour passed.  I was hungry and did not have an Australian cell phone so did not have my data or cell on.  At about an hour, I decided to just use my phone and call Xander.  He was home….where was I???  I was out front of his house waiting for him….. I asked, “Wait, what is your address again? “  he said number 7,  he had written number 8 on the directions he gave me.  I was sitting in his neighbours driveway across the road while he was politely waiting for the Canadian to show up for dinner he had prepared.

We laughed about and had Kangaroo spaghetti bolognese.  We talked until fairly late and went to bed.  Xanders house is an early settler house and was beautiful.  High ceilings and antique doors, the house had been owned by the owner of the local brick maker/quarry.  Out the back window where now a pond sat was the old rock quarry used to make the bricks.  When I awoke in the morning there were ducks waddling around in the backyard eating grubs and birds singing their heart out.  I was trying to stay positive that today would be a great day, it would be THE day.  the day that Savage fixed my bike.  The replaced my fork seals but could not figure out my bikes problem.  The sealed her up and sent me on my way.

I decided to say screw it, if the bike was going to blow up, what better place than a biker gathering.  I rode down to Collie for the meet.  I arrived well past dark.  It was cold and I could see my breath.  Pulling in, I attracted quite a crowd of well wishers due to the mighty din that was coming from my bike.  I had a couple beers, told some stories then set up camp and went to bed early.

Now Australia is warm right????  Even at night it is fairly warm right?????Nope it is not!  that night the temp dropped below zero.  All I had was a tropical bed liner and a small fleece blanket.  This resulted in almost no sleep.  I was cold and miserable so at about 4am I just got up, went to the fire pit and groggily put a couple logs on for warmth.  Over a Lamb and eggs breakfast I met Jon, a large South African fellow.  He came across as a gentle giant but would not want to piss off a man that dwarfs me (Im six foot two and 220lbs).  He came over to my camp and helped (showed) me how to figure out where the sound was coming from with only a long flat screwdriver.  Dave another fellow I had met back in Xanders shop in perth also joined us.  We decided to tuck into the motor and see if we could sort it out.  Jon was supposed to be my riding partner for the scavenger hunt and since my bike was not is shape to ride Jon stuck around to just help me out.

By this point we had gathered a crowd and many people would come and go to see what we were up to.  We got the bike opened up to fine out what the problem was.  A cam chain sprocket had shared its woodruff key and the counterbalance wasn’t sitting right and was rubbing the case.  We later found out it was missing a spacer.  So on a Saturday in rural Australia, with a hope and prayer I was offered a ride into town by someone with a ute.  (I am sorry it is late and I cant remember the name at the moment ) He ran me around town trying to find a woodruff Key and washer.  We found both but they were both the wrong size, so I bough a file and emery cloth and decided I would modify them.  I also stopped off at an outdoors store and bout a decent cheap sleeping bag so I would be able to sleep.  we got back to camp, I managed to fit the parts with a growing crowd and huge help from Jon and others.  I had also bought a case of beer to reward my eager helpers.  we flashed the bike up and it ran like a top!  Jon and I jumped on our bikes and went to do some of the scavenger hunt even though we had missed the deadline to hand in.  I quickly had to adapt to riding on marbly gravel, sand and bull dust.  we saw birds and Kangaroos and even found many of the places on the hunt.  We made it back for dinner, a traditional New Zealand pit BBQ.  i ate and quickly crawled into my new sleeping bag for the first decent sleep in quite a while, with no worries that my bike was now running like a top.