A Road Anywhere
It was 1969 and I was twelve when we went on a family trip from home in Perth, to Kalgoorlie, 350 miles away in the “goldfields” of Western Australia. Mum, Dad and four kids piled into the Holden station wagon, towing a caravan, and headed east up the Darling Escarpment. After leaving the sandy coastal plains of Perth, the Great Eastern Highway takes you up over the rocky escarpment, through the lush Avon Valley, and on to the flat, hot, straight road between fields of wheat from Cunderdin to Southern Cross (a region known as the “wheatbelt”). The wheat fields fade away to be replaced by red dirt plains and low scrub. Tall grey gums line the road. The Goldfields pipeline, built in 1903 to move water from the coast to the booming Goldfields towns, tracks the road most of the way.
Eventually we reached Kalgoorlie with its wide streets, Victorian architecture, and many pubs occupied by a collection of unusual characters. The town is surrounded by red dirt, mulga, large gold mines with huge gantrys overhead, and small ones that are just a hole in the ground. Vast cyanide pits contain runoff from the gold leaching process. It’s also the only place in the state where there is a street dedicated to legal brothels. With Dad we visited the “two-up school”, a collection of corrugated iron shelters in the bush where illegal gambling took place. Two-up is game of chance played with two pennies tossed from a wooden paddle. It was introduced by convicts early in Australia’s history, before becoming popular with miners starting in the 1850’s. My brother and I played it in the caravan on the trip home, and for weeks after.
I remember thinking, it was like being on another planet. I think I can trace my love of travel back to that trip. So many different landscapes and people – you just had to travel a “long way” to see them (350 miles was a long way at the time!).
I rode a motorcycle for the first time when I was 14, an old BSA Bantam owned by a friend. Over the next couple of years I got to do a bit of riding on some rental bikes, the Yamaha DT175 was a lot of fun.
By the time I was 16 I was studying to be a dental technician, and one of my lecturers owned a BMW. He started the BMW club that year, which I joined as the youngest member and without a motorcycle or a license to ride one. There I met an interesting bunch of characters, some of whom seemed quite gnarley to a young bloke. One of them sold me his 1971 R60/5. From meeting and talking to these guys I figured that the BMW would be the perfect way to combine the thrill of motorcycle riding with my fascination for seeing new places. So it was, and so it has been ever since.
My new 600 BMW mostly sat in the carport, mufflers silently decaying (they were bad for that) for 6 months until I got my learner’s permit and finally my licence around my 17th birthday. I gave up football and any spare moment was spent working on the bike or exploring West Australia with the BMW Club guys.
Before my 18th birthday I’d bought on a spanking new R90/6, $2700 on hire-purchase (as vehicle financing was called back then). I got pulled over for speeding on the way home from the bike shop. I was amazed by the power available compared to the 600, and had given it a whiff of throttle at just the wrong time. The cops were pretty stern, obviously they didn’t like the idea of this young bastard having a nice new, fast(ish) bike. I apologised and explained that the bike was new, I was just bringing it home from the shop and was just getting used to it. With the new bike smell wafting over us, there was no reason not to believe me so they let me off with a warning.
That was the beginning of a long love affair with bikes and travel, and this trip is the culmination of that.